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 FRONTISPIECE
a | 1. The God and his animal messengers. The god's feet rest
on the beaks of a
pair of birds portrayed upside down. Bronze
oe
known as the Lafone luevedo Disk. Diameter, 41/4 inches;
a plaque
thickness, about /% inch. La Aguadaculture, Catamarca, north-
west A.D. 650 to 750. Thought by some to repre-
Argentina, c.
sent the pre-Incan divinity Viracocha with his servants, Imay-
mana and Tocapu.
PROLOGUE 6
| The Dimension
.

a | Mythological 8

“Let The Be 12
a | Light!’” (Genesis 1:1-2:4)
Out of One, the Many Upanishad 1.4.1-5) 13
oe (Bridhadaranyaka
Forbidden Fruit (A Bassari Legend, Togo) 14
ae
The Light Within (A Polynesian Chant, New Zealand) 15
a |
i | Song of the World (A Pima Legend, Arizona) 16
“Let It Thus Be Done!” (The Popul Vuh, Guatemala) 17
a |
The Ground 18
: | Living
The the and Earth’s Life
Universe, Earth,
End
Map 01:
of Permian
Map 02: End of Triassic
Map 03: End of Jurassic
Map 04: Mid-Cretaceous

Map 05: Mid-Cenozoic

The Primate Connection 20
Ba |
Men and Tools of the Old Stone 22
Se Age
06: Distribution of Hand-Ax and Industries 23
‘ | |
Map Chopper
The Awakening of Awe 25
|
The of the Earth 26
a
| Peopling
Africa and Eurasia
i Fuibleher:
.

ures
lljreqieuniasa 07: Hominization and c. 3,800,000 to 7700 B.C. 27
of Map |
Dispersal:
Old Melanesia 30
i Editorial Director: Robert Walter

Map 08: Old Melanesia, c. 20,000 B.C.

Ht
Designer: Jos. Trautwein/Bentwood Studio The Americas 34

Map 09: Paleolithic Industries: c. 38,000 to 30,000 B.C.

Picture Editor: Rosemary O’Connell iy,

Map 10: Paleolithic Industries: c. 26,000 to 24,000 B.C.

Permissions Editor: Cynthia Ortega 11: Paleolithic Industries: c. 18,000 B.C. 35

Map
Map 12: Paleolithic Industries: c. 10,000 B.C.
Gopyeditan/mdoxetaheuna Neue
a Map 13: The Presence of Early Man in the New World
a7
Motif Indexer: MacLow Map 14: Beringland c. 80,000 to 7000 B.C. 38
Myth Jackson
nae
|
The Five Basic Races 40
a ee a 15:
Soe Map Surviving Primitive Cultures

Pepe header Rin eienian Map 16: Shifts of the Human Subspecies: Pleistocene Epoch 43

oe Map 17: Shifts of the Human Subspecies: Post-Pleistocene

Editorial Assistant: RodolfoRodriquez
oe |
Map 18: Shifts of the Human Subspecies: c. A.D. 1492

and Charts: Cartographic Services Center

i Maps of
R. MYTHOLOGIES OF THE PRIMITIVE HUNTERS
: R.
Donnelley & Sons Company:
NDC STEERERS 45
P. Marland II
: |

Map Design: Sidney

| Research, Compilation, Hunters of the Plains
NH
aa
|

& Coordination: Luis Freile

Early Open 51
Project Map 19
& Production: David FE The
Map Drafting Strong Recognition of Death
Production of the
Design, Drafting, Map 20: Neanderthal Sites: c. 100,000 to 40,000 B.c. OZ
two Evolution Charts: Jeannine M. Schonta The Master Bear 54
Th ok Wonder 26
Production by: Scala, Florence.
Renzo oesSat
ane
Clark,
John Miglorini
Map 21: Rock Art Sites
ede,in
Southwestern Europe
Be
64

Sch
Printed in
Yugoslavia by: Gorgenjski Tisk, Kranj Symbols of the Female Power 66

Map 22: Distribution Venus 71

of Figurines
The Shamans of the Caves 73
© Press, London Advent of the Bow and Arrow 80
Copyright 1983,
Summerfield
Tides ina Verdant Sahara
eck Cataloging in Publication Data
Caltiire 23: 81
Campbell,
Joseph pe
104
gem
Map European and North African Rock Art Provinces
ee
Map 24: North and the Chariot Road 86
Africa
Painted Rock Shrines
omic way of the animal powers.
SouthAfrican 88
1. I. Title.
oe Mythology. 25: Southern
Map Africa Rock Art Sites
BL311.C26 1983 291.13 83-80561
ce The Bushman Trance Dance and Its Ground 90
ISBN 0-912383-00-3 (v.1.) Mythic
 CONTENTS
Living People of the Equatorial Forest 103
-

Map 26
The Forest
Song of the Pygmies
Map 27: The Rain Forest Domain of the Pygmies 104
The Ancestral Caves of the Tasaday 112

Map 28: Southeast Asia and Indonesia 17

The Andaman Islanders 118

Myths and Tales of the Andamanese el

29: The Andamanese 122
Map

MYTHOLOGIES OF THE GREAT HUNT 127

The Great West-to-East Dispersal 31

Map 30

The Migration of X-Ray Style Art

Map 31: Rock Art and the X-Ray Style 132

Myths of the Australian ‘‘Dream Time” 135

Map 32: Australian Provinces and Art 138

ofAboriginal Myth
Map 33: The Diffusion of Bisexual Mythic Beings and Powers 142

Circumpolar Cults of the Master Bear 147

Map 34: Periods and Provinces the Bear Cult

of Circumpolar
The Bear Sacrifice 152
Shamanic Lore of Siberia and the Americas 156

Map 35: Tierra del 160

Fuego
Map 36: The Aleut-Eskimo Domain 166

Map 37: The Eurasian Shamanic Domain 172

Map 38: The Ritualistic Permanent Sex 174

Change
The Siberians 176

Myths and Tales of the North Pacific and Arctic 180

39: The Arctic Province 183
Map

North American of the Paleolithic Great Hunt

Twilight 193

Map 40
The Idea and Ideas of God

Map 41: American Culture Areas and

Culture Currents 195
42: Culture Areas
Map of North America 196

Mythologies of the North Pacific Coast 17

Map 43: Indians of the North Coast 198

Pacific
The Woodland Indians 204.
Prehistoric Societies in the American Midwest 210

Map 44: Adena Sites 211

Map 45: Sites

Hopewell
Map 46: Sites
Mississippian
The Rocky Mountain Medicine Wheels 222

Map 47: Known North American Medicine Wheels

The Plains Indians 224

Myths and Tales of the Northern Plains 234

Mythologies of the North American Southwest 241

Map 48: Navaho Country 249

Not Man 250
Apart
Cultural Geography 252

Map 49: Cultural Geographyof the Pre-Columbian Americas 253

At the Uttermost Ends of the Earth 254.

Map 50: Indians of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego: c. 1900 255

263
APPENDIX
Endnotes

Subject and Place Name Indexes

Myth Motif Index

Credits and Acknowledgements
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“In the beginning,
when the King’s will began
to take effect,
He engraved signs
into the heavenly sphere.”
( Zohar 1:15 )

2. Michelangelo, The Creation, ceiling of the

Sistine Chapel, the Vatican, Rome. Detail.
Painted 1508 to 1512.
 In the beginning of all things,
wisdom and were with the animals;
knowledge
for Tirawa, the One Above, did not
speak directly
to man. He sent certain animals to tell men that he showed
himself the beasts, and that from them,
through
and from the stars and the sun and the moon,
man should learn. Tirawa
to man
spoke through
his works.
CHIEF LETAKOTS-LESA OF THE PAWNEE TRIBE TO NATALIE Curtis, c. 1904.

THE MYTHOLOGICAL DIMENSION

We live, today, in a terminal moraine of and includes the observer in an essential

myths always way.’
mythic symbols, fragments large and small of tra- This is to say that in what we think we know of the
ditions that formerly inspired and rise to civi- interior of the atom, as well as of the
gave exploding
lizations. Our
prevailing, Newtonian world view is stars in millions of an
spinning galaxies throughout
of a three-dimensional “always similar and that
space, expanding is no space longer, as in Newton’s
within which and the old
immovable,” changes occur through view, “always similar immovable,”
a dimension of time that is also continuous, abso- notion of a once-upon-a-time First Cause has given
lute, and Here material bodies, drawn to like an immanent
enduring. way something more ground
and held a force called of being, transcendent of conceptualization, which
together by mysterious
“gravity,’’ are moved according to mechanical laws is in a continuous act of creation now.

of cause and effect, the cause of the world itself The first function of a is to waken and
mythology
being as the act of a maintain in the individual a sense of wonder and
represented deity generally
envisioned as an
anthropomorphic ‘spiritual’ in the of this inscruta-
participation mystery finally
body, intangible, yet capable of functioning physi- ble universe, whether understood in Michelan-

cally as a “First Cause’’—much such

as we see a
gelo’s way as an effect of the will of an anthropo-
deity in Michelangelo’s representation on the ceil-
morphic creator, or in the way of our modern

ing of the Sistine Chapel. As Newton himself wrote

physical scientists—and of many of the leading
of this imagined act: Oriental and
religious philosophical systems—as
“It seems
probable to me that God in the begin- the continuously created dynamic display of an
formed matter in solid, hard, impene- transcendent, imma-
ning massy, absolutely yet universally
and
trable, movable particles, of such sizes figures, nent, mysterium tremendum et
fascinans, which is the
and with such and in such of the whole spectacle and of one-
properties, proportion ground at once
to space, as most conduced to the end for which he self.
formed them; and that these primitive particles The second function of a
mythology, then, is to

solids, are harder than fill every and of the current cosmo-
being incomparably any particle quarter
porous bodies compounded of them; even so
very logical image with its measure of this mystical im-

hard, as never to wear or break in

pieces; no ordi- port; and in this differ as the
regard, mythologies
able to divide what God himself horizons, sciences, and technologies of
nary power being landscapes,
made one in the first creation.’”” their civilizations differ. Such a
hunting tribe as the
mythology is now itself
But this hard-and-fast Pawnee of the North American plains, for example,
in Newton’s “impenetrable parti- would have known world different from that
breaking pieces. a very
cles” have and in the realm of subatomic of the mid-Pacific nor can of the
exploded, Polynesians; any
physics that is opening to the mind’s eye—beyond experiences of such nonliterate, hunting, planting,
reach of direct and to be known and folk with those of the
scrutiny only by fishing compare peoples
of observed effects—the entire uni- of the Roman, Achaemenid, and Chinese
way dynamic empires.
verse
(to quote one recent “as Adolf Bastian, a world traveler as well as a
appears interpreter) major
a
dynamic web of inseparable energy patterns” that ethnologist of the nineteenth century, recognized

8
 of mankind
in the
myths and ceremonial customs a the
elephant as an earthbound cloud, for example,
of essential themes and motifs
significant number or the seven
days of a
seven-day week as the days
termed these
that were
apparently universal. He of the Creation and God’s Rest.

Elementargedanken, ‘‘elementary ideas.” But he per-

history and geography of the rise and diffu-
The
ceived, also, that in their they were sion of specific myths and
appearances mythological systems
clothed in local which he termed
always forms, can be
readily reviewed in broad lines today and
“ethnic ideas.’’ One determinant of in such a as to convert the rubble
Volkergedanken, represented way
the folk inflections was, as
just remarked, the land- of the moraine that is about us into a labora-
great
Another, no less influential, was the local of revelations. For we have present in our
scape. tory
moral order; for, if the first function of a mythology libraries prodigious literature
a ex- of information,
is the and a second the well as, still among
mystical, as just described, plication, and interpretation, as

of converting feature of of many of the most

cosmological—that every us, living representatives typ-
the locally envisioned order of nature into, as it ical or imposing of the rapidly disintegrating tradi-
were, an icon or
figure revelatory of Yahweh, Tir- tions of belief: popes, lamas, and other learned
awa, Shiva, Huracan, or the Tao—a third function, churchmen; sheiks, shamans, rishis, rabbis, roshis,
no less important, is the sociological one of validat- and even Stone Age tribesmen like the
rimpoches;
and whatever moral and the Bushmen of the
ing maintaining system Tasaday of the Philippines,
manner of life-customs may be
peculiar to the local Kalahari, and the Nambikwara of Brazil.
culture. Indeed, one of the most
striking features The first and most historical distinc-
important
of everywhere is their reference to tion to be is that between literate and
mythologies recognized
even of such indifferent nonliterate orders, and the latter, that be-
mythological beginnings among
customs as, for example, the shape of a hat, color tween and that is,
primary regressed mythologies,
of the border of a shawl, or
way of parting one’s those of isolated tribes, uninfluenced by literate
hair. the other
and hand, of tribes
those, on
neighbors,
A and essential function of have been derived in
fourth, final, mythol- whose myths and customs
ogies, then, is the one of from the Bronze or Iron Age or even
pedagogical conducting large measure
individuals in
harmony through the passages of later high-culture an im-
systems. Geographically,
human life, from the stage of dependency in child- distinction is to be seen, furthermore, be-
portant
hood to the responsibilities of maturity, and on to tween the of Old Stone Age tribes
mythologies
old and the ultimate of the dark
age passage gate. inhabiting the great animal plains of postglacial
And it is in its service to this function that the and those of
most
Europe, Siberia, and North America,
evident of its universal themes
elementary ideas, or the jungles of the tropical equatorial belt, where
and for a human
to be life, have been the chief of
motifs, are
recognized; plants, not animals, source

after all, whether in the Andaman Islands or in the sustenance, and women, not men, the dominant

city of New York, will have to pass from infancy to providers.

