Lepers as Shamans? A Spiritual Approach to Medieval Illness

May 11th, 2012  -  Mike Williams

Leprosy is a terrible disease that ravages the body causing horrific disfigurement and disability. Although modern medicine can treat it, much of the developing world is still devastated by its effects. Moreover, leprosy carries stigma and we are probably all familiar with the stereotypical image of the medieval leper, segregated at the edge of the community, and ringing a bell to warn others of an approach, lest the healthy be contaminated. But contaminated with what exactly, since disease was poorly understood in the early medieval period and it unlikely that people would have identified the vectors of infection? “Sin”, screams scripture: lepers suffer for their sins.

But if medieval lepers – presumably justifiably – suffered for their sins, why were the afflicted so well cared for? There were over 300 leper hospitals in England alone between the 12th and 13th centuries, a quarter of all hospitals existing. Moreover, evidence from these hospitals, such as Sherburn Hospital near Durham, show that inmates wore clean woollen clothes and ate meat, cheese, and fish – an incredibly good diet for the time. Excavations at St Mary Magdalen leper hospital in Winchester, show that inmates also received respectful burial, with graves carefully cut with niches to take the head, and clearly marked, as no burial over-cut an existing plot. In fact, one member of the cemetery at St Mary Magdalen was no leper but a healthy and wealthy man, who lay with a scallop shell – sign of pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Satiago de Compostela. He was clearly devout as well as a man of considerable means.

But was his presence in a leper hospital cemetery – to say nothing of the considerable alms that provided for these hospitals in the first place – all down to a sense of charity to care for the sick and destitute? Partly. To appreciate why lepers were so well cared for, it is necessary to know something of medieval spiritual beliefs.

In the beginning, there was heaven and hell. Good people went to heaven; bad people went to hell. Simple. But, of course, life was not like that. Good people sometimes did bad things; as the gospels tell us, we are all sinners at heart. So did that mean everyone was destined to go straight to hell, apart from a few saintly types who may have been excused? That was a grim prospect; why bother being good at all? The medieval mind came up with a solution to this predicament: purgatory. If you were bad, but not so bad that you went straight to hell, you could work off your sins with a stay in purgatory. The length of time you spent there depended on the blemishes you sustained in life. Purgatory was suffering but not irredeemable suffering. One day, everyone there made it to heaven.

Of course, if you had people pray for you, then maybe your time in purgatory may be reduced. Giving alms to found hospitals, a positive act in itself, also got a person noticed and probably prayed for, thereby taking a few more years off the time spent in purgatory. But the medieval mind went further still. Since purgatory was suffering, perhaps those who suffered through this life were actually going through a living purgatory. Lepers were suffering for their sins – the sins everyone carried – but they were doing it here, on earth, assuring them a shorter stay in purgatory and a quicker route to heaven. Accordingly, they would reach heaven some time before someone who was not suffering, such as a wealthy benefactor. If lepers were going to reach heaven before you, maybe they could intercede on your behalf once there; put in a good word with St Peter. Best keep on the good side of lepers and make their passage through life as comfortable as possible. Maybe this was why the man with the scallop shell chose to be buried with lepers, staying close to his gamble for a better afterlife.

Lepers lived at the edges of society (whether being banished there or merely because this was where the land was to build the hospitals in the first place), their contact with others was controlled and brief, the local population cared for their wellbeing – making sure they were adequately provisioned – and they interceded with otherworldly beings for the good of their community – both from this world and from the other. To me, that sounds a little like the roles adopted by traditional shamans. And when we add the propensity of traditional shamans to be wounded in some way, drawing power from their suffering, the analogy is complete. Medieval lepers, whether by design or accident, provided a role that the church did not: personal intercession with otherworldly beings – both from this world and in the other – for the welfare of others. That’s a lot like shamanism.

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The Pagan Roots of Easter

April 6th, 2012  -  Mike Williams

Easter bunnies, Easter eggs, even the death and resurrection of a God are all far older traditions than you might think.

This Easter, let us celebrate a God, born from a virgin, who was sacrificed on a Friday only to resurrect three days later and bring with him the promise of eternal life. No, it wasn’t Jesus (he resurrected after only two days), this was Attis, an older God and consort of Cybele. Attis was a God of vegetation and it was the burgeoning Spring that he represented.

