Archive for the ‘Indigenous Cultures’ Category

Dancing with Crocodiles: Spirits and Masks Torres Strait Islands

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

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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Huichol Wolf Shamanism

Friday, September 9th, 2011

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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Baskets and Belonging: Aboriginal Australian Cosmology

Friday, August 12th, 2011

There is a wonderful exhibition at the British Museum this summer about Aboriginal basket making in Australia. Truth is, I almost didn’t bother with it as, pushed for time, I couldn’t see how baskets could possibly be that interesting. How wrong I was. The exhibition is a gem and had themes that immediately resonated with the circularity of death and rebirth, revealing much about the Aboriginal view of the world.

Basket making is an ancient activity in Australia. Rock art from 20,000 years ago shows people using baskets that their descendants still made until very recently.

It is usually, although not exclusively, women who create the baskets. Using traditional techniques and long established patterns, they form each basket by plaiting fibres collected from the bush around them. This entails an intimate knowledge of not just the environment but also the best times for collecting, whether it is during the dry season or after heavy rains. It connects people to their land.

Although people birth the baskets and give them life, some have even stronger links with parturition and long thin baskets, often with a tell-tale protuberance at their base, contain dried umbilical cords from a baby’s birth.

These, and other baskets, often have decoration on their sides, mostly geometric shapes or stripes. People leave the rear undecorated, however, so that the paint will not rub off as the baskets hang against the back. The pigments are all earth based and are the same as those used in rock art, linking the two medium together. Both the colour and designs transmit tribal identity and ancestral knowledge of the region. People can read a basket and know about the life of its owner. Baskets become symbols of belonging and carrying a basket is akin to carrying the land.

Some baskets go deeper still and some, woven from fibre and wool pulled from the blankets European missionaries once doled out, hold pituri, a nicotine based hallucinogen that is chewed by senior men. These baskets are small, brightly coloured, and shaped like a well-stuffed banana. The exhibition, uniquely, has several bags still containing their original pituri leaves.

Upon death, people carry provisions to the funeral in baskets. Usually people use these same baskets for hunting or carrying food and they are plain and undecorated. When people take them to funerals, however, they paint each basket, adapting designs used to decorate bodies for ceremonies. It is as if the baskets become surrogates for the deceased and, after the funeral, people hang them upside-down on the top of the poles that mark the mortuary ground. The baskets become a memorial that will slowly disintegrate over time. Occasionally, people will retain some bones from the dead and, inevitably, they store these in baskets.

Basket making is undergoing a renaissance among Aboriginal people, partly due to the introduction of coiling. Due to the restrictions on innovation among traditional basket weaving, this new style allows people to experiment and try new things. Some waste products have been given new life through basket making with plastic strapping tape making colourful and hardwearing baskets. The traditional styles usually last only three years with constant use. Finally, there are those who gather damaged fishing nets washed up on the coast. Known locally as ghost nets, the fibre makes colourful and strong baskets, adding another facet to the history of the region and people’s relationship with the land they inhabit.

The exhibition at the British Museum runs until 11 September and is free to enter. Spend a while absorbing the power of these beautiful objects and let these words of Verna Nichols, an Aboriginal basket maker from Tasmania, roll around your mind. “The baskets are not empty. They are full of makers, their stories, their thoughts while making. The baskets are never empty.”

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New Evidence for Ancient Inuit Shamanic Healing

Friday, September 10th, 2010

Two archaeologists, Karen Ryan and Janet Young from the Canadian Museum of Civilization have recently analysed artefacts found in the grave of an Inuit woman from Southampton Island in northwest Hudson Bay. The woman was buried with a small figurine, which the archaeologists believe may represent a shamanic method of healing the woman of illness. In their words:

The first unusual thing we noticed were holes in the figurine’s head, chest, and pelvis. We were uncertain why these modifications, carefully created using a bow drill, had been made to an otherwise typical Inuit female figurine, so we examined the associated skeleton. We discovered skeletal abnormalities in locations corresponding with the holes in the figurine, the most obvious being a jaw lesion that was probably cancerous. While we can’t determine what kind of cancer the woman may have had, lung and salivary gland cancer (once known as Eskimoma because it is common in Inuit populations) are possibilities. The chest and pelvic perforations may relate to these soft tissue cancers or other skeletal problems. For instance, her pelvis was asymmetrical, suggesting misaligned bones that could have produced chronic pain in the buttocks.

Traditional Inuit religion conceived of everything—people, animals, objects, and places—as possessing an inua, or resident soul, and Inuit shamans sometimes made figurines called aarnguat (“object with powers”) to host an inua. We believe that this aarnguat was specifically made for the woman’s inua so that it could act as a proxy for her during a shamanic “surgery,” represented by the three drilled holes, to remove her illnesses. It is the first definitive archaeological evidence for shamanistic healing in the Canadian Arctic.

The original article is at http://www.archaeology.org/1009/etc/artifact.html

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