in the world and on to
disengagement The of the “Great Hunt,”
engagement landscape typically,
in old after which the occurs of death, of a spreading bounded
age, mystery was
plain, cleanly by a
the ultimate term to the no less tremendous myster- circular horizon, with the great blue dome of an

ium of birth—between which terms there will have heaven above, where hawks and
exalting eagles
been so minor cycles of sleep (with dreams) hovered and the sun becom-
many blazing passed daily;
and dark and with the moon
waking. ing by night, star-filled,
The method of is the poetic, there, waning and waxing. The essential food
principal mythology sup-
that of analogy; in the words of Ananda K. Coom- was of the multitudinous herds,
ply grazing
it is ““the
representation of a reality ona in the males of the community follow-
araswamy, brought by
certain level of reference And the cere-
by a corresponding reality ing dangerous physical encounters.
another:’’? death for vice
on
by sleep, example, or monial life was addressed largely to the ends of a

and the of sleep, then, as the covenant with the animals, of reconciliation, ven-
versa; experiences
(supposed) experiences of death; the light of the eration, and assurance that in return for the beasts’
sun as of consciousness; the darkness of caves, of themselves as vic-
unremitting offering willing
or of the ocean
depth, as of death, or of the womb; tims, their life-blood should be back in a
given
the waning and waxing moon
sign celestial
as a of sacred to the earth, the mother of all, for re-
way
death and rebirth; and the serpent’s sloughing of birth.
its skin In contrast, the environment of tribes is of
as
earthly sign with the
an same sense.
jungle
There dense and the trunks and branches
are
many analogies of this kind that are rec- a
mighty foliage,
in the world. Others, how- of prodigious trees; no
horizon; no dome of the sky;
ognized everywhere
local but of leaves screech-
ever, are or
culturally specific: the majesty of above, a
ceiling populated by

9
 ing birds, and underfoot a
rough leafage, beneath idea was carried to
Egypt and appears there with
which lurk and lethal
may scorpions fangs. Out of the First
Dynasty, circa 2850 B.c.; to Crete and east-
the rot of fallen wood and leaves, fresh ward to the Indus
sprouts Valley, around 2000 B.c.; to
arise—from which the lesson learned to China with the
appears Shang Dynasty, circa 1500 B.C.; and
have been that from death life, out of death, to
springs Mexico, some four or five centuries later.
new
birth; and the conclusion drawn that
grim was
Today, as
already remarked, the focal center has
the way to increase life is to increase death. Accord-
again shifted—to the patterns, not of the
planetary
ingly, there has been endemic to the entire but of subatomic
equato- courses, energy traces—with
rial belt of this what can be described
globe only as mathematics still
providing the key to the
reading
a
frenzy of sacrifice, vegetable, animal, and human: of the messages. Yet, mankind is no closer to the
from the African Guinea Coast and the of that
Congo, mastery golden key than were the Indians
across and India, Southeast and
throughout Asia, of the North American plains to immediate knowl-
Oceania, to Middle America and the of of that One
jungles edge Above, who, “in the beginning,”
Brazil. Moreover, in
variously modified forms, the as the Pawnee chieftain Letakots-Lesa told Natalie
influence of this order of primitive rites entered and Curtis in the first of the
years present century, “did
inspired much of the
mythology of the higher cul- not
speak directly to man, but sent certain animals
tures, where it survives in
myths and rituals of to tell man that he showed himself
through the
sacrifice and communion with which of us, and that from
many beasts, them, and from the stars and
of whatever affiliation, have been
religious long the sun and the moon, man should learn. . . .
For
familiar. all of Tirawa.”’
4
things speak
The of the world
beginnings development to- It has
always been the business of the
great seers
ward and
higher, literate, monumental civiliza- (known to India as
“‘rishis,” in biblical terms as
tions are now as had
generally recognized having “prophets,” to
primitive folk as
“shamans,” and in
as their the fertile mudlands of the
seeding ground our own
day as
“poets” and “artists’’) to
perform
lower
Tigris-Euphrates valleys. A mysterious peo- the work of the first and second functions of a

ple of unknown provenance known to

scholarship mythology by recognizing through the veil
of na-
as the Sumerians there in the earlier
began settling ture, as viewed in the science of their times, the
of the fourth millennium and
part B.c., by 3500 s.c. radiance, terrible yet gentle, of the dark, unspeak-
had established
a cluster of little, brick-built city- able light beyond, through their words and and
states, organized around monumental com- to reveal the
temple images sense of the vast silence that is
pounds: Ur, Kish, Lagash, Shuruppak, Uruk, the ground of us all and of all
beings. Gods that are
Ubaid, Nippur, and the rest, the first cities of their dead are those that
kind in the world.
simply no
longer speak to the
it was
Moreover, by the priests science or the moral order of the
day—like Michel-
of these in
temple compounds, ever
increasing angelo’s and Newton’s God, for example, whose
size, that the arts of
writing and mathematical reck-
hypothetical act of creation occurred at some mo-
were
oning invented, together with an early sci- ment in an
imagined past no
longer recognized.
ence of exact astronomical observation, which had And the formulae of science
a remain dead unless
been made recorded notations. The
possible by there is someone like Letakots-Lesa around to read
measured movements of the seven visible celestial them as
tokens, not
only of practical information,
spheres—Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Ju- but also of life’s
mystery: biological schedule our
of
piter, and an circular the
Saturn—along apparently evolution of all
living things, for example, to be
way through the constellations, led to the realiza- viewed (as the atom is now
being viewed) as denot-
tion, altogether new to the world, of a cosmos math- some kind of ““dynamic web of
ing inseparable en-
ematically ordered; and with this awareness, the in which all of us, whether
ergy patterns,” know-
focus of mythic concern
radically shifted from the
ingly or
unknowingly, are included.
earlier animal and to the
plant messengers The
unfolding through time of all
things from
night sky and its mathematics, with the ever
dying one is the
simple message, finally, of every one of
and moon its lord and the five
self-resurrecting as the creation
myths reproduced in the
pages of these
visible planets as the dominant members of a court.
This cosmic
volumes—including that of our
contemporary bio-
order, illustrated in the heavens, was
logical view, which becomes an effective mythic
to be imitated on
earth, where the festivals of the the moment
image we
recognize its own inner mys-
religious year still follow the seasonal of sun
signs tery. By the same magic, every god that is dead can
and and radiant celestial
moon, kings queens wear be conjured
again to life, as
any fragment of rock
crowns, and to the God whose the heavens from
glory a
hillside, set
respectfully in a garden, will
proclaim, there is lifted the Christian
daily prayer: arrest the eye. This Historical Atlas of World Mythol-
“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”’ The ogy is to be as a
garden of thus reanimated gods.
10
 Leflore
3. Visionary mask from Spiro Mound, County,
Oklahoma. Wood, 112 by 7 inches, c. A.D. 1200 to
1600. The surface of the face was
originally painted;
shell inlays have been lost from the earlobes.

i
 which is their seed, each to its kind,
In the beginning God created the heavens and according
“Let There Be Light!” the earth. The earth was without form and upon the earth.” And it was so. The earth

1:1 to void, and darkness was

upon the face of the brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed
(Genesis 2:4) and trees bear-
deep; and the spirit of God was
moving over according to their own kinds,
in which is their each
the face of the waters. ing fruit seed, according
And God ‘Let there be and to its kind. And God saw that it was
good.
said, light’;
there was
light. And God saw that the light
And there was
evening and there was morn-

was
good; and God separated the
light from ing, a third day.
The Bible with two distinct creation and And God said, “Let there be lights in the
opens the darkness. God called the light Day,
that of Genesis 1:1 to 2:4 (here And there firmament of the heavens to
separate the day
myths: the darkness he called Night. was

given), and that of the Garden of Eden

evening and there was
morning, one
day.
from the night; and let them be for signs and
The firmament in for seasons and for and and let
and Man’s Fall, verses 2:4 to 3:24. And God said, “Let there be a days years,
and let it the them be lights in the firmament of the heavens
of Eden dates
period (930 from the the midst of the waters, separate
myth to the earth.” And it was so.
Israel waters from the waters.”” And God made the give light upon
to 721 B.c.) of the Two Kingdoms, made the the
firmament and the waters which And God two
great lights,
and Judah; this of the Seven Days of Cre- separated
the other is from the were under the firmament from the waters greater light to rule the day, and the lesser
ation, on hand, pe-
It is work of which were above the firmament. And it was
light to rule the night; he made the stars also.
riod of the Second Temple. a
of the
so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And God set them in the firmament
the School, of the Ezra’s
Priestly prophet And there was and there was morn- heavens to
give light upon the earth, to rule
fourth with its evening
time, century B.c., and, the and to
ing, a second day.
over the day and over night, sepa-
of the seventh day to God’s the light from the darkness. And God
assignment And God said, “Let the waters under the rate saw

rest, confirms the institution of the Sab- that it was And there was
evening and
heavens gathered together into one place,
be good.
bath. The earlier knew nothing of there was
morning, a fourth day.
myth and let the dry land appear.’”’ And it was so.

this institution and described a different And God said, ‘Let the waters
bring forth
God called the dry land Earth, and the waters
swarms of creatures, and let birds fly
order of creation: then, gathered together he called Seas. living
a
first, man; gar- that were

above the earth across the firmament of the

den for him to cultivate; next, the animals And God saw that it was good. And God said,
earth forth heavens.’’ So God created the great sea mon-
for his entertainment; and woman, “Let the put vegetation, plants
finally, sters and creature that moves,
from his rib; after which, the Fall. yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in every living
with which the waters swarm, according to
their kinds, and bird according
every winged
to its kind. And God saw that it was
good.
And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful
and and fill the waters in the seas,
multiply
and let birds on the earth.” And
multiply
there
there evening and
was was a
morning,
fifth day.
And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth
creatures to their kinds.”
living according
And it was so. And God made the beasts of
the earth to their kinds, and the
according
and
cattle according to their kinds, everything
that creeps upon the ground according to its
kind. And God saw that it was
good.
Then God said, ‘“Let us make man in our

after our likeness; and let them have

image,
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over

the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and

over all the earth, and over
every creeping
that the earth. So God cre-
thing creeps upon
ated man in his own in the image of
image,
God he created him; male and female he cre-

ated them. And God blessed them, and God

said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and
fill the earth and subdue it; and have domin-
ion over the fish of the sea and over the earth.”
And God said, “Behold, I have given you
seed which is upon the
every plant yielding
face of all the earth, and every tree with seed
in its fruit; shall have them for food. And
you
to beast of the earth, and to every bird
every
of the air, and to that on the
everything creeps
earth, everything that has the breath of life, I
food.”” And
have given every green plant for
it was so. And God saw
everything that he
i
had made, and behold, it was very good. And
Ri there and there
was
evening was
morning, a
WEES
eae
sixth
Thus
day.
the heavens and the earth were fin-

ished, and all the host of them. And on the

seventh God finished his work which he
Ear had done.
day
So God blessed the seventh day
and hallowed it, because on it God rested from
all his work which he had done in creation.°

EERSTE
tse

esas
:

4. Mosaic
dralof Monreale, built
of the Fourth Day of Creation,
by the Norman
from the

King William II
cathe-
(“the
sees 12
Good”) of Sicily, last quarter of the twelfth century
a.D.
 - a ‘
f

sf SA th

5. This serene triadic image of Shiva Mahesh- ever-creating mysterium, out of which all pairs
vara, “‘The Great Lord’’—23 feet high, 19% of opposites proceed: female and male, love
feet across, carved in the eighth century A.p. and war, creation and annihilation. Though
on the back wall of an immense hand-hewn beheld externally, this mystery is to be known
cave on an island in the harbor of
Bombay—is internally, as the indwelling Source and End of

symbolic of the immanent ground of all being all that has been or is to be. “Not female nor

and becoming. The profile at the beholder’s yet male is it; neither is it neuter. Whatever

Out Of One, The Many left is male, that at the right, female; the pres- body it assumes, through body it that is
ence in the center is the mask of Eternity, the served.” (Shvetashvatara Upanishad 5.10)
(Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,
1.4.1-5)

The text is from the earliest of alone is afraid. “If there is but after me from himself? Well, let
following nothing my- producing me

the the which self,” it ‘“of what, then, am I afraid?” hide.’”” She became a he a
bull, and
Upanishads, Brihadaranyaka, thought, cow,

is of a date somewhere about the ninth Whereupon the fear departed. For what was united with her. From that cattle were born.
there to fear? it is from a second She became a he a stallion; she a she-
century B.c., and thus about contempo- Surely, only mare,
that fear derives. ass, he a
he-ass; and united with her. From
rary with the biblical legend in Genesis 2
That Person was
longer happy. There-
no that one-hoofed beasts were born. She be-
of God producing Eve from Adam’s rib.
fore, people are not
happy when alone. It came a
she-goat, he a
he-goat; she became a

desired a mate. It became as

large as a woman ewe, he a ram; and he united with her. From
In the there was
only the Great and man in close embrace; then caused that that and born. In this
beginning, goats sheep were way
Self in the form of a Person. it Self to fall in two: from which a husband and he all in down
Reflecting, projected things existing pairs,
found nothing but itself. Then its first word wife arose.
(Therefore, as the sage Yajnavalkya to the ants.
was: “This am I!’ whence arose the name “I.” used to say, this body is but half of oneself, Then he realized: “I, indeed, am this crea-

Which is
why, to this day, when one is ad- like the half of a
split pea; which is
why this tion; for I have it forth from
poured myself.”
dressed one first “I,” then tells whatever is filled wife.) He
a united with her; In that he became this creation. And ver-
says, space by way
other name one have... and from that human were born. he who knows this becomes in this crea-
may . beings ily,
That one was afraid. Therefore She ‘““How can he unite with tion a creator.°®
anyone thought: me,