Worshipers of Attis used to mingle in ancient Rome with those following Jesus and doubtless they used to have some humdingers over which was the true God and which the usurper. Even then, they were not unique and virtually every civilisation has an equivalent deity: Tammuz, Adonis, Baal, Osiris, and Dionysus are a few.

Easter itself was first recorded by Venerable Bede who says that the Anglo-Saxons called the entire month Eosturmonath (now April) after their Earth Goddess, Eostre. He also recorded that the Pagan festival had, by the beginning of the Eighth Century, been entirely replaced by the Christian custom. Entirely? Bede may be Venerable but he is clearly not infallible; elements of the Pagan festival survive even today.

Let’s start with the Easter bunny.

The story goes that, after a cold winter, Eostre (the Saxon Goddess) was late to usher in the Spring. Unfortunately, this meant that a bird succumbed to the cold and died. Feeling responsible, Eostre revived the bird and, for reasons known only to herself, changed it into a hare, whom she called Lepus. Since Lepus had once been a bird, every year as the Spring returned, he laid eggs. He gave one to Eostre to thank her for saving his life and Eostre, thinking that everyone would appreciate a similar gift, encouraged Lepus to go round the world distributing eggs. Hence, our custom of the Easter bunny bringing us eggs.

Hares are particularly active at this time of year and we might see the ‘mad March’ females boxing the overly amorous males. They are clearly sexual beings (they do breed like, well…rabbits) and the Romans believed that consuming the meat of a hare increased your attractiveness to the opposite sex. If you want to try it, you best get in quick as the effect lasts only nine days.

Returning to Eostre and Lepus, unfortunately all did not go smoothly (it was probably the sex) and so she flung him into the sky where he turned into a small constellation of stars at Orion’s feet (sort of a rectangular shape if you look for it). The constellation is still called Lepus today. For Eostre, I suppose it was a case of hare today, gone tomorrow.

The Pagan celebration of the Spring Equinox also got tied up with the Christian Easter, partly because the date for Easter is always the first Sunday after the full moon immediately following the equinox (like that was easy to remember).

At one time, the Spring Equinox marked the beginning of the year. Ever wondered why September is the seventh month, October the eighth, November the ninth and December the tenth – septem, octo, novem, decem is seven, eight, nine and ten in Latin – now you know. It was Julius Caesar who moved the beginning of the year back to January and also added July – named after himself. The next Emperor, Augustus, did the same for August. Roman Emperors were not entirely ego free.

If you want to go the whole hog this Easter and purchase not only an egg but a chocolate bunny, research has shown that almost everyone eats the ears first (seriously, people research these things). So get munching.

And a Happy Eosturmonath to everyone!

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Hypatia: A Modern Woman in an Archaic World

March 15th, 2012  -  Mike Williams

Alexandria was where the modern world began. It was the hub of learning in the archaic world and home to the world’s finest library. Ships coming into port had to give up all books on-board for copying. The library got the original; the ship got the copy.

Born into this world in the late fourth century AD was Hypatia, the daughter of the last librarian of Alexandria, Theon Alexandricus, before the building was destroyed at the hands of zealot Christians. Hypatia had not only been born into a city of learning but also a city of conflict as those who followed the one God sought to uproot and destroy those who followed the ancient Greek pantheon.

Although Hypatia was born a Pagan Greek, how attached she was to this faith is debated. Her true religion was science and her devotion to academic pursuit unheralded for a woman at the time. Educated at the finest academies, she became head of the Platonist School at Alexandria, teaching Plato and Aristotle to her rapt students. Tellingly, Hypatia made no distinction as to religion, teaching Pagans, Christians, and Jews side-by-side. Science trumped religious difference.

Noted for her exemplary dignity and virtue (Hypatia remained unmarried for her entire life), she often graced the company of men, even offering her knowledge and wisdom to the city magistrates. It appears that Hypatia easily transcended limitations that applied to mere mortal women.

One of her students, Orestes, publically declared his love for Hypatia and yet she reputedly gave him her soiled menstrual rags in return. She was apparently demonstrating the degradation of earthly love compared to the pure love of science, although she also knew that, as a married woman, her work would be compromised. Despite rejection and abashment, Orestes remained close to Hypatia until the end of her life.

Although little remains of Hypatia’s written work, she collaborated on her father’s treatises, writing commentaries on Arithmetica by Diophantus and Conics of Apollonius, editing Ptolemy’s Almagest and Euclid’s Elements, and writing a text on the Astronomical Canon. Astronomy may have been where Hypatia revealed her true vision but it also showed her a world beyond this one and meant that, despite pressure, she could never accept one God over many.

