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Harley Newman Inner circle 5117 Posts |
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus” -Mark Twain
www.bladewalker.com |
christiancagigal Special user SF Bay Area 625 Posts |
That was beautiful, thank you for sharing.
C
"Besides the known and the unknown, what else is there?"-Harold Pinter
www.christiancagigal.com |
Bill Ligon Inner circle A sure sign of a misspent youth: 6437 Posts |
Yes, thanks, Harley. It just goes to show that one man's ghoul is another man's gold. <sorry!> Man's various cultural responses to common experiences is always fascinating.
Bill
Author of THE HOLY ART: Bizarre Magick From Naljorpa's Cave. NOW IN HARDCOVER! VIEW: <BR>www.lulu.com/content/1399405 ORDER: http://stores.lulu.com/naljorpa
<BR>A TASSEL ON THE LUNATIC FRINGE |
fraughton Veteran user of books 327 Posts |
Exceptional. It really has me thinking about how one might view ones own death differently knowing that one would still be (physically) with loved ones from time to time.
This tradition really has a sense of reason to it. I think I get it.
Beware of this and that.
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John Nesbit Inner circle United States 1421 Posts |
It appears to be an alternative response to another thread in this forum. "Best day to contact the Dead".
And they are literally, "turning over in their graves". |
Harley Newman Inner circle 5117 Posts |
Until the modern era, much of the areas we call Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines, had a belief system that involved blood, sacrifice, and head hunting. Many people practiced ritual cannibalism. There are a couple of artistic themes that are almost universal within that geographical area.
Many of the peoples (I hate the word "tribes") practiced reburial. The underlying concept is that after death, we continue to mature, go through rites of passage which need to be marked with elaborate ceremonies, additional types of funerals. It was tied to beliefs about transmigration of souls, and the idea that we have multiple souls. My uncle lived with one of those tribes, was blood-brother to the chief and shaman, about 90 years ago. They were under a lot of pressure to convert to Islam or Christianity, and to stop hunting heads. While most of them did convert, even today, a lot of them still have blood rituals and reburials. If you build a house, you need to kill a pig or a horse, and use the blood for blessing. You dig up your ancestors bones periodically, give a big feast with music and dancing. You wash the bones, and bury them again. It was expensive, so a funeral didn't necessarily take place at the time of death. Nor did subsequent funerals. In my uncle's tribe, they believed that you had seven souls, which lived in your head. When you went to sleep, some of them went off wandering, and you dreamed. If they didn't come back before you woke up, you were crazy, until the proper exorcism would entice those souls to return. You died, when too many of the souls didn't return. My uncle's people believed that when you died, all but two of the souls left. One was for this world. One was for the next. They poked a hole in the top of your head, to let the afterlife soul escape. Then they ate your brains, which kept one soul in the family. They carried your body back and forth to your grave seven times, to confuse evil spirits that might be hanging about. The bad spirits couldn't tell where you lived, or where you were buried. Often the people made a puppet or dummy, and carried it around, again to confuse the evil spirits. It would keep them from bothering the living family, or the dead soul. Sometimes, the women acted as spirit-mediums. There were night-time ceremonies of possession, with many elements of what we here, would call Q&A. One description I read, described possession as "like wearing a shirt". Other tribes had other practices. Some decorated the bones. Some made mummies. Most of them heavily valued being clever, outsmarting the folks around you, at least the ones in other tribes and families. They hunted heads, because the souls of the victims became the servants of their ancestors, in the afterlife. The more servants they had, the higher their social status. They needed food, beverages, flowers, a house. The most powerful spirits were those who "died in a single day", meaning they died battling, rather than from sickness or old age. Prior to a head hunt, you had a ritual where your sword would be smeared with rice and blood (chicken, pig, maybe your own). You'd be smeared with blood, a reminder of your birth, a reminder of your death. It gave you power. Without the proper death rituals, souls became crocodiles or tigers, or just wandered about. They might hide behind a bush, wait for you, follow you home, make your children sick, make your wife run off. They might become a snake and bite you. They could change shape, tiger one minute, mist the next. You never knew, so you had to be constantly alert. Their social practices had many elements that were fierce. They filed their teeth sharp. After each kill, a man was allowed to get a certain tattoo, and wear a boar-tusk armband. They also used the lips of their victims to make armbands. Marco Polo, their first Euro contact, described them as raising incredible horses, and eating their parents when they were too old to work. And they had an ancient traditional curse..."I pick the flesh of your ancestors from between my teeth". With westernization and conversion, head hunting has mostly become passe. Many tribes now deny that it was part of their lives and traditions. But it's amazing how some of the vestigial rituals hang on!
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus” -Mark Twain
www.bladewalker.com |
fraughton Veteran user of books 327 Posts |
It's true, very few of my neighbors still hunt heads.
I know that my first glimmer of understanding these traditions came with my first listening of The Power of Myth. I assume that most here have given that project a good review at some time. Harley, thanks for adding your personal touches and experience to the thread that you started. I am something of an anthropology nut, and this type of thread really gives me a sense of the vast realm of human experience.
Beware of this and that.
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