13
Forbidden Fruit
(A Bassari Legend, Togo)

the these fruits. Why must we

go hungry?” An-
Throughout Black “living dead,”’
Africa
“But don’t know
telope said: we
anything
that is the remembered dead, are the prin- wife took
about this fruit.” Then Man and his
between the living of
cipal intermediaries some of the fruit and ate it. Unumbotte came

the tribe and the Invisibles. For, though ‘Who ate the
down from the and asked:
sky
still
themselves now invisible, they are fruit?” They answered: ‘We did.’”” Unumbotte
of the
engaged in the world living, can asked: “Who told you that you could
eat that
even be expected to return, in time, re-
fruit?” ‘Snake did.” Unumbotte
They replied:
the
born, and so, against anonymous asked: ‘Why did you listen to Snake?” They
of the absolutely unknown— said: ‘We were Unumbotte ques-
background hungry.”
An-
the distant unforeseeable future and the tioned Antelope: ‘Are you hungry, too?”
said: “Yes, I like to eat
long-forgotten distant past, as well as
telope get hungry. I
Since then, has lived in the
those of nature and being that grass.” Antelope
mysteries
lie consti- wild, eating grass.
beyond comprehension—they
tute an familiar of fa-
Unumbotte then gave sorghum to Man,
enclosing, company
and millet. And the
Those dead who have
also yams people gath-
voring powers. ered in eating groups that would always eat
been on the other hand, pass
forgotten, from the same bowl, never the bowls of the
into the unknown, and return as
may other It was from this that differences
groups.
dangerous spirits. in arose. And ever since then, the
language
ruled the land.
people have
an Creator Snake Unumbotte a med-
Generally anthropomorphic 6. Ancestral Figure of the Bakoa of Gabon. Wood But was
given by
God is father or icine with which to bite people.
recognized—‘Without covered with copper strips.
mother, wife or children,’”’ say the Kenya
He once walked on earth, like
Kukuyu. J

God of Genesis but is now the ‘Tt is to know,” states Leo

the 2-3, important
ultimate Invisible, and in- Frobenius, from whose Volksdichtungen
surrounding
The is of the this has been taken,
cluding all.” following legend aus
Oberguinea legend
Bassari tribe of northern “that as far as we know there has been no
Togo.
of influence to the
penetration missionary
Its them seeds of all kinds, and said: ““Go knew the
Unumbotte made a human being. name
gave Bassari. . . .

Many Bassari tale,

Unumbotte next made an these.’’ Then Unumbotte went away.
was Man. antelope, plant and it was
always described to me as a

named Unumbotte made a snake, Unumbotte came back. He saw that the
Antelope. of the old tribal I have
earth. piece heritage.
named Snake. At the time these three were three had pounded the
not yet They heard it told a number of people at
One of the by
made there were no trees but one, a
palm. Nor had, however, planted the seeds. various times and have never been able to
been smooth. All three seeds had sprouted and grown. It was a tree.
had the earth pounded detect variations. I have
on the ground, and Un- It had tall and was
bearing fruit, red any significant
were
sitting rough grown
therefore to the
umbotte said to them: ‘The earth has not
yet fruit. Every seven
days Unumbotte would re- reject absolutely sugges-
tion that a recent influence
been You must
pound the ground turn and
pluck one of the red fruits. missionary
pounded. tale.’”*
Unumbotte One Snake said: ‘‘We too should eat
may lie behind this
smooth where you are
sitting.” day

14
The Light Within
(A Polynesian Chant, Society
Islands)

Two
types of creation myth are known
from Polynesia: one in which the universe
emanates in from the void; the
stages
other in which world-generating the di-
vine is as it is here in
power personified,
the sea-god known in the
Society Islands
as Taaroa, Tangaroa in the Austral Group,
Tanaoa in the
Marquesas, and Kanaloa in
Hawaii. The “land of Hawaii,’” named at

the close of the Society Island chant here

quoted, is not the geographical Hawaii,

but an
imagined, ideal sourceland of the

Polynesian race after which the island

chain has been named.

He existed, Taaroa was his name,

In the
immensity.
There was no
earth, there was no
sky,
There was no sea, there was no man.

Taaroa calls, but answers.

nothing
Existing alone, he became the universe.
Taaroa is the root, the rocks.
Taaroa is the sands.
It is thus that he is named.
Taaroa is the Taaroa is within.
light.
Taaroa is the germ. Taaroa is the
support.
Taaroa is Taaroa is wise.
enduring.
He erected the land of Hawaii,
Hawaii, the great and sacred,
As or shell for Taaroa.
a body
The earth is
moving.
O, Foundations, Rocks,
O, Sands, hither, hither,
Brought hither, pressed together the earth.
Press, press again. They do not unite.
Stretch out the seven
heavens, let
cease.
ignorance
Create the heavens, let darkness cease.

Let cease.
immobility
Let the period of messengers cease.

It is the time of the

speaker.
Completed the foundations.
Completed the rocks.

Completed the sands.

The heavens are enclosing.
The heavens are raised.
In the is finished the land of
depths
Hawaii.”

7. Tangaroa Generating Gods and Men. Wooden

image from a
temple on Rurutu Island of the Austral

Group. One of the very few

Polynesian figures to
have survived the nineteenth-century destruction of

images, the figure, 44% inches high, is now in the

British Museum.
Song of the World 8. Pima basketry tray from Sacaton,
to 1905. The
Arizona. Diam-
enter-
eter, 91/2 inches. A.D. 1900 figure
Pima
(A Legend, Arizona) ing the maze is Siuhu, Elder Brother, a character
from the creation myth here recounted. When the
world had been emerged from the center
created, he
of the earth and later led his people from under the
From Hovering Hawk, an old chief of the I make the world, and lo! ground. But they turned against him, killing him sev-
Pima tribe of southern Arizona, Natalie The world is eral times, once even
pulverizing him; yet, he always
finished. returned to life and at last departed. The maze de-
Curtis received this and its Thus I make the world, and lo!
song myth, sign is called Siuku Ki, “Siuhu’s House.” It shows
about the 1904. “I will The world is finished. him going far into the mountains where the trails
year sing an old,
became so confused no one could follow.
old song,’”’ he told her, “a song sung by
the So he sang, calling himself the maker of the
Creator at the of the
beginning SIUHU’S SONG
world.’
world. He sang slowly, and all the while the
Here | have come to the center of the earth;
ball grew larger as he rolled it, till at the end of
Here | have come to the center of the earth.
his song, behold, it was the world. Then he
| see the central mountain;
only darkness
the there more
In beginning was sang quickly: | see the central mountain.
and water. And
everywhere—darkness the
darkness thick in Let it go, let it go,
gathered places, crowding
Let it go, start it forth!
together and then separating, crowding and
separating until at last out of one of the places
where the darkness had crowded there came So the world was made. And now the man

from himself rock and divided it was even as he wished. For the water in the
forth a man. This man wandered the brought a
through
little Of these he made and bowl turned into the sun and shone out in
darkness until he to think; then he into pieces. stars,
began
the cracks where the bowls
knew himself and that he was a man; he knew put them in the sky to
light the darkness. But rays through
that he was there for some
purpose.
the stars were not
bright enough. joined.
So he made the Yet When the sun was made, the man lifted off
He put his hand over his heart and drew Tau-muk, Milky Way.
he the bowl and took out the sun and threw
forth a
large stick. He used the stick to
help Tau-muk was not
bright enough. Then top
made the All these he made of rocks it to the east. But the sun did not touch the
him the darkness, and when he was moon.
through
the it in the where he threw it
weary he rested upon it. Then he made for drawn forth from himself. But even moon
ground; stayed sky
not So he to won- and never moved. Then in the same
way he
himself little ants; he them from his was
bright enough. began
brought
der what next he could do. He could threw the sun to the north and to the west and
body and put them on the stick. Everything bring
the south. But each time it in
that he made he drew from his own
body even nothing from himself that could lighten the to only stayed
the for it never touched the
as he had drawn the stick from his heart. The darkness. sky, motionless,
Then he And from himself he Then he threw it once more to the
stick was of greasewood, and of the gum of thought. ground.
and this time it touched the and
the wood the ants made a round ball upon the made two
large bowls, and he filled the one east, ground
it with the other. bounced and started Since then the
stick. Then the man took the ball from the with water and covered He upward.
sat and watched the and while he sun has never ceased to move. It goes around
stick and put it down in the darkness under bowls,
the world in but it must
his foot, and as he stood upon the ball he watched he wished that what he wanted to a
day, every morning
rolled it under his foot and make in very truth would come to be. And it bounce anew in the east.”
sang:

16
“Let It Thus Be Done!”
(The Popol Vuh, Guatemala)

The Popol Vuh, the Sacred Book of the Heart of Heaven exists! For such is the name

Quiché, a
people of the Mayan race of of God. ’Tis thus He is called.

Guatemala, was
copied, c. A.D. 1701 to And it was then that the word came.
Tepeu
1703, from and Gucumatz talked
an
original manuscript (now together in the dark-
in the deliber-
lost), by Father Francisco Ximénez, who ness, night. They consulted,
was at that time of the little ated, meditated, matching words and coun-
pastor parish
sels. And it was then, as
reflected, that
of Santo Tomas of Chichicastenango. The they
they understood that when dawn broke man
original had been written in the Quiché
should creation: the
in the Latin c. A.D. 1550,
appear. They planned
tongue script, of of Thus
growth trees, lianas, life, humanity.
some
years after the holocaust of 1524, it was the darkness, in the
when the Alvarado razed
arranged—in
Conquistador night—by the Heart of Heaven, who is called
to the ground the Quiché capital, Utatlan, Huracan. The first sign of Huracan is light-
executed its
princes, and scattered its peo- the second is the short flash of light-
ning; sign
ple, some of whom arrived in Chichicas- the third is the flash. And
ning; sign long
tenango. these three are the Heart of Heaven.

Together, Tepeu and Gucumatz deliber-

And it was
apparently a princely priest of
these
ated, considering life and
light: what to do to
refugees, already become Christian,
bring about light and dawn; who should fur-
who composed this precious, sole surviv- nish food and sustenance. “Let it thus be
ing document of a
mythology otherwise done! Be filled!” said. ‘Let the waters
they
lost. Father Ximénez’s copy and transla- recede and cease to obstruct! Let the earth
tion remained unknown until the middle appear and harden! Let the dawn illuminate
of the nineteenth century, when the Abbé sky and earth; for neither
glory nor honor will
Charles Etienne Brasseur de be ours in all that we shall have created and
Bourbourg
it from ‘’a noble Indian of Ra- formed until a human creature exists, the crea-
acquired
THE END OF AN EON ture with reason endowed!” It was thus that
binal” and, in 1861, published the full
they spoke while the earth was form
Quiché text with a French translation. taking
9. Last of the
pre-Columbian “Dresden Codex”
Ximénez’s now in the
page
through them. It was thus, truly, that creation
manuscript reposes of the Maya. Along the top of the page are two rows
took and the earth into
Edward E. place came
being.
Ayer Collection of the New- of “serpent numbers,” signs representing the prodi-
“Earth!” said; and it was
gious sums of the Mayan astronomical cycles: the they immediately
berry Library, Chicago. formed. Like
kinchiltun of 1,152,000,000 days, for example, or the
a mist, a
cloud, a
gathering of
alautun, of 23,040,000,000 days. Below, the rain- dust, was this creation when the mountains
All was in suspense: calm, silent, motionless, serpent sends a
deluge. The old goddess, patroness appeared from the waters. In an instant there
and at of floods, with a snake crowning her head and cross-
the of the were mountains. marvelous
peace: empty, immensity bones
great Only a

There decorating her skirt, overturns the bowl of the

sky. was as
yet neither man nor beast.
heavenly waters. And at the bottom of the scene the power and
magic could have
brought about
There were no birds, fish, crabs, trees, rocks, this formation of mountains and with
black god crouches, an owl screeching from his valleys
caves, ravines, meadows, or woods: there was
head, and with downpointed spears. | forests of cypresses and pines instantly upon
only sky. Not yet to be seen was the face of the them.
This marks the end of such a of time that
earth; only the peaceful sea and a vast empti- cycle as
And Gucumatz was then filled with
described in its in the Vuh. joy.
of beginning Popol
yet formed
ness into O Heart of Heaven!
sky. Nothing was a
“Welcome, And you, Hur-

body, nothing joined to anything else. There acan! And you, Short Flash and
Long Flash!”
was “This that have
nothing moving, nothing rustling, not a we created and formed,” they
sound in the
sky. There was nothing upright; replied, ‘shall be finished.”
but the of the Thus
nothing peaceful waters sea, were first formed the earth, the moun-

quiet and alone within its bounds. For

nothing tains and the plains. And the watercourses
as
yet existed. In the darkness, in the
night, were
divided, rivulets
running serpentine
there were
immobility and silence. but also, through the mountains, when the high moun-
the Creator and the Maker,
Tepeu and Gucu- tains were unveiled. Just so was the earth
matz: those that those that when it formed those
engender, give created, was
by who are

being, alone in the waters, like an the Heart of Heaven and Heart of Earth: for
increasing so

light. are those called who first made fruitful the sky
They are enveloped in feathers, green and suspended and the earth from the midst of the
blue: hence the name, the Feathered waters. Such was its when
Serpent, fecundation, they
Gucumatz. Great wisdom is their Be- it life while its
being. gave meditating on
composi-
hold the sky, how it exists! how, also, the tion and
completion.”