This unwillingness to bend to expectation and compromise eventually caused her downfall. Orestes, now city prefect, still held considerable affection for Hypatia but her adherence Pagan ways put him in a difficult position, especially with Cyril, Patriarch of the Church. The Christians of Alexandria saw Hypatia as thwarting Cyril’s hold on Orestes, as she was a free and decidedly Pagan spirit.

It was during March of AD 415 (now marked on March 15th) that a mob, led by popular preacher ‘Peter the Reader’, attacked Hypatia. Stripping her naked, they dragged her through the streets to the Caesareum – once a pagan temple but now Christianised (an ironic statement compared to Hypatia’s steadfastness on matters of faith) – where they flayed her with pot shards before burning her remains. It was a terrible, savage crime and many pointed accusing fingers at Cyril for provoking it.

The Christian authorities tried to cover up the crime, even forging an anti-Christian letter they claimed was in Hypatia’s hand, but they need not have worried. Their religion was in the ascendancy and they systematically erased the pagan past from the streets of Alexandria. Cyril, probable instigator of Hypatia’s murder, was eventually to become a saint for spreading the faith.

As for Hypatia – the world’s first documented female philosopher, scientist, and astronomer – she still remains largely unknown. March 15th, the presumed day of her death, is Hypatia Day in her remembrance but it would not be fitting if we focus only on her demise at the hands of a Christian mob. Rather, let us remember that she taught freely to all faiths, believing that in philosophy, science, and the natural world, we have something pure that bonds instead of divides human kind.

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The Lion and the Bull in the Night Sky

February 23rd, 2012  -  Mike Williams

For those who watch the stars in the night sky, this time of year is dominated by Leo rising in the south-east. Unlike some constellations, Leo looks as he is supposed to, with stars defining his head, the edge of his mane, his two front paws, and the tip of his tail.

Away to the south-west – at the other end of the spring zodiac – is Taurus the Bull, descending from view until, by the beginning of May, he disappears from sight completely. He is less easy to define, although a loop of stars, including the very bright star Aldebaran, depict his muzzle. Just above his shoulder is the small group of stars known as the Pleiades, perhaps better known by their Japanese name of Subaru; the well-known car manufacturer adopting the stars as their logo.

Although there are seven main stars in the Pleiades, many people can count only six with the naked eye and the Subaru car badge contains only this number. It is possible that our ancient ancestors, some 35,000 years ago, had no better eyesight. Indeed, one of the potentially earliest depictions of the Pleiades shows only six stars within the cluster.

Deep inside the cave of Lascaux in France are paintings of many bulls but one in particular seems to replicate the constellation of Taurus in the sky. The image shows only the front portion of the animal, just like our modern representation of Taurus. The artist also marked six dots just above the bull’s shoulder and these may represent the Pleiades in their springtime location. Just in front of the Lascaux bull is a line of further dots, right where the belt of Orion lies at this time (although the artist depicted four dots rather than the three stars we associate with the belt).

The evidence from Lascaux Cave might be wholly serendipitous of course, but as communities settled and the first civilisations arose, people still looked towards the heavens for inspiration. In places as diverse as Egypt and Iran, artists depicted Imperial power by showing a lion devouring a bull (the illustration above is from Persepolis in Iran). It was a compelling symbol and signified both the power and ascendancy of the ruler as well as the defeat of his or her enemies. But to understand the symbolism, you needed to understand the night sky. Western astronomy developed in ancient Babylon and these ancient sky watchers set the names of the constellations at around 700 BC.  In particular, they identified Leo the Lion and Taurus the Bull. Moreover, thanks to records kept by the Greek Eudoxus of Cnidus, these constellations are still with us today.

As we have seen, during the spring – when the earth comes alive, the days lengthen, and the sun gets hotter and hotter – Leo the Lion rises higher and higher in the south-east of the night sky. In doing so, he pushes Taurus the Bull lower and lower in the south-west, until his bovine form disappears altogether. If you were a ruler of an ancient civilisation, you would want to be Leo the Lion, rising triumphant at this auspicious time of year. And you would want your enemies to be the Taurus the Bull, trampled underfoot until nothing remains. Suddenly, the symbolism of the ancient world – the lion defeating the bull – makes sense.