17
 8 °
5 S ° ° °
33
Millions of Years Ago
:epee S . ae . e 3 iB
Z

eeepc icf | Salar SU ee Oder pamper ! ! \ ! i i ! ! i l

i pete eae epee goes ete eter
Sh

THE LIVING Warmer

GRO UND Present Mean Annual Temperature a

Cooler

The Universe, The Earth,

and Earth’s Life Continental Drift Key

The initial condition of the universe, accord-

to one modern theory, was of a
ing supercon-
Intervals of Intervals of Intervals of
densate of primeval hydrogen, which ex- /[ | Hypothetical
et survival as
with paths subordinate dominance
ploded 10 billion ago years “big bang.”’ a
'- ail
\ of origin importance and diversity “living fossils’’ o

This
produced expanding hydrogen cloud
an

within which galaxies condensed myriadfold

A
while flying apart, as they must fly forever.
that this of
second theory has it state expan-
sion will be followed by a contraction, which
in turn will end in a vast collision, again such Pacific
an with then condensing
explosion, galaxies \
Ocean

anew while again flying to all sides. Nor will

this oscillation of diastole and
cosmogonic
60 billion
systole, in cycles of some
years,
ever

end; neither had it a beginning. A third view

is of universe where there is

a
steady state
a continuous
occurring, throughout space,
creation of hydrogen atoms, out of which new

are as the old, continuing

galaxies condensing
to
fly apart, pass out of range of astronomical
observation.
Whether life exists within any galaxy but
our own, or on
any planet within our own

solar system other than this earth, is a

ques- }

Raciic | 3

tion unresolved. The earth, along with the

other planets and moons, became solid some

4'/, billion years ago, and the earliest signs of

life in its oceans at least 3'/, billion
appeared
years ago in the form of threads
spheres and
of one-celled, blue-green algae and bacteria.”
The question of the origin of these earliest /
ee
Pacific
9

has been
signs approached by experiments
showing that when a sample atmosphere such
as
initially enveloped our
planet—a mixture
of hydrogen, ammonia, water vapor, and
methane—is to electric
subjected discharges
and ultraviolet light, large numbers of organic
are obtained: fatty acids and
compounds
amino acids, which are the blocks of
building
proteins. It is thought that phosphates, en-

zymes, and nucleic acids could have been

formed in this way on the primeval earth un-

der ultraviolet light energy. Enzymes catalyze

the synthesis of compounds out of simple sub-
stances, and nucleic acids replicate. These
being the fundamental processes of life, it is
that the earliest condition of life on
supposed
this planet must have
watery “soup” been as a

of compounds, which
prebiological organic
became differentiated when quantities be-
came enclosed in membranes, forming cells.
It is all enormously and already
mysterious
wonderfully alive. The primordial, one-celled
threads and spheres of blue-green algae and
bacteria then produced the oxygen of our at-
mosphere as a
byproduct of their living on the
carbon dioxide and methane of their environ-

ment; and out of them all the known forms of

life on earth to this have evolved along
day
the courses
represented in our chart.
Oxygen in Atmosphere
Oxygen in Sea

Period
PRE-CAMBRIAN >
~

ss
se
Era ARCHEOZOIC
PROTEROZOIGH
0 ita ea
Fhe aE anne UE eace
—

Millions of Years Ago 700 5o

 °
i
eke

Anthropoids
,
a
hominoid ae

me,
SET
ese
ee

EN
eR

GHEE
Sem
SO

Ses

amphioxus
"sea squirts
 20.0
—
15.0
—

“ae,
Seer
oes
BONY
soED
Poe .

ooae oe oe oe ee
ee ee

ee
ee

ee ee
ee

MEE (
Fees
oe

MNS
pn

oNEG
| Xenopithecus |
!
i i 2

eRe
1
eReBSN eeN WESwe we we Bee
NK ayy

SENT EN

ATR OT
SS SN
ae
TN
Bee
SIN
SO MOG
NNR OND
OR OS

ay SSS Od
GS ot
ep,
SO
HS
SET! SNES
WON SINR
VOT ARNIS

Hominoids
SSH
On

mi
NINES
GEN
ANNO
Te

SNR
PS mae me EE SURE EET ROE ORES ERES SE K ST SS GES SNES SET Te! SE cone Se

ee AONE
NI
TOSS
SO ADES .

Me
FERS
AONE

Cercopithecoids
NE
IS IEEE
RT NNO
ON ANE

Si ANE
AR FOSS
Oe
SN

ESE GERD
LN ENN
TN NOE
ST ROCK
SE SOE
AE i

RET en,netweesween
meetBuen
TOG
POSE
NOOK
TOON
HOR
COUR
REECANE
OURKLOO NEEEN
;

i
ESNAN NSSA EE
A

MOAEN
SERRETRENT KOE
DEPTERM
eM NNR
NORE
ONES
SO

Be
t

SR
'

geek }

PAR
7 of.
f
j

N
?
‘ opithecus
8
cmap
see omen
mmes
meme
soemem

° ° ° ° °
° °
6 o
°
Ss 9 S 0
Ss 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.5
+
vt
Ts}
o
oO N N - _
 Millions of Years Ago

Warmer

Present Mean Annual Temperature

Cooler

The Primate
Connection
At the end of the Eurasia was
Oligocene, sep-
arated from Afro-Arabia a west-to-east sea-
by
way, the Tethys, of which the Mediterranean
is the remainder. the
During early Miocene,
these land masses drifted together; major
mountain arose
systems (the Alps, Tauros,
and
Zagros, cooling of
Himalayas); later, a

climates occurred, with

tropical jungles yield-
ing to seasonal woodlands, grasslands, and
and
savannahs; as
always happens with eco-
logical transformations of such magnitude,
new animals and plants appeared, new carni-
vores to herbivores
prey upon adapted to new
vegetation, and, among the primates, species
adapted to a terrestial, instead of arboreal,
manner of existence."
The skull labeled Proconsul the
represents
extinct now
dryopithecine group regarded as

the probable ancestor of both man and the

were
apes. Dryopithecines “probably me-

dium-sized arboreal apes (weighing 30 to 50

pounds), with fore- and hindlimbs of approx-

imately equal length, relatively short stout

eee
trunks, broad shallow thoraxes, and shoulder
san
SORE
SNS SSTPES AES. NNMS MSGRR FN ee KOOHY
t
girdles to
|
adapted suspensatory
posturing
and arm the
SPT CN SS BE A SS ME BENE GENE SEET SEES GEE eee KNeR JERE Keo led nee
swinging.” junctureFollowing
of the land masses, this group spread from
Africa (Kenyapithecus) to northwest India (Si-
and
vapithecus) Europe (Ouranopithecus), and
their mandibles and teeth began to show fea-
tures
symptomatic of a turn to terrestrial feed-

ing and habitation. as ra-

Roughly grouped
mapithecines, specimens of this later kind are
adsorp che 22 Ae OO CE Sk SM Sa a a oe esas pecs case seed BOSS SSS

SEGIBESTSEU!QUES
Feet HENS
GEESoUt
known from
India, Pakistan, Greece, Austria,
Hungary, China, and Kenya.
In Africa, descendents
Kenyapithecus
evolved into the earliest
fully bipedal pri-
mates, the australopithecines, and were an-

cestral, not to
only Australopithecus afarensis,
CO OES OER KOM ee Sem Sem ssh: 1
(in Ethiopia and Tanzania, the earliest known
eee om SER we OO
ER MR Wh MS tess CoN teed sees DEER 2eSR REE 2S

DO EESWARmee OeeeCoessooeom
species) and the later
australopithecines (A.
africanus and A. robustus of South Africa, A.
boisei of Tanzania), but also to the
meat-eating
genus Homo—for which, then, three succes-

sive species of cranial

increasing capacities are
recognized: habilis, erectus, and
sapiens. The
vegetarian or omnivorous australopithecines
never evolved the cranial
beyond capacity of a
gorilla, and by a million years ago they were
extinct.
In Asia, meanwhile, there
trans-Himalayan
had evolved from the a
dryopithecines large
bipedal ape, Gigantopithecus; adapted to open
country, it seems not to have survived the Ice

Ages, yet may somehow be responsible for

the from that of the
&
30 oe
we
s
legends area Yeti, or
Q Se > Xe) \

Se CO
a ~o Abominable Snowman.
Nej
oO 9g oe
NO
xs

Px The two the bottom of the

<
<)
¥ es s
)
x
a
we
Na lineages at chart
o ¢ cS)
e oO
5)
AL
Ss S ? o> se RASs Ha represent hypothetical sequences from Afri-
s = & e ss $
s can the one above the
A ss 9
& RS RS & SFvF Ke origins: leading to
v Go oS WW Ve” Indonesian gibbon and and that
:
Vv Vv Vv Vv Vv Vv siamang,
LOWER MIDDLE UPPER
below, to all Old World Dendro-
mi

PLEISTOCENE
+

Epoch monkeys.
pithecus and Limnopithecus were
f
a
HOLOCENE— f
lightweight,
QUATERNARY Period
tree-dwelling, African that
dryopithecines
were
Era apparently replaced by the evolving
qT |
1 T 1
qt 1
1
qT qT |
T
qT 7 q
| qT
TI
y q
qT qT 1 q q I q
monkeys.
° ° = ye)
N Le = ” wn
o ° Millions of Years Ago
*
Men and Tools
of the Old Stone Age
5,000,000(?) to 1,600,000 B.P.*

10. Skull from Lake Turkana

site, northern Kenya, c. 2,000.-
000 B.P. Cranial capacity c. 800
cc. H. habilis range: 480 to 800
cc. The earliest known stone
tools (from Hadar in Ethiopia)
were the work of H. habilis.

14. Mankind’s earliest stone tools, “pebble tools” and “choppers,”

made continued in
first by Homo habilis, 2,750,000 or more B.P.,
use in China and Southeast Asia to the end of the Paleolithic.
Similar tools are
today being used in the Philippines by the Tasa-
day. They are
simply water-worn cobbles crudely flaked on one c. Chopping tool, d. Vallonet cave
a. Oldowan chopper, b. Pebble tool, Chopper,
side to form a
jagged cutting edge and may be hafted to a stick. Olduvai
North Africa
Gorge, Vaal River,
Tanzania South Africa
1,600,000 to 75,000 B.P.

ACHEULIAN
11. Sinanthropus (‘‘Peking HAND AXES
Man’), from Choukoutien, near ABBEVILLIAN
B.P.
Peking (Beijing), c. 360,000 HAND AXES
Capacities of four “Peking”
skulls: 1015 to 1225 cc. H. er-

ectus range: 774 to 1250 cc.

One relic, from Vértesszoéllés,

Hungary: 1400 cc. +.

15. Bifacial hand axes, shaped by thinning down nodules on two

faces to form an
edge, are of two orders: the Abbevillian (earlier
forms) and the Acheulian (more finished). Early specimens of both
appeared 750,000 to 430,000 8.P.
Though named for the Euro-
pean sites where first found, the industries are well known, with
little or no change, in Africa, Northwest India, and the Near East—
d. Swanscombe,
indicating a broad diffusion of learned skills.
Somme River b. Olduvai
a. Gorge, c. Olduvai Gorge, Kent, England
Terraces, near Tanzania Tanzania
500,000 to 40,000 B.P.
Abbeville,
France

12. Homo
sapiens neander-
thalensis (Neanderthal), from
Shanidar, B.P.
Iraq, 60,000
Cranial capacity: 1700 cc.

Neanderthal ranges: 2 1300

LEVALLOISO-
to 1425 cc., d 1525 to 1700 UPPER . MOUSTERIAN
cc.;
inches,
mean
heights:
3 5 feet 5 inches.
2 4 feet 10
LEVALLOISIAN &

Mero% rE
th
-
\

16. Levalloisian flake tools, in contrast to bifacial hand axes, were

struck from nuclear cores, then “retouched” to various uses. The

Mousterian, flake-tool industry distinguished by fine retouching,
originated possibly c. 240,000 B.P., but became associated with Mount Carmel,
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. \t is found distributed from west-
mere * Israel
b.
ern
Europe through the Near
techniques combined with it
East.
to constitute
In some

a
areas

mixed
Levalloisian
Levalloiso-
a. Point,
Houpeville,
Flake,
Corbiac, Uf. rd e. Point,
Mount Carmel,
Mousterian style, which spread down East Africa to the Cape. In
Normandy Dordogne, c. Point
Israel
Northwest Africa, a local flake culture, the Aterian, followed the Erect France
Acheulian. Refdaf Pass,
Kharga, Egypt

from
PROTO-
40,000 B.P.
MAGDALENIAN
See NR OLA
13. Homo
sapiens sapiens cena GRAVETTIAN j. Backed
blade
(Cro-Magnon Man) from Dor- Font Robert
dogne, France,
Cranial
c. 20,000
1580 cc.
B.P.

Fos-
PERRONIAN :
c. Burin,
;

=}
i} e.

Gore scraper,
g-
tanged point, SEtetnG
Laugerie
Franco
Haute

capacity: La Ferrassie, La Ferraissie,

Bi}
| Willendorf, A
a5

means: 2° 1370cc.,
|

sil-sapiens
5 France Austria » France
iiHt
'

d 1580 cc.; mean

feet
1 inch,
heights: ¢ 5
d 5 feet 3 inches to B,
ir
Pi
t
tal
¢ =
'
aN |

5
;
nh,
6 f

|
igs
i
{
6 feet.
=<
4 7
i 4

eS cf
i i
é

:4 i‘ " ie d A
b. Flake, irs «60UWlCUGe CUE
!