From the caves of Lascaux, through the early civilisations of Europe, to a Japanese car manufacturer, the wonder of stars has been a constant presence in human lives.

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Wassailing – Blessing the Apple Tree

January 6th, 2012  -  Mike Williams

Wassailing is an ancient tradition of blessing apple trees at Twelfth Night and asking the spirit of the tree for a bountiful harvest of fruit the following autumn. Some wassailers adhere to the Gregorian calendar and mark Twelfth Night on 6th January (although it strictly begins at dusk on the day before), whereas others adhere to the older Julian calendar and leave their wassails until the 17th January.

Wassail is an Anglo-Saxon word and is thought to mean ‘Be In Good Health’. Whilst there is a tradition of wassailing neighbours with songs and good wishes at yuletide (similar to the modern tradition of carolling), apple trees had to wait until Twelfth Night, a time when the world is turned upside down, the Lord of Misrule reigns for a day, and the spirits draw close, including those of trees.

People who cared for an apple tree – and the tradition is still strong in the cider growing areas of England and the marches of Wales – set out with gifts of hot cakes and cider as an offering to the spirit of the tree. Usually, a cider soaked cake was hoisted high and left in the fork of a branch, with more cider splashed on the earth over the roots. Whereas many people think that tree spirits are called Dryads, this word actually only refers to the spirit of oak trees. The spirits of apple trees are called Epimeliads.

In order to drive away any malignant influence, people might shout or bang pan lids together, and some even fire shotguns into the air. Then, all present sing the wassailing song, asking for a good crop of apples the following autumn. If you want to wassail your own apple tree (or, with amendment to the words, any other sort of fruiting tree) here are some traditional words to use.

Old Apple Tree, we wassail thee
And hoping thou wilt bear,
For the Gods do know where we shall be
‘till the apples come for another year.
For to bear well and to bear well
So merry let us be.

Let everyone here take off their hat
And shout to the old Apple Tree:
“Old Apple Tree, we wassail thee
And hoping thou wilt bear,
Hatfuls, capfuls, three bushel bagfuls
And a little heap under the stairs”.

Wassail! Wassail! Wassail!

Following the formal part of the ritual, the ceremony concludes with sharing cider and cakes among all those present. Traditionally, a single bowl of cider was passed around the company so it became a ‘loving cup’ binding all there in fellowship and community.

It is interesting that in Nordic tradition, the Goddess Idun held the apples of immortality that kept the Gods young and the world cared for. To people of the time, including the Anglo-Saxons who probably began the wassailing tradition, apples may have been more than fruit; they also kept the Gods in the heavens and the world on its course. No wonder such an effort was made to respect the spirits of these trees and to ensure a healthy supply of apples. If you wassail your trees this year, maybe you should also dedicate a little of the crop for Idun and her invaluable store.

But however you celebrate, Wassail and be in good health!

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Nicholas: From Saint to Shaman to Santa

December 23rd, 2011  -  Mike Williams

Everyone knows that Santa Claus hails from Lapland, where he spends the year in his elf-run toy factory, pausing only to feed his red-nosed reindeer Rudolf, before loading his sleigh each Christmas and delivering presents to children around the world. But where did it all start, just who is Santa, and why does he perform this amazing role every Christmas Eve?

Santa, or rather his alter-ego Nicholas, was born around 270 AD, not in Lapland, but on the Mediterranean shores of Turkey in Patara. Nicholas came from a wealthy family but his parents died when he was still young. Fortunately, his uncle was Bishop of the adjacent town of Myra and took in the young Nicholas, raising him for the church.

What we know of Nicholas was only recorded centuries after his death but it appears that he succeeded his uncle as Bishop of Myra at a very young age. Slowly, stories about this boy bishop spread. One time, for instance, when Nicholas was on pilgrimage to Egypt, he worked miracles to stop ships being wrecked upon rocks and even brought a dead sailor back to life. This was not the only time that Nicholas resurrected the dead. He also restored three boys to life after they had been slain by an unscrupulous butcher who intended to sell their remains as ham.

Most famous, however, was the help Nicholas gave to three daughters from an impoverished family. Unable to afford a dowry, the father of the girls could not arrange their marriage and feared they would be forced into prostitution. Nicholas, upon hearing of the girls’ fate, secretly left gold in their house, securing their future betrothal and, hopefully, happiness.