‘
17.
From
Blade

prepared
industries
cores
first
of obsidian
flint, parallel-sided
appeared
or
with modern Homo sapiens.
strips were
\ a
LaFerrassie, \
J

Ye ei] f

J
oe
ice
d. Solid-based
struck and shaped to specialized uses.
Originating in the Near
bone
ow ;
East, the technique spread, both north into Asia and west into point i. Burin
a. Knife, g ieee
f. h. Slight!
ny
turning south to Northwest Africa in two waves LaFerrassie, Blade, ant

Europe, whence, Kostienki | '

k. Bone point ©
(Mouillian and Capsian), it was carried eastward to the Nilotic zone Arcy-sur-Cure, pee shouldered with
and southward to the Cape. Blade industries are of many styles
France veGarnel,
wee with
point U.S.S.R. end,
beveled
|
@

and display a spectacular assortment of new tools and hunting wide tang,
Laugerie
weapons of bone, horn, and stone. Willendorf, Haute,
Austria France
“before present
 e. Chopper,
Vértesszollés,
Hungary
China

THE DISCOVERY OF BEAUTY

The fashioning of tools beautifully symmetrical beyond

the requirements of mere use marks the beginning of
FINAL the history of art already in the period of Homo erectus.
ACHEULIAN The pebble tools of Homo habilis and choppers found
at Choukoutien can be explained—like the occasional
tools of apes—in economic terms. Such an implement
as theAcheulean hand axe (15h), however, gives evi-
dence of a grade of consciousness equal to satisfac-
tions beyond the economic. Its size the undamaged and
surface suggest an application to symbolic function. a
Such an object of “divinely superfluous beauty” (Robin-
son Jeffers’ phrase) may have served a ceremonial

function. If so, the beginnings of ritual, as well as of art,

must together be assigned (in Europe, at least) to the
e. L’atelier
era of Homo erectus.
Commont, France
feSatani-Dar y

Armenia,
UEStoiRe

ATERIAN

i. Scraper,
MOUSTERIAN Asprochaliko,
Greece

p. Advanced
m. Circular bifacial
ne
point,
k. tanged scraper, 0. Tanged point, Tit Mellil,
Classical
j- Point, bifacial scraper, Tiouririne-Erg ce Morocco

Combe-Grenal, |. Classical Tihodaine, Sahara

Staroselé,
Guettar, ahara
:

Ukraine, Dordogne, El
Tunisia
n.
Tanged point,
US SR
France El Djouf,
Algeria

/})
Pekarna, CAPSIAN
tt

Moravia ADVANCED
CAPSIAN
|||.
y AGDALINIAN ||
SOLUTRIANShouldered n.
|
|
ao
~
:
|

Tunisia |

point, Laugerie Haute, 4

France (| Ne

| ie :

Harpoon, u. Backed
; | Limeuil,
blade,
ae |] Borne
France Tunisia
Laugerie Haute, |! Awl
v. Decorated baton,
m. “Laurel leaf”
Spain La Madeleine,
point, Parpallo, France
Spain p. Needle,
Parpallo,
Spain

w. La Madeleine,
Spear thrower, France
 ane
aie
dase

Sadan
Sao

et
PSI
et

ae
III
Ne
Se

Soe
5m
Sy)
5
Sesseete
eee
de
35)
go
ete
age
aeae
ane aes
 THE AWAKENING OF AWE
Man is the that knows death;
only being
all others become old, but with a

consciousness limited
wholly
to the moment, which must
seem to them eternal.

They see death, not

knowing anything
about it.

OSWALD SPENGLER, The Decline of the West

“In a child,” ‘So it in the to fashion tool for the

says Spengler, continuing was
beginning.’’”” a
fashioning of
this “the of the inner In the of tools.
thought, awakening relatively short period man- “When a man
goes to work on

life is often associated with the death of kind’s to reconcile what be Lorenz “he takes
attempts may something,” writes,
some relation. The child suddenly termed our “second mind,” that of our into
grasps account, continuously, during his
the lifeless corpse for what it is, some- and fear of death, with the the of the ob-
knowledge performance, ‘responses’
that has become that of animal
thing wholly matter, “first,” our innocence, ject, and by these governs the
following
wholly and at
the same moment it there have been the earliest of acts. For
space, stages, example, in driving a nail every
feels itself as an individual being in an which was of such animal blow of the hammer has to be made to
messengers—
alien extended world.” And he quotes encountered both in life and in dream— for the bend
compensate imperceptible
Tolstoi to this ‘From the child of as those of which Letakots-Lesa told. For the nail the
point: given by stroke before it. .

. .

five to is but a But from the the life force cannot be he

myself step. structuring safely Indeed,”’ adds, “‘it appears that this
new-born to the child of five is an
disregarded of that primal tide which for close tie between
baby very action and percep-
the 3% billion has been evolv-
appalling distance.’ past years tion, praxis and
gnosis, depends upon the
We have to ask: When was it in the ing forms of existence of a
long ever-increasing complexity special central organ, which
of the and such have
course evolution of our
genus that beauty, as
lately culmi- only man
possesses, in the Gyrus supramar-
this to the of death nated in those “two noble
awakening knowledge appearances” ginalis of the left inferior temporal lobe of
set man from the beasts and (as Goethe terms them in his Morphology the brain.
apart plants? Injury to this part, in which,
From the moment of life’s first appear- of Plants) of the tree and the human body. significantly, the ‘speech center’ is seated,
some 342 billion in the It can have been at some unre- leads in man,
ances, years ago, only not
only to
speech distur-
briny oceans of our the innocence corded moment in the course of the last but also
planet, bances, to certain malfunctions in
of Eden had until, at some 32 million of these both action and
prevailed point years developments perception, apraxia and
in time, the which the lines of that in the human line the crisis occurred
eyes along agnosia; and it has not as
yet been possible
animal life had evolved as of the of that to the of to in
agents awakening mystery identify apes comparable centers or

for nourishment were to a death, and therewith of life, which— to in them

quest opened produce any such malfunc-
dimension within, beyond, and behind more than transformation— tions.”’*! Richard
any physical Leakey reports evidence
what in India is termed “the sheath of elevated man above the level of the of the existence of this in a Homo
organ
the visible forms of ‘that live but know
food,” tangible, phe- beasts, nothing of life, habilis skull.”

nomenality. At that instant the conscious- and that die and see death,” as We know that Homo habilis made
Spengler tools—
ness of man fell in two, in the remarks, ‘‘without tools” of the
separated knowing anything “pebble simplest kind—and
awakened mind from the innocence, not about it.”” that did not. We do not
australopithecines
only of the beasts without, but also of the The brains of the ac- know what Homo habilis used
australopithecines, them for;
beast within, which the is cording to Carleton S. Coon, were “‘a little do have
by body shaped, nor we evidence from his camp-
in the mother womb, and for their size than the brains sites of ritual
plantlike, larger body any practices, amulets, or

through which it has maintained itself for of the but not

living great apes, enough even ornaments.
Leakey believes that his
millenia by killing, eating, and larger to indicate, without in the
digesting supplementary successor
evolutionary series, Homo
other living things. evidence, a substantial difference in intel- erectus, had a brain and vocal apparatus
“When know how he It is that could
a man
sought to ligence. unlikely they that ‘‘would have enabled him to
speak in
should live,’”” Natalie Curtis was told speak.” The cranial of the a slow and rather fashion.’
by capacities ‘clumsy’
the Pawnee chief Letakots-Lesa, “he went from about 325 to 685 And indeed, the evidence of Homo
higher apes range erec-

into solitude and cried until in vision cc; those of the from tus’s finest tools an order of con-
australopithecines, suggests
some animal brought wisdom to him. It about 435 to 700 and those of Homo sciousness the Homo
cc; approaching sapiens
was Tirawa, in truth, who sent his mes- habilis, from about 643 to 800 cc.” But size However, it is not until the
range. period
the animal. He is not the whole What of of Neanderthal Man in
sage through never
spoke story. structures
Europe, toward
to himself, but gave his command to the brain do find? the close of the Ice
man we
great Ages, during the
beast or
bird, and this one came to some Konrad Lorenz makes the that Riss-Wurm that the first in-
point interglacial,
chosen man and him humans, in contrast to think dubitable
taught holy things. apes, can
signs appear anywhere—
Thus were the sacred and ceremon- immediate need and when in burials of the dead and in reli-
songs beyond an use
namely,
ial dances given the Pawnees the a tool. It is one to shrines to the animals slain—of that
through fashioning thing pick up quary
animals. stick of the which
a or a
stone, or even to
shape it to a recognition mysterium marks
end, and another to let the the waking of the
present quite mythologically inspired
18. Neanderthal skull. stone or stick itself or “second mind.”
suggest procedures,

20
 THE PEOPLING OF
Geleverat ea!

Africa and Eurasia gazelle horns with parts of the skulls at- was the first to unearth and identify a

Homo habilis relic

tached, showing evident signs of use, (at Olduvai, 1960), rec-

a of its
The first long season of human habitation possibly as
digging tools; australopithe- ognized through contrast-study
almost teeth with those of
palates with the teeth
tribes cine an
of the earth was of moving apart,
worn
australopithecine
contact with each other, as constant use as skull which his wife had discovered the
losing entering away, though through
and there to know human are used before (Zinjanthropus, known today
new territories, coming scrapers, as
palates today year
the local animals and of the natives of the area. The as
Australopithecus boise) that, whereas
as
neighbors only by some
sensational of that other had been a
herbivore, his new
valleys and however,
most were
plants, waters, rocks, hills, slides,
all experienced with baboon and skulls that find was of an
omnivore, a meat-eater and
as
living presences australopithecine
and interests of their The had been fractured the blows of a type hunter. In other words, just as there are,
powers
own.
by
the natural world, the
motherland had been the beautiful high of bludgeon having two nubs, or proc- throughout among
insects and the the reptiles and the
plain of equatorial East Africa, Mount esses, at the hitting end, and, as Dart was fishes,
the horizon, northward to able to demonstrate, such dents could birds, as well as
among mammals, genera
Kenya on
and southward to the have been caused the double shaped to feed on
plants and others to
Ethiopia Cape, only by
feed on the eaters of plants, so at the

opening moment of the primate mutation

to human rank, two
contrasting genera
were let loose on the African plain: the
one to eat
plants and to flee when threat-
ened, the other to
pursue, to attack, and
to kill. And is it not remarkable, that, al-
both Homo habilis and the austral-
though
had forelimbs and hands re-
opithecines
leased from quadrupedal bondage to the
earth, it was
only the hands of Homo habt-
lis that took charge of the pebbles of the
earthsto break them into tools? Between
the instinctive attitude toward the envi-
ronment of a creature whose body and
nervous
system are
programmed to alarm
and flight, and that of one who lives, on

the contrary, by stalking and attacking,

there is an irreducible contrast. All the

eyes, nostrils, and ears of the great herds

4 to 5 million 19. The

high East African plain; in the background, on the Serengeti Plain of Tanzania today
where, as
early as
years ago,
of the of the Kikuyu
there were at the
Mt. Kenya, sacred peak gods are ever on the alert for the first sight,
large among grazing tribe, 17,058 feet high.
herds an number of manlike/ scent, or
signal of the lion at whose roar
increasing
the they will scatter. The lion’s are
apelike bipeds: some, in way of beasts eyes
and knob at the end of the humulus of focussed forward. Those of the grazing
of prey, running down tearing apart upper
cattle are at the sides of their heads, to
their quadrupedal neighbors; others, veg-
an
ungulate, leg bone of a gazelle.”
the
and to left, the watch all around,
generally agreed that all such
on
etarians themselves, wearing down their It is now right
teeth and whether of stone, their ears ever
turning to catch the first
on
gathered roots, nuts, fruits, primitive implements,
leaves. of bone, or of horn, were not of the sound, and their nostrils scenting the
veg-
the wind. The broad plain is for them ref-
Among the remains of from 2 to 3 mil- etarian bipeds, australopithecines a
for the lion, table. The
(Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, A.
a
lion years ago the
possible, crudest delib- uge; banquet
tools boisei, and such), but of the earliest attitude of and attack, which in
erately-shaped stone begin to ap- species mastery
of man, “able, the animal is the first life-princi-
by cutting and
or
pear, fit for the preparation handy, competent kingdom
Homo habilis. The of all carnivores, became in the human
pounding of meat and vegetable foods: man,” australopithe- ple
for the preparation of skins cines were the breed, to 150 hunter extended and addressed to the
possibly, also, larger up
about the size of a gorilla, whereas whole environment. can
for clothing, blankets, or the coverings of pounds, Chimpanzees
shelters.” At the Fifth International the remains of Homo habilis are of a race of hurl, or make use of occasional
crude pick up,
for immediate
Congress of
Anthropological Sciences, hardly 60 pounds, no larger than a pygmy sticks and stones purposes,
of Pennsylvania in some 4 to 4'/, feet tall. But as both Kohler in The Mentality
held at the
University chimpanzee, Wolfgang
the largest and Goodall her In the
1956, the original discoverer of the first the cranial capacities of even of Apes Jane in
500 Shadow Man have shown with
australopithecine relic, Raymond Dart of australopithecines never
surpassed of many
the maximum of the of Koéhler’s
Witwatersrand University, Johannes- cc, largest now-living examples.”’ Indeed, one
capi-
male
berg, South Africa, exhibited a series of apes; whereas the capacities of Homo ha- tal examples, an
especially clever
could
slides showing what were
obviously im- bilis skulls range to as
high as 800 cc. named Sultan, on
finding that he
with his hand banana
plements, not of stone, but of bone and of “Man,” as
Spengler has reminded us, not reach a
placed
“is a beast of prey,’’”° or, as is more usu- bait outside his walked about
jaws of large antelopes
horn: the lower as
cage,
B. Leakey, who and to shoe-
ally said, ‘a hunter.” L.S. a
cut in half to be used as saws or knives; searchingly, finally turning

26
 ARCTIC OCEAN

S
‘CP
MS

Arctic Circle

La
ASwanséo
Chappelie-
A aux-Saints
ALa Ferre

AArag
= 5
h ATLANTIC
A OCEAN
Tropic of Cancer \si ttle ICN
Salt Spring

Equator
a
ATLANTIC AA Djetis, JOS
Tenia. f=
PACIFIC OCEAN
OCEAN ASolo—™ SF
A Modjokerto

INDIAN OCEAN
Tropic of Capricorn
ot
kfontein

>
Hopefield
A
AElandsfontei
ST

Ba A.
nn _ SF
Antarctic Circle

ae &
ANTARCTICA

Chronology of hominization

4.0 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.05 0.01 Millions of
| |
0.1 years ago
as peg
hee gk

er ee | =| ;
| i ; :
[ie eS

|
L|
Warmer
| |
oN gy
Gi lg“ONS ghee
J
PES
poo —— itt
gi SP ey eat || | Present mean annual

wnNg ff or QV temperature
har ee SS Cooler

Hominization and Dispersal, 3,800,000 B.C. to c. 7700 B.C.