Nicholas was later canonised as St Nicholas and became a favourite of fishermen and travellers on account of him saving the ships and resurrecting sailor. Greece, a nation of fishermen, took him as their Patron Saint and he became enmeshed with the Orthodox Church. During the Crusades, pilgrims and warriors would pray to St Nicholas before making sea crossings and they spread his cult throughout Europe and beyond.

As the Orthodox Church moved into Russia, it took its most prominent saint, Nicholas, with it and he quickly became the Patron Saint of Russia. Not everyone in Russia was Christian, however, and the original inhabitants, the Viking Rus, were from Scandinavia. They had brought their pagan Gods with them and it is possible that they account for the first metamorphosis of St Nicholas.

Until recent times, the tradition for much of northern Europe was for St Nicholas to deliver presents to children on his feast day: December 6th (the day of his death). This tradition likely stems from his gift of dowries to the poor man’s daughters. But why he arrives on a flying grey horse, accompanied by mischievous and capricious black-faced elves, is less easy to explain. Unless, from the traditions of the Viking Rus, St Nicholas took on some of the qualities of the Norse God Odin, who also rides a flying grey horse and is accompanied by black-faced ravens. St Nicholas had become a Nordic saint.

St Nicholas’s next metamorphosis likely occurred in the depths of Russian Siberia as settlers forged their way into the frozen wilderness of the north. Local Siberians followed shamanic traditions and, upon hearing of St Nicholas – who healed, brought souls back from the dead, and bestowed otherworldly goods to his community – readily decided that he was a powerful shaman and assimilated him into their pantheon of spirits. An Evenki individual interviewed in 1913 even claimed St Nicholas was ‘Master of Shamans’.

Such shamans often journey to other realms, carried on the beat of their reindeer skin drums. In fact, many Siberian shamans believe their drum actually is a reindeer, carrying them upwards, through the smoke-hole in the roof, and north to an otherworldly reality. Returning with gifts of knowledge, the shaman comes back via the smoke-hole and tells the wide-eyed community of his or her extraordinary journey. All the while, bells on their costume ring loudly, warning the spirits of their passage. If St Nicholas was a shaman then naturally he did the same.

Shamanic St Nicholas likely merged with Nordic St Nicholas to create the legend of a man who travels from the north, pulled by flying reindeer, with bells on his costume, bringing gifts to children made by his helper elves, all delivered via the smoke-hole, now a chimney. In a nod to the distant past, he even wears his bright red bishop’s cloak.

St Nicholas, in his Dutch homeland in northern Europe, is Sinta Klauss: Santa Claus. The finishing touches were added by American writer Washington Irving in his fictional ‘Father Knickerbocker’s History of New York’ and high-jacked by Coca-Cola whose jovial and slightly-overweight Santa took the Coca-Cola brand, and Santa Claus along with it, worldwide.

Rudolph first appeared in a 1939 booklet written by Robert L. May but it is striking that, in Santa’s home of Lapland, reindeer are fond of munching on the hallucinogenic red-and-white fly agaric mushrooms. The local Sámi, who were also partial to the effects of the drug, likely recognised the feelings of lightness it engendered. And a high-flying reindeer flushed with fly agaric may indeed have had a bright red shiny nose. Santa Claus – one time saint, then shaman, and now beloved of children everywhere – had found his companion.

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Cabeza de Vaca: From Conquistador to Shaman

December 16th, 2011  -  Mike Williams

Cabeza de Vaca was a man of his time. Born in Spain around 1490, he sailed to the New World during his teens. It was not long before he joined an expedition from Cuba to Florida to look for unchartered lands and, God willing, a fortune to plunder. It was a typical Conquistador plan that had already seen the fall of the Mexica (Aztecs) and would later see the collapse of the Inca empire. Cabeza de Vaca thought only of fortune; in fact, he was the expedition treasurer.

Within months of landing, and following a pointless trek through the swamplands of Florida, the men were exhausted and starving. Their ship lost, they decided to construct rafts and make a desperate bid for home. It was a fatal mistake; all bar Cabeza de Vaca and three others would either die in the attempt or would perish shortly afterwards.

Cabeza de Vaca was lucky; his raft washed up on Galveston Island, where the local Indians took him in. To his surprise, the Conquistador received compassion from the people he had set out to rob and kill. After regaining his health, Cabeza de Vaca found that previous experience as a Spanish gentleman left him with nothing he could offer the Indians and he found himself falling lower and lower in their esteem before becoming a virtual slave. After several years of hardship, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions broke free and decided to walk through Texas into northern Mexico before following the country south to reach the Spanish towns. It was an audacious plan.

Putting into practice survival techniques learnt from the Indians, Cabeza de Vaca endured by eating anything he could catch – worms and spiders got him through many days. He also developed genuine sympathy for the Indians he met, learning their language and ways. Slowly, the Spanish Conquistador was changing into something more.

Cabeza de Vaca also witnessed healing performed by local shamans, driving out illness through prayer and cleansing the body with plants. Although Cabeza de Vaca never understood why, people took him to be a shaman himself. Perhaps they thought his pale looks were symbolic of the otherworld or perhaps they acknowledged his profound hardship and suffering. For whatever reason, the Indians brought people to Cabeza de Vaca for healing and he obliged them. He and his companions made the sign of the cross over patients and commended them to God. Their ministrations worked and people reported miraculous healing from the hands of the Spaniards. Cabeza de Vaca was given food and other items in exchange and more people arrived to be healed.

On one occasion, Cabeza de Vaca saw that his patient had already died and so he prayed that God would accept the dead man’s soul, breathing over the body several times before making the sign of the cross. The local people probably recognised this as a form of psychopomping and gave Cabeza de Vaca the dead man’s belongings in token of gratitude.

Although Cabeza de Vaca had developed deep sympathy with the Indians and had forged a recognised position in their society, his aim was always to return to his own people and, eventually, he did just that. First reaching Mexico City, he then sailed for Spain, a full ten years after beginning his extraordinary journey.

Cabeza de Vaca did not forget his experiences upon his return and he wrote a book about his journey, still in print today and entitled “The Shipwrecked Men”. Unlike his contemporaries, compassion and respect tempered his attitude towards the Indians. When he became Governor of a region of Argentina, his benevolent attitude towards the native people interfered with the nobles’ desire to enslave them on plantations. Cabeza de Vaca might have been ahead of his time but, with the lack of support from his nobles, his governorship was to be short and he eventually died, ruined and in poverty back in Spain.

The journey Cabeza de Vaca made on foot, although impressive, pales in comparison to the journey he made in his heart. From Conquistador to Shaman, Cabeza de Vaca found his humanity and compassion in the desert. If only there had been more in his mould.

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Dancing with Crocodiles: Spirits and Masks Torres Strait Islands

December 2nd, 2011  -  Mike Williams

Until last week, the Natural History Museum in London had a collection of human bones, gathered as souvenirs and curios by 19th century travellers to the Torres Strait Islands, a chain of small islands running between northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. Despite initial resistance, the Museum finally returned the bones to representatives of the Islanders, who had long campaigned for their ancestral remains – taken with no thought to the desecration inflicted upon traditional beliefs – to be returned. After an hour-long ceremony to commune with the dead spirits, the bones were on their way home.

I thought of these bones when I viewed a crocodile dance mask from the same islands at the British Museum (shown in the photograph above). Unlike the bones, the mask was legitimately presented to a 19th century collector by its maker, a local Chief called Maino, and there is no pressure for its return.

The mask is a compelling object, formed from local wongai wood, but brought alive with turtle-shell inlay, cassowary feathers, hanging charms, and, most impressive of all, teeth formed from the blades of metal saws. It is undeniably beautiful, slightly sinister, and deeply moving.

It was not until the mid-19th century that Torres Strait Islanders had access to such an array of materials. A turbulent period overseen by Maino’s father – a revered warrior and leader – opened up the island to contact and trade. This new openness eventually brought a British scientist to Maino’s shores: Professor Alfred Cort Haddon. From his copious records, it appears Haddon got on splendidly with Maino and this enabled the scientist to study and record many aspects of Torres Strait tradition that might have otherwise been closed to an outsider. One of the most cherished traditions was a spirit dance and, after persuasion, Maino agreed to put on a dance for his British friend.

From Haddon’s notes, it appears that a spirit dance was a means for the community to contact deceased ancestors. Often part of a mortuary ritual, the dance took place at a special ceremonial ground called a ‘kod’. Dancers, known as ‘markai’, impersonated dead ancestors so accurately that people in the crowd immediately recognised who it was being portrayed. Although Haddon does not mention possession, it is possible that the dance was a means of drawing down ancestral spirits and embodying them within the form of the dancers. The accompanying drums and dizzying rhythm would have been more than enough to initiate trance states if this was what the dancers intended.