Hominoid specimens, by archeological sites of hominoids

Hypothetical ranges

Significant archeological sites

PP Australopithecus Australopithecus
Pleistocene shorelines PF Homo habilis ] Homo habilis

| Contemporary shorelines Fr Homo erectus Homo erectus

as
Exposed

Uninhabited
continental

and/or
shelf

marginally inhabited regions, c. 8000 B.c.

rr Archaic

Modern
Homo

Homo
sapiens

sapiens __|
Archaic

Modern
Homo

Homo
sapiens

sapiens

Map 7. Chronology of the evolution, and geographic ranges of the Noteworthy is the coincidence of periods of accelerated evolution
global expansion, of the genus Homo, to about 7700 in five with advances
B.c., glacial (indicated on
temperature curve
by blue val-
stages: (1) from about 3,800,000 B.c., evidences in Africa of Aus- leys): about 1,500,000 B.c., Homo habilis to Homo erectus during
tralopithecus (immediate forebear of the genus Homo); (2) range of the Donau—Nebraskan glacial peak; about 600,000 B.c., Homo
Homo habilis, to about 1,250,000 (3) extended of Homo erectus to archaic Homo
B.c.; range sapiens during thepeak; Mindel-lllinoian
erectus, to about 500,000 B.c.; (4) additional extensions by “ar- and about archaic to modern Homo
50,000 sB.c., sapiens during the
chaic’” Homo sapiens (Neanderthal Man in Europe and the Near Riss-Wurm—Wisconsin peak. The double naming of each glacial
East; “Solo Man” in Java; and, in Africa, specimens indicated, period correlates standard Old and New World glacial nomencla-
variously named), to about 40,000 B.c.; and (5) from about 50,000 ture. Map and scale after data provided by John A. Van Couvering
B.C., occupation of the habitable earth by “modern” Homo sapiens of the American Museum of Natural History on evidence available
(Homo sapiens sapiens). March, 1983.

27
scraper made of iron bars in a wooden action was of the indirect attack, not im-
worked it until he had aim, but me-
frame, at
pulled mediately on the intended
out one of the bars, and with this then the fashioning of a tool.
diately, through
made for the object of his zeal to draw it No relics of Australopithecus have been
to within reach.” A female named found outside of Africa, and 1.4 million
ape by
Chica, another in a mock the was extinct. Remains
chasing fight, years ago genus
saw a stone, to it and identified as of Homo habilis, on
stopped pick up, probably
when it did not
immediately come
away, the other hand, possibly from as
early as

scratched and dragged until it broke 3 to 4 million years ago, have been recog-
loose, then resumed the chase and flung nized as far afield as
Java,*! the evident
the stone at her We in its
playmate.” can
per- implication being that, already ear-

credit much the habilis

haps as to
australopithe- liest years, the species Homo en-

cines. But such an

object, employed its to include not
only Africa,
larged range
briefly as a tool and dropped, is not prop- but the entire Old-World equatorial belt.
erly comparable to even the crudest in-
22. An adult skull of Australopithecus boisei, for-
dustry of stones
intentionally shaped for in the
merly called Zinjanthropus. Discovered, 1959,
which, in the Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania, c.1.8 million old.
repeated use, moreover, years
24. Classified as Homo habilis, yet more than 2.8
million years old, this earliest relic ancestral to man-

kind, known simply as “skull number 1470,” was

unearthed in 1972 at Lake Turkana in northern

Kenya.

Homo habilis disappeared with the gla-

cial advances of the first Ice Age, when
even in Africa the snow line
equatorial
descended to below 9000 feet
misty, and

cold, cloud-saturated forestsspread from

the highlands to all but a few protected
enclaves on the coastal plains. By the time
the clouds had lifted and the chill re-

ceded, members of the second human

20. 4 million old, of an Homo erectus, were
encamped on
Fragments, possibly years species,
skull and femur discovered, 1981, Turkana
australopithecine the shores of Lake (in Kenya),
in the valley of the Awash River in Ethiopia. We are
where Homo habilis had lived
here very close to the moment of separation of the formerly
hominid line of descent from that of the African pon- alongside the last of the australopithe-
gidae or apes. cines. Indeed, by that time, other mem-

bers of this second had already

species
hands of Homo habilis represented the first
spread, not
only along the earlier way
condition of a hominid technology that,
without interruption through the next 2
million years, was to advance and expand
to an
age of rockets to the moon, comput-
erized information banks, and oil drills
20,000 feet into the earth. ‘“Technology,” wy
as
Spengler perceived, “is the very strat-

egy of life: the essential form of action in a f 4 Ss %

:

\ ie @;
5 4
»
& las
2 Ge
wS,
4
‘

\ ,

Ly \
.
‘A
‘

25. The prominent brow ridges of this typical Homo

erectus skull (from China, c. 700,000 B.c.?) are char-
acteristic over the whole domain and throughout the
more than million years of the unknown history of
this Glacial-Age pre-sapiens race.

to Java, but also north into both China

21. This famous skull
australopithecine child
of an
and southern Europe.
(Australopithecus africanus)—found in Taung, South
The season of Homo erectus endured for
Africa, in 1924—-was one of the first recognized aus-

tralopithecine discoveries. Its milk dentition is com- a million stretch of

nearly years—a longer
plete and the upper and lowerfirst permanent molars
23. The of this little female skeleton time than that between its close the
in process of eruption. The
possessor (at
are
dating is disputed, walked fully erect, 4 feet tall, some 3.5 million years
ranging from 3 to 0.87 million years ago. ago in the Hadar region of Ethiopia. Of the peak of the Mindel glaciation) and today.
species
Australopithecus afarensis, which some
regard as Furthermore, it was
during that long sea-
the battle that is life itself.’”°° And in the ancestral to all the later hominids, she is known son that the differentiation of Paleolithic
of the Homo, which made affectionately as Lucy, was discovered in 1974, and
industries in
history genus can be thought of by those still interested in coordi-
(illustrated Map 6, page 23)
its first appearance as the little beast of occurred, the eastern races
continuing
nating science and the Bible as the great-great-
Homo habilis, the peculiar form of with and tools
prey, great-great grandmother of Eve. pebble chopper (comple-

28
mented, no doubt, of and about 1435 cc; from Kabwe (Broken cies of Homo inherited the
by implements sapiens ...

bamboo and other Hill) in Zaire (Rhodesia), 125,000 earth.”

perishable materials), years
while in the west the hand ax came into ago (formerly dated 40,000), a much-stud- A number of notable finds have been
use. Invented in Africa about a million ied skull, now in the British Museum, of made that seem to have about set-
lately
the manufacture of this versa- 1280 cc; and from Elandsfontein tled the Their fall be-
years ago, (Hope- argument. datings
tile bifacial core-tool both north field, South Africa), a cranial vault of un- tween 60,000 and 40,000 The
spread years ago.
into and eastward into India, be- certain 1200 to 1250 cc. The Javanese racial affinities are and
Europe age, Neanderthaloid,
eleven mutilated
yond which passed. In it never its earlier, examples are
skulls, the tool kits, Mousteroid. The most inter-
cruder forms (called Abbevillean), and in placed by some authorities at 400,000 is the male skeleton of the
esting now-

the later, more

(Acheulean), and others at about 40,000, famous ‘‘suttee and flower burial’
craftsmanly years ago by at
it remained the which found at Shanidar
principal stone implement were
together Ngandong, in northern Irag, which is dis-
of western Paleolithic mankind until about a site on the Solo River, and have been cussed on 53. The date is c. 60,000
page
the middle of the Riss-Wtrm variously classified either as Homo erectus which marks it of the
glacial age, years ago, as one

when the Mousterian flake was or as Homo sapiens, their volumes ranging earliest ceremonial burials record. Two
technique on

introduced. from 1035 to 1255 cc. other are from sites

important specimens

Cranial and Tool Manufacture

Capacity
The of the
apparent relationship quality
of stone-tool manufacture to cranial ca-

is Cranial variations
pacity interesting.
are
considerable, of course, over the wide
and the season of the
range during long
second species of our
genus. The earliest
African, Lake Turkana specimens (twenty
or more at last count), dating from c. 1.6
to 1.3 million years ago, are of volumes
around 900 cc, while from Olduvai
nearby
(Bed II), c. 1.2 million a
years ago, speci-
men known as Chellean-3 Man has turned

up, which already registers 1150 cc.

Java
Man (the erectus,
original Pithecanthropus
Figure 39, page 34), now dated to c. 1
million years ago, had a cranial capacity
still at the 900 cc level, and Peking Man
(Homo erectus sinensis, known also as Sin- The in northern 26.
appearance Europe of Neanderthal Man, Homo sapiens neanderthal-
who is six ensis, now known also as “archaic” Homo sapiens,
anthropus), represented by the Mousterian flake
technique during is here represented in a skull from the last
skulls from shows the phase of
c. 700,000 years ago, a middle of the Riss-Wirm glacial age his hundred-thousand existence. Taken from
year
from 780 to 1225 cc, with a mean of was associated with the the
range directly appear- cave burial at La Chapelle-aux-Saints (described
1020 from eastern at on
51), it has been roughly dated
cc; whereas, Europe, ance in that frigid region at that time of page c. 45,000 to

that 35,000 B.c.

time, from Vértessz6llés Buda- Homo
(near sapiens neanderthalensis—a physi-
we have an 27. Homo sapiens sapiens, fully modern paleo-
pest), occipital fragment cally prodigiously powerful, local archaic lithic
to a cranial (with a brain capacity, however, somewhat
man

judged represent capacity ex- sapiens race, which entered the prehistoric
larger than that of fully modern twentieth-century
ceeding 1400 cc. scene about 150,000 The cranial
years ago. man) is supremely represented by the artists of the
We are here at the brink or threshold of of this distinctive race great Cro-Magnon caves of southern France and
capacities ranged northern
the transit from Homo erectus from 1400 to 1600 and since the Spain. This noble skull from the Dordogne,
evolutionary c. cc; av-
c. 40,000 B.c., is of the same terminal glacial period
to “archaic’’ Homo and the large of is
sapiens erage range European man
today as the “archaic’’-sapiens skull of Figure 26.
hand of 15h from the from 1450
ax
Figure (page 23), to 1500 cc, it is evident that
banks of the river Thames, testifies to the Homo neanderthalensis could not at Mount which have been
sapiens Carmel, Israel,
of mind, as well as to the skill of have been the half-brained of
quality ape-man variously dated betweeen 47,000 and
hand, of the inhabitants of that region at belief. Indeed, it now to the from
popular seems
40,000 years ago: earlier, Mug-
that time. It is a consummate example of have been in some
province within the haret et Tabun, a skull with a
capacity of
the Acheulean bifaced hand ax. The only of his dominion that the next 1271 and the from
range major cc, later, Mugharet et
known relevant cranial specimens—be- advance of the Homo occurred, Skhul, a skull of from 1450 to 1518 cc.
genus
sides the extraordinary Vértesszollés frag- to the status of Homo The that
namely, sapiens argued implications are it was

ment c. 700,000 two fe-

of years ago—are sapiens. here, in the Near East, in the period of the
male skulls: one from Steinheim (near Riss-Wurm that the evolu-
interglacial,
of around 1175 cc; the other
Stuttgart), tionary passage was
accomplished from
from Swanscombe (Kent, above Graves-
A Locus Eden
archaic sapiens rank to modern; and
along
end, unearthed near the Thames), around for with this, a dramatic advance in technol-
1325 cc. The dates given for these two The is still under but the from the Mousteroid flake to the Au-
question debate, ogy
from c. 300,000 to c.
evidence blade
specimens range is
accumulating in favor of rignacoid technology. tool cra- The
150,000 years ago. northeast Africa and the Near East as the nial capacities, then, of those earliest
Outside of comparable vol-
Europe, critical area of what David Pilbeam has representatives of our own
proud stage of
umes at such dates have been identified described the “Garden of Eden” the
as
likely evolutionary course, as
typified in
only in Africa and Java; notably: at Jebel out of which “modern” Homo went Man artist of the great
sapiens Cro-Magnon (the
(Morocco), an undated skull of
Ighoud forth between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago Paleolithic painted caves of southern
1480 cc; from the Omo River (Ethiopia), a
and of and France and northern
‘through a
process swamping Spain), was between
cranial vault of roughly 130,000 1500 and 1800
years ago replacing older and more archaic subspe- cc.

29
 Old Melanesia, c.
20,000 B.c.

9
* wees
Configuration of ‘Old Melanesia”

-—~—
Late Pleistocene shorelines

shorelines

G2 |_|
®
Contemporary

§Significant archeological sites

Old Melanesia
In the
period of the entry of Cro-Magnon S_Q%®o
Man into Europe, at the height of the
PACIFIC OCEAN
Wiirm glaciation, so much of the earth’s
water was locked in ice that the ocean

levels were from 200 to 400 feet lower than

today, and lands now under wave were

high and dry. Animals and their hunters

passed from Siberia to Alaska across a

as broad as the nation of

landbridge
France (see Maps 9 to 12, pages 34-35),
while in the south the Asian mainland
was
joined by the exposed continental
Sunda shelf to what are now the
separate
islands of Hainan, Borneo, Sumatra, Java,
and Bali (see Map 8). Beyond Bali the
INDIAN OCEAN
ocean floor drops abruptly; but beyond
this break (known as the Wallace line, or

Wallacea) there is another shallow called

the Sahul shelf, which New Guinea
by
was at that time
joined to the augmented
continent of Australia, with land where
there is now the Great Barrier Reef and in
the south a
landbridge to Tasmania.