An important part of the dance was for the totem animal of each family to appear and, in Maino’s case, this was a crocodile. His role was to dance the creature and bring its spirit to the performance.

The crocodile mask fitted over the wearer’s head completely and was held in place by biting on a horizontal bar. Teeth marks show where Maino did this, possibly even during the dance witnessed by Haddon. To see his surroundings, Maino would have looked out of the crocodile’s jaw, perhaps giving him a different view of reality and of the ancestral spirits descending into other dancers.

After the performance, Haddon asked to purchase the mask and other dance regalia, including Maino’s drum. On his return to Britain, Haddon donated the objects to the British Museum where they now housed. Maino got fair trade in return and there is even a record of Haddon giving calico and tobacco to Maino’s mother-in-law as part of the payment. In Torres Strait society, this was considered a smart move.

In letting Haddon collect the objects and record the ceremonies, Maino thought that he was preserving a record for the future. His faith in this regard was visionary. Haddon’s collection – including all his notebooks – are still consulted by Torres Strait Islanders to learn about their culture and traditions and to serve as inspiration for modern craftspeople. As for Haddon, he was eventually adopted into Maino’s family and, wherever he travelled in the South Seas, he would always introduce himself as ‘Haddon, a crocodile man’.

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Ötzi the Iceman

September 19th, 2011  -  Mike Williams

Erika and Helmut Simon usually liked to complete their mountain excursions in a single day; they were experienced climbers and knew what they could comfortably manage. On Wednesday 18th September 1991, therefore, they knew that by getting held up whilst crossing a glacier, and then still pressing on to climb the peak that was their aim for the day, they would have to spend the night on the hill. That was no problem as there was a refuge nearby. The next morning dawned bright and, like any other climbers, Erikaand Helmut found the conditions irresistible and decided to bag another peak. It was on their return to pick up their rucksacks from the hut that it happened. Erika saw it first: a brown smudge in the snow, which, as they came closer, took the form of a man. For mountaineers, death is always a possibility, so the find, gruesome as it was, did not unduly surprise them and they tried to prise the remains out of the ice with their axes. What they had no way of knowing is that the body, christened Ötzi for the region in which he was found, had been dead for 5,300 years. He was the oldest frozen mummy ever known.

Dressed for travelling, Ötzi wore leather trousers, a deerskin coat, and a cape fashioned from woven grass. His shoes were finely made with bearskin soles and stuffed with grass as a precaution against the cold. His cap was pieced together from odd bits of fur but it would have been warm. He also carried a backback, an unfinished bow and arrows, some tools including a fire-lighting kit, and a copper axe. He was, perhaps, as much as 45 years old when he died, a grand age for a man at this time. What he was doing so high in the mountains remains a mystery but the circumstances surrounding his death are slowly being pieced together by an international team of experts; bringing to life the sorry tale of a time almost five millennia ago.

Ötzi came from the southern side of the Alps and was born and raised in the folded valleys of the foothills. He probably left a settlement in the Val Venosta, in Italy, on that fateful morning of his flight into the mountains. We can be reasonably certain about this as the microscopic bits of stone in his gut, originating from the stone tools used to prepare his food, leave a geological signature that can be precisely located. He was dressed for the hills and carried much of what he would have needed to make an extended stay comfortable, that is, provided he did not venture too high. Ötzi also carried something valuable and new: copper. A copper axe may have marked him out as a wealthy man and, perhaps, even a leader that others followed. If so, then his reign as leader was shortly to come to a dramatic end.