Thus, wherever the homeland—the

Garden of have been of Homo
Eden—may
Va
e

Cave
least evident that
;

sapiens sapiens, it is at
the end of the last Ice
already before Age,
members of this fourth species of the ge-
nus Homo were not
only out of
moving,
the Near East into but also, at the
Europe,
other two extremities of the Asian conti-

nent, across into Alaska, and

Beringland
across Sundaland to the Wallacean brink,
there to across shark-infested waters Map 8.
gaze
toward the appealing islands beyond.
The earliest tangible evidence of the
in Sundaland of a modern Homo sia; and the arrows of into the Indonesian but the
presence bamboo-pointed archipelago,
sapiens population is in the form of a shat- some in the continent of Sahulland had separated into
Negrito groups Philippines,
tered skull that was unearthed in 1959 then the idea is Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea.
appealing.’’*°
from of 8 feet 4 inches beneath the The racial of the Niah skull is Then in 1971, still another 20,000
a depth type rec- years
floor of the great Niah cave in Sarawak, both Carleton Coon and after the of the Tabon skull, in a
ognized by period
Borneo 32 and Map 8, site Ra- Howells the
(Figure 2). as
suggesting the modern Tas- high mountain jungle on
neighboring
diocarbon dated to 37,600 + 1000 manian island of there
B.c.,
Negrito.* In a related find, in the Philippine Mindanao,
below it were
culture-bearing deposits Tabon Cave the western shore of the were discovered the now-famous
on
“gentle
going back to at least 50,000 B.c.
Chop- Philippine island of Pelawan (see Map 8), Tasadays,” still using the samé Age Stone

ping tools and coarse flakes were the char- there unearthed in 1966 frontal tools and,
were a as
reported, ‘‘wearing only or-
acteristic artifacts all the when
way down, sug- bone and an almost toothless jaw, like- chid-leaf g-strings they appeared at
gesting, as William Howells, Curator of wise of or Tasmanian and the mouth of their cave.” In the words of
Negrito type;
Somatology at the Peabody Museum, their is the leader of the
although dating c. 20,000 B.c., discovering expedition,
Harvard, has remarked, that in this part these remains were associated with the “It was almost unbelievable—a shock—
of the world, ‘‘wood was the real basis of same crude of tool had like back into time thou-
type chopping as
suddenly going
implements and weapons, the stone flakes been found with the Niah skull of a date sands of years.’’*
-

serving only to and sharpen wood 20,000 earlier. Howells has named Indeed, no more demon-
scrape years spectacular
javelins, or bamboo points to be hafted the conservative Old Stone stration of the conservatism of an Old
remarkably
with thongs, or
digging sticks, and so on. in these two Stone could have been de-
Age assemblage represented Age people
If we remember,” he continues, “the sim- related finds, the Old Melanesian Cul- sired. “Our fathers and told
grandfathers
ple but
dangerous javelins of the Tasman- ture, with a from c. 50,000 to be- us,” said a male about
dating Tasaday twenty
ians; the copious use by Australian abo- tween 8000 and 5000
B.c.—by which time years old, ‘that we could go out into the
of as well the forest in but must return
riginals equally simple spears, seas, augmented by the melting of the daytime, always
as
completely barbed ones, made entirely glaciers, had risen to their present levels; to the caves at
night.’°° And the words
of wood; similar things in recent Melane- so
that, not had Sundaland dissolved true: one hears their like in
only ring every part

30
of the primitive world, where the ances-
28/29. The in 1971
“gentle Tasaday,” discovered
tors of an
imagined past are revered as still dwelling in their ancestral caves, readily fash-
and for ioned whatever stone tools they required from peb-
having established, once all, the
bles taken from a
nearby stream, some of which
norms and forms for life in a timeless were fixed with rattan wrappings to crude handles.
present. Any change in the ways of life,
or even in
the shape of a tool is
fraught
with danger. The Tasaday were food gather-
not hunters,
ers, surviving on palm piths
and various flowers and fruits
foraged
from their mountain.
They declared that

they loved their place in the forest and

never wanted to leave. are ex-
“They
the
tremely gentle,’” was
finding of the
first report, ‘“and move
through the jun-
gle with what to outsiders is extraordi-

nary ease—leaping from tree to tree, slid-

ing down vines, bounding down grassy

trails.” In other of the same
parts high
mountain retreat, some 4000 feet above
sea
level, there were other, more numer-

ous, and more advanced peoples, practic-

ing horticulture. Nevertheless, this little
cluster of old-timers, no more than twenty-
four individuals when discovered, had
held onto the not of their fath-
ways, only P
ke
ad |
f
? ie{f 4
ers and grandfathers, but also of their
ancestors back for at least
2 oN Pe A
50,000 years.
4
Ch
LN
NX
q Ke~~
&

The Fossilized Past

LO
One of the most features of the
interesting
richly fascinating lands and islands now
hn
a
8
/!
pes
Tianeean
dating
plesic
possibly as
aniach

early as
oncad
15,000
aoubietsor
B.c., from
indtety,
Kenniff

remaining above water of the once-united Cave, Queensland, Australia (see Map 8).

Sil
FOSSIL RACES OF OLD MELANESIA
world of Old Melanesia is their harbor- lanesia had been drowned—there ap-
not of on the continent of Australia a

abrupt population age, here and there, only living peared

The fossils of this region reveal whose skeletal remains,
reaches of time. That such as the Tasaday, who have new
people,
changes through the greatest peoples, are
there were already pre-sapiens inhabitants of Java
carried into the ancestral forms from two
widely separate stations,
there of present
we know from specimens recently found but different from those of the earlier,
3 to 4 million ago, as well as dating from Old Stone Age times, clearly
Homo habilis, years and more
in the same territories, the bones and Keilor-Mungo, Tasmanoid race,
from the nineteenth-century finds of Java Man also,
first like the modern Australian. From Talgai,
(Pithecanthropus erectus), who is Now thought to tools of those very ancestors who
have lived 2 million years ago (Figure 39, page 34). forms from else- west of Brisbane, came the first of these
the preserved
brought
these of the earth. finds: the flattish, heavily constructed
where to parts
cranium of a with cranial capacity
Judging from the findings in the Niah youth a
of Homo of about 1300 cc, which is hardly greater
Cave, Howells dates the arrival
to B.c. at than that of a Solo skull, and with a
large
sapiens in old Sundaland 38,000
a line of front
the latest, and estimates that the crossing, palate showing straight
trench teeth, in the way of a
pithecanthropoid
then, of the deep-water beyond
of Lombok, A second skull of the kind was
Bali into Sahulland—by way jaw.’
and Timor—must have unearthed in 1925 at the Cohuna-Kow
31. A composite reconstruction of the skull of a Sumbawa, Sumba,
people on the H. erectus/sapiens Cusp as repre- occurred no later than 30,000 B.c.; and the Swamp in Victoria. (See Map 8, site 4,
skulls uncovered at Since then
sented in a cluster of eleven
of human remains at two very
and Figure 34.) a
researching
on the Solo River (see Map 8), which are findings less
Ngandong in southernmost Australia team in the area has uncovered no
now dated to c. 500,000 years ago—the period of
early sites sup-
in which the
and Steinheim in this The first, at a than forty burials specimens,
the Vértesszdllo6s, Swanscombe,
port him judgment.
discover-
29). The Solo-skull cra-
of the to the reports of their
skulls of Europe (see page
place Keilor,called in the valley according
from 1035 to 1225 cc.
in structure
nial volumes range for a scatter- ers, are all clearly different
Marybyrnong River, yielded and of
of crude stone tools the somewhat from the Keilor and Mungo skulls,
ing
date of c. 70,000 B.c., and for
questionable
a second on a later level, the less
deposit,
date of c. 30,000 B.c. After
questionable
ear-
which there followed two skulls, an

lier, classed as Tasmanian, c. 13,000

33) and a later, strikingly
B.c.(Figure
in similar to the first, of c. 4500 B.c.*”
32. The earliest H. sapiens relic yet unearthed
of these sites, on
Old Melanesia is the skull “of a
youth,” and to quote At the second early
Carleton Coon, “between fifteen and seventeen in
the Lake east of Darling
sapiens, and Mungo plain
years old, probably female, definitely found not
found in 1959 New South Wales, there were
equally definitely Australoid.’* It was
beneath the floor of the Niah Cave in fire hearths from 30,000 to 22,000
in pieces huge only
Sarawak on the northwest coast of Borneo (see Map also cremated skeleton of c.
B.c., but a
reconstructed skull, according to Coon’s
8). The the charred bones and skull
most resembles the skulls of the 14,000 B.c.,
judgment, closely
of Tasmania. The cra- of which had been buried in a shallow
(recently extinct) aborigines
is undetermined. Its date, between in still practiced Tas-
nial capacity depression a
way by
and 37,600 B.c., exactly matches that of Cro-
39,500 manians until their extinction in the
Man’s appearance in Europe.
Magnon
middle of the nineteenth century.”
From a number of other finds of roughly
one in eastern New
comparable age,
Guinea and the others in various, widely
of Australia, crude peb-
separated parts
and tools have
ble, flake, chopper-type
found that bear to the
been testimony
same order of culture for old Sa-
33. From asite at the opposite, southern extreme general
at Victo- hulland that we have already seen
repre-
of the Old Melanesian subcontinent, Keilor,
ria, Australia, in the valley of the Marybyrnong River, sented, not
only in the Sundaland caves,
a skull, likewise of Tasmanian/Negrito the hands of the Tasa-
(see Map 8), but also in living
dated as of 13,000 B.c. or of 11,000
type, variously The date for the New Guinea site,
B.c., testifies to the presence throughout the area for day.
known in the Papuan
a season of some 30,000 years of a people ancestral as
Kosipe, high
Tasmania and New Guinea. is B.c.
to the aborigines of both Highlands (see Map 8), c. 25,000
this is variously
The cranial capacity of specimen Australian stations are the
estimated at 1464 to 1593 cc. Representative
Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain

and the Burrill Lake Cave near

Sydney,
the Kenniff Cave in Queensland, and the
Caves in Arnhem Land (all to be
Oenpelli
found from the evi-
Map 8). Judging
on

char-
dence uniformly Tasmanian
of the
Keilor skeletal
acter of the Mungo and
finds, and these with the
comparing ~ * *

34. A very different skull, from the Cohuna-Kow physical traits of the modern aborigines of “ie. tn

Swamp which is also in Victoria(see Map 8),

brow
shows
of
both New Guinea and Tasmania, Howells Tero alt ‘ay
a sloping forehead, prominent (reminiscent and others have concluded that the first
The cra-
the Solo skulls), and extreme prognathism. inhabitants of Old Melanesia must have
the date, c. 7000 and aid of
nial capacity is 1450 cc.; B.c.;
35. Australian, hurling a
javelin with the an

the racial type, Australian. been of this racial strain.” instrument in use
atlatl, or
spearthrower: an already
But then, from a date of c. 10,000 B.c.—
during the Late Stone Age of Europe, Magdalenian
Old Me- B.c.
when the seas had mounted and period, c. 15,000

32
36. Bark painter, Arnhem Land, Australia, rendering
a
legendary design.

radiocarbon between 8000 and In Australia, however, after a dateline 37. Arnhem Land bark
datings painting, showing an imag-
6000 B.c.*? Howells that a com- of c. 5000 a of the ined scene from the mythical isle, Bralku, to which
suggests B.c., variety dog, dingo, souls go after death. Two spirits are welcoming an
of late Tasmanian-like appeared, of which the closest known rel-
pany immigrants arrival. A fire has been lighted and four snakes are to

may have mixed with a strain of Solo des- ative is an Indian wolf; and simultane- be cooked in celebration. Two dingos attend. Jabirus
cendants and this and spoonbills dance.
so
produced subrace, ously came
spear throwers, boomerangs
which then became the dominant and shields, fine unifa-
people pressure flaking,
of Australia. cial and bifacial microliths, and out the island world of New Melanesia,
points,
In no matter what the blades. Notable sites of these later indus- never down in Aus-
any case, geneal- put a single taproot
of these tries are at Devon Downs and Fromm’s tralia. Westward, in the is-
ogical backgrounds Talgai-Co- neighboring
huna people may have been, Tasmania Landing, both on the Murray River, while lands of Indonesia which had been left
had already been populated by tribes of at Kenniff Cave and the Tombs Shelter, in above the waters when Sundaland sub-
the earlier Keilor-Mungo race. So also had Queensland, stenciled hands and other merged, not
only horticulture after 8000
New Guinea. And when, then, with the painted motifs are to be seen, depicting B.c., but also full rice culture (after 5000
rising of the waters, Sahulland became the use of boomerangs, throwers, B.C.) were with
spear practiced, along signifi-
separated into three distinct islands, the and shields.* cant the in
developments seafaring arts.
Tasmanians were cut off with no more There can be no doubt that this whole A new of with
people Mongolian race, a

than the
primitive equipment time, of that new
industry had arrived from else- civilization from the north,
developing
only pointed wooden javelins, no hafted where, probably from India, because, as was at that time
moving down massively
tools, no stone-tipped no Howells has
remarked, “only God can into those islands; and in Australia,
spears, spear yet,
throwers or
boomerangs, no
dogs and, make a
dingo.” To which, then, the as ina the arts and
ques- though museum, ways
worst of all, no boats. could tion arises as to the of horti- of the “fathers and
of
They only why practice grandfathers” an

collect shellfish humbly along the shores, culture, which in due time became of such epi-Paleolithic have re-
hunting age
not even
venturing to catch fish. importance in New Guinea and through- mained preserved to the present day.