Ötzi was not in the best of health; his backpack contained medicine and modern analysis of his body shows signs of frailty. Maybe others saw this as a chance to seize power. Discontent was clearly festering as Ötzi had suffered a cut to his hand just a day or so before he died. The few nicks on the edge of his axe-blade may have been as a result of this altercation although we shall never know whether he was using it as a weapon or as a symbol for his diminishing status. It seems likely that similar threats forced him to make that fateful journey into the mountains. Pollen layers in his gut show that he travelled through the low altitude hornbeam trees, moved up to a stand of high altitude pines, before doubling back and visiting the hornbeams again. Perhaps he was trying to elude his pursuers. It did not work. Eventually, and probably through sheer desperation, he followed a pass up into the mountains where an arrow, expertly aimed so that it cut an artery, caused him to bleed to death. Before he died, his assailant removed the arrow, perhaps to mask the tell-tale mark of his or her identity. To make sure Ötzi was truly dead, his assailant also struck him on the head. An ignominious end for an old man. Whoever killed him, and there may have been more than one involved, left Ötzi’s belongings, including his axe, where they lay. Again, this may have been a precaution to avoid later detection but perhaps the items were just too special and too closely bound to Ötzi that their removal could not be countenanced. Enough harm had been done that day. With the last of his strength, Ötzi seems to have reached out for his axe – even today, his arm remains stretched across his body – but it was not to be. Whether he realised the sacred object was still close by or not, it could do little for him and he died alone, frozen in time.

In a bizarre twist, Simon Helmut, the man who jointly found Ötzi on 19th September twenty years ago, shared the same fate as his sensational discovery. In October 2004, his dead body was recovered from the ice where it had been trapped, just like Ötzi’s had, so many years before.

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Huichol Wolf Shamanism

September 9th, 2011  -  Mike Williams

The Huichol people live in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in Mexico and many will know them for their annual pilgrimage to Wirikuta, a sacred desert where the first ancestors emerged. The purpose of the pilgrimage is to gather peyote cactus. Walking, or, more recently, riding on buses, pilgrims stop at numerous sacred places in order to prepare themselves for entering Wirikuta. Novices have their eyes covered and everyone must undergo confession and purification to rid themselves of their sins. Wirikuta is a sacred place, as this was where Elder Brother Deer, Kauyumári, once walked, enabling peyote cactus to grow wherever he trod. People do not gather peyote but hunt it, shooting arrows into the ground before giving thanks for Kauyumári’s sacrifice. The people then eat the small buttons of peyote in shamanic rituals, the psychoactive effects of the plant allowing them to break free from this world and access the realm of the gods. The Huichol believe that all wisdom originates from peyote.

There is another form of Huichol shamanism, however, that is far less well known and centres on people’s reverence for wolves.

The Huichol believe that, in the beginning, all humans were part wolf. These creatures lived in dark caves and had never learned how to hunt.  One day, feeling compassion for their plight, Kauyumári allowed Father Wolf to hunt him. After a long chase, Father Wolf caught the deer, who promptly turned into peyote cactus. All the wolves gathered to eat the peyote and, in so doing, they gained great wisdom. They left their dark haunts and came out into the light. Father Sun then gave the wolves a choice: they could either transform into full humans or remain as wolves. Most, including Father Wolf, chose to transform into humans.

Father Wolf, now a human, made a shrine to the remaining wolves, ensuring that people would always be able to communicate with their kind. This gave rise to the Huichol tradition of wolf shamanism.

Initiation into wolf shamanism takes five to ten years during which time the initiate must visit several wolf shrines and make offerings according to strict ceremonial procedure. The wolf shrines are colour coded and the initiate works up through the ranks until he (wolf shamanism appears to be open only to males) works with blue, grey, or multi-coloured wolves.

Towards the end of his apprenticeship, the initiate meets real wolves, who take him to their lair and begin to teach him how to shapeshift. The wolves introduce the initiate to the wolf-kiéri plant (Solandra guttata is its Latin name, a form of datura), which induces visions similar to peyote. This may account for the final part of the apprenticeship.

At the full moon, the initiate goes to a place shown to him by the wolves and performs five somersaults. Each acrobatic move effects a transformation from human to wolf until, by the fifth, the initiate has shapeshifted into a wolf. He will now remain in this form for five days and five nights, joining his wolf friends as they live and hunt together in the vicinity. After this time, the initiate returns to human form but retains his shapeshifting power. Indeed, one Huichol individual recounts that his grandfather had shapeshifted into a wolf regularly and, as a child, he heard the pack howling outside the house.

Wolf shamanism remains a hidden and little studied aspect of Huichol tradition but, if anyone wants to research it further, I have provided the main reference for the practice below. And, if you should ever feel inspired to perform five somersaults at the full moon…

Valdez, Susana Eger. 1996. Wolf power and interspecies communication in Huichol shamanism. In Schaefer, Stacy and Peter Furst (eds.). People of the Peyote: Huichol Indian History, Religion and Survival. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press: 267-305.

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