33
 38. Acheulean hand ax
representative of the lithic industry 40. Early Mousterian tools
sapiens neanderthal of Homo
of Homo erectus, the species of the genus Homo first to ensis. One facet of by flaking, was strucl
a core, prepared
=

emigrate into Europe and East Asia. 39. W. K. Gregory

_. off so that one side of the tool was flat. 41. W. K. Gregory’
reconstructed this H. erectus head based studies of the reconstruction of Neanderthal Man, based on the origina
|

on _

a
skullcap and molars of
Pithecanthropus erectus found at ~ skull cap from Neanderthal (1856) and that of 1908 fron
= in 1891 La Chapelle-aux Saints
Trinil, Java, (see page 29). i
(26 on page 29).

180°—

PACIFIC PACIFIC
OCEAN Pd OCEAN
o

ATLANTIC ATLANTIC
OCEAN OCEAN

eee 2X

NORTH
Paleolithic Industries, Paleolithic Industries,
AMERICA c.
38,000
H.
to 33,000 B.C. Peedi
ae
A :

c.
26,000
(after H.
to 24,000 B.c.

(after Muller-Beck) Muller-Beck)

Glaciers
BA Glaciers
Advanced pebble-too! industries
Advanced pebble-tool industries
pees
More conservative Mousteroid
>
:

. .

c
6S
> Ve
>
More
industries
conservative Mousteroid

°
industries

Advanced Mousteroid industries

:
Advanced Mousteroid industries with bifacial traditions & stone
G5oO [with projectile bitacial traditions
points
& stone
projectile points
:

aD oe.

fd Aurignacoid industries

Map 9. Whereas the Eastern peoples held to pebble tools, those in the West Map 10. Whether archaic Homo sapiens entered the Americas is still a question.
advanced to the hand ax.
By c. 38,000 B.c., the Mousteroid industry—which had Since, as geologist William G. Haag notes, animals moved freely across the land-
with Neanderthal 8.c.—had been not only enriched and
appeared Man, c.
150,000 bridge during the entire last glaciation, Asiatic man would almost certainly have
improved, but also carried across the whole of circumpolar Eurasia. When increas- followed. “Archaeologists need not be too surprised in the future,” he suggests, “to

ing cold once

again enlarged the glaciers, impounding water and lowering the sea discover evidence of man here and there in North America 50,000 years old or even

level to expose the Bering landbridge, a way was

opened to the New World. older.” The earliest generally recognized possibility is that shown above.

next, from c. 26,000 to c. 24,000 when 37, site 8), identified a se-
B.c., (Map 13, page
there least
was an
open way across
Beringland; ries of cultural strata
going back to at

third, c. 18,000 B.c., when the 20,000 B.c. is a rock shelter

open way Pikimachay
The Americas was closed by advancing ice of the Wis- more than 50 yards long and 25
yards
consin glaciation, after which there devel-
deep. Beneath its floor the first deposits
The of the earliest in isolated America from the
datings migrations out
oped given unearthed were of a ceramic period of c.
of northeast Asia into America roughly Mousteroid base a number of distinctive 1000 B.c., and beneath these were
prece-
match those out of the southeast into Old “Llano industries’’ (notably, Sandia, ramic floors to c. 7000 an
B.c., overlying
Melanesia; for, as the ocean levels fell and Clovis, and Folsom); and then finally, accumulation of rocks about 6 feet deep
rose, the
landbridges became exposed from 10,000 B.c., when the passage again (some weighing 3 to 4 tons) that had fallen
and submerged. Whereas the stone tools opened and there entered waves of ad- from the cave roof. ‘The roof fall,” states
of the southeast were of the old vanced tribes with MacNeish, “which was of the
pebble, hunting equipped consistency
flake, and chopper types, however, those Aurignacoid blade tools, burins, and of cement, sealed off the earlier
securely
carried to America were, first, of an ad- harpoons. from later intru-
deposits any possible
vanced Mousteroid and And what the earlier
development During the late 1960s and early 1970s, sions.””*? deposits
then, from c. 8000 B.c., Aurignacoid. Richard S. MacNeish, director of the Rob- disclosed were: first, a level from terminal
Miiller-Beck’s schematic ert S. Foundation for Archaeol- two intermediate strata,
Hansjtirgen maps Peabody glacial times; next,
(above) illustrate the conditions, first, be- in the radiocarbon-dated to between 11,000 and
ogy, excavating large Pikimachay
fore the of the landbridge; Cave near in Peru 14,000 and four more strata,
appearance Ayacucho highland B.c.; finally,

34
 42. Three types of Aurignacian tool—a burin (a), a solid- near Les Eyzies in the Dordogne: type skull of the Cro-
based bonepoint (b), and a blade (¢)—fashioned by mod- Magnon race, its cranial capacity is + 1600 cc. 44. three
ern Homo sapiens in the Old World. 43. W. K. Gregory’s
types of tool of the Llano industry, developed in the New
classic reconstruction of Cro-Magnon Man, based on the World from an introduced Mousterian base: Sandia (a),
great skull of the “Old Man of Cro-Magnon,” found (1868) Clovis (b), and Folsom (ce)points.

-180°

PACIFIC PACIFIC
OCEAN OCEAN
o
oe

ATLANTIC ATLANTIC
OCEAN OCEAN

Paleolithic Industries, Paleolithic Industries,

c. 18,000 B.c. c. B.C.
10,000
(after H.
Miller-Beck) of Late
(End Pleistocene)
es Glaciers (after H. Muller-Beck)

Advanced industries fae) Glaciers

pebble-tool
Advanced Mousteroid industries
em, Advanced
eo
.> with bifacial traditions & stone
eb
fsa pebble-tool industries

6
projectile points Advanced Mousteroid industries
with bifacial traditions & stone
C5
~

Ons
a
Aurignacoid industries
(case
projectile points
as |
| Aurignacoid industries

Map 11. During the 14,000 between the time of 10 and that of 12.
years Map Map 12, Map When the
corridor Yukon
again became hospitable, the developed Mous-
western Alaska was
culturally a part rather of Asia than of North America. While in teroid tool and of the North American Plain
systems
weapon spread north to meet
the Old World during this season Mousteroid tools were the incoming
being supplanted by Aurignacoid from Alaska. Then, finally, Beringland dissolved, and
Aurignacoid, in both continents of the New World local refinements were there left what to be two separate visible to each
appearing were
appeared hemispheres—still
of the inherited Mousteroid tradition. Separated by polar tundra and other 56 miles of shallow with the islands of St. Lawrence,
glacier-covered across water, Big and
mountains, the two systems were now
developing independently. Little Diomede, and a few lesser landing stops between.

representing a still earlier glacial age and The most reliable North American find near Yale, British and at Fort
Columbia,*!
containing no less than eighty artifacts of is, in MacNeish’s Liard, Northwest Territories.**
equivalent antiquity (See Map
mixed with the remains of extinct view, that in 1958 from site
species reported a 13, page 37, sites
through 9.) 1
of sloth, horse, deer, and cats. Ra- Lewisville, Texas
giant near
(Map 13, page 37, “We may guess,” states MacNeish in
diocarbon datings for this Paccaicasa site4),4° where a a stone of
pebble chopper, summary the findings not
only of these
Phase range from c. 11,300 to 19,200 B.c., hammer, and some flakes were discov- nine very early sites, but also of some
and the artifacts include, in MacNeish’s ered in association with hearths and the
sixty-odd others of various later dates,
words: “crude
large bifacial and slab burned bones of extinct mammals. The “that bands crossed the
migrating Bering
choppers, cleavers, hammers, scraping hearth charcoals were radiocarbon-dated Strait 70,000 +
landbridge some 30,000
planes, and crude concave- and convex- to c. 38,000 B.c. or earlier. Seven other years ago and
subsequently moved
sided unifacial or sites in both North and South America
scrapers spokeshavelike southward at a
very slow rate. What little
objects, as well as a
single pointed flake than these, but
(less securely dated con- evidence we have,” he continues, “sug-
that could have served ona
projectile, and taining comparable artifacts) have been
gests that these people were also un-
a flake blows from a burin. The
showing identified as of the same culture stage: at skilled hunters—almost collectors of big
cave,” he adds, “was occu- Alice in the Rio Claro
apparently Boer, valley, Brazil,*° game rather than hunters—like the peo-
pied during brief periods by hunters and and at Richmond Honduras;*” Hill, British ple of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic of
their families, who attacked the in
probably Mexico, Tequixquiac* and San Isidro,
at
Europe and of the
chopper-chopping
10- to 15-foot-tall sloths in their den Nuevo
giant Le6én;* at Calico Hills, California;>° complexes of the Fen-ho industry and up-
and then to butcher and eat the and in Canada, both Frazer
stayed at
Canyon per cave culture of Choukoutien in
results of their kill.’”*

35
 fashioned tools of the next
development,
Stage 4, which he assigns in its begin-
to the end of the last glacial age, c.
nings
11,000 to 8000 B.c.

Some or more distinct indus-

twenty
tries from sites the Americas
throughout
have been identified as of this fourth com-

MacNeish believes that these could

plex.
have been native adaptations and refine-
ments out of the Lower Lithic beginnings
45. Sandia points (a-b—c) Lucy Site, New Mexico,
from the c.

to 10,000 Clovis points (de) from the Lehner Site, of his 1 and 2, whereas Miller-
20,000 B.c.;
Stages
Arizona, c. 20,000 to 10,000B.c.; and Folsom points (f-g-h) from Beck, as we have would
seen, interpret
the Folsom Site, New Mexico, c. 8700 B.c.*
them, rather, as
products of the Mouster-
oid represented in his second
migration
China.” were tribes, that is to say, the artifacts of MacNeish’s 4
They map, Stage
of the Homo erectus, which must then viewed as local American de-
species being
have crossed the strait on a
landbridge, out of the Mousteroid base of
velopments
possibly during the Riss glaciation. Miiller-Beck’s second the
map, during pe-
A second of more ad- riod represented in his third In this
major stage, map.
vanced tool fashioning, which MacNeish scholar’s own words:
of “The Llano of North America
compares broadly with the Mousterian complex
and the so-called Ordos [Clovis, Sandia, Folsom points,
Europe industry among
of Middle Paleolithic China, is docu- others, of c. 20,000 to 10,000 B.c.] differs
mented not from the from industries in numerous
by artifacts, only Aurignacoid
Cave above the Paccai- aspects and cannot be derived from either
Pikimachay just
casa stratum, but also from some fourteen an
early or a late Aurignacoid technologi-
other well-investigated sites in both cal level. Aurignacoid industries were
. . .

American continents. The industries, in present on the Siberian plains at least

MacNeish’s view, could have arrived 15,000 It can be assumed that
by years ago.
of the but also would have been in Alaska
way landbridge, might they present
been in at about this same time. The
46. Projectile point among the ribs of an extinct sub- have developed independently beginning
New 8700 North America itself. His basic dates for
species of bison. Folsom, Mexico, c. B.c.

this 2 are, for North America, about

Stage
38,000 B.c.; for Central America, about
AT THE UTTERMOST END OF THE EARTH
23,000 B.c.; and for South America, per-
haps 14,000 to 10,000 B.c.. 49. A photograph, taken of a family of the
c. 1899,
A
Stage 3 then is
represented, in his Ona tribe, the tall mountain people of inland Tierra
del Fuego. They hunted chiefly guanaco, a
species
finds of bifacial leaf-points,
opinion, by of wild llama, wore robes and head coverings of its
burins, blades, and at about
endscrapers fur, and dwelt—in spite of the Fuegian cold—in open
a dozen sites from Alaska wind breaks made of its hide. A second the
widely scattered race,

Yahgan (or Yamana), shorter in stature and more

to Venezuela and Peru; and his suggested
squarely built than the Ona, inhabited the southern
dates for these are in the range, for North coasts and the islands to Cape southward
rocky
America, of c. 23,000 to 11,000 B.c., and Horn. Clothed only in capes of animal hide, these
for Middle and South America, c. 13,000
were a
beachcombing boat people, living on berries
and fungi, birds and shellfish, occasional seals and
to 8000 s.c. The tribes, in MacNeish’s
whales. Their canoes, with sharply raised and
words, were
big game or herd
“hunters of pointed ends, carried fireplaces amidships; and it

animals wide
in a of environ- was the nighttime glow of the many little fires on the
variety to Magel-
waters, as well as on land, that suggested
ments,’’°* and their considerably ad-
lan the name Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire), when,
47. One of three crude sandstone heads from gravel vanced technology was
directly anteced- in 1520 (from October 21 to November 28), he navi-
pits near Malakoff, Texas. Associated Pleistocene ent to the of the strait that now bears his name.
proliferation expertly gated
faunal remains suggest considerable antiquity, pos-

sibly c. 40,000 to 30,000 B.c.°

48. Lanceolate and fishtail points from Fells Cave,

<>
ny

southern Chile, c. 8700.B.c.°®

36
 ARCTIC Sl
gina

OCEAN

Beaufort Sea

i
2
7

4,3,
~~

?
¥

5
af
7
‘No
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PACIFIC —
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~
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.

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OCEAN .

is
iy
Calic ao
:

:
7
ws :
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Santa Rosa Island eo: a

"a j away
>We & ie

ehnerg\ ©
qi ATLANTIC
6
a. OCEAN
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i. = ‘
ee

2,
. j +. i" «

B . % Gulf of Mexico
c D EL a a

OX | Isidro a,
:

¥
eo
,

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9
ie ae
:

©
9
> Va
ixquidc
jueread te -

ly
e e e e e e
ichmond Hill a at “Fi
ee
i Sites 7
Principal Provi d d
Evidence £ for h
the
‘
a

Presence of Man
ingin nine

Early the New World a to

(after R. MacNeish) .
uaco.

@ Stage 1: c.
100,000 to 40,000 B.c.
>
(stone choppers, cleavers, hammers and such)
Fort Liard, Northwest Territories, Canada D-4 ]
se

Frazer British
=
Canyon, Yale, Columbia, Canada
= D-5
Calico California
/

ed
Hills, D-6 “<<

8
ao

Lewisville, Texas -F-6 "s

8
r~ @.

7,
Texas
Malakoff, —-F-6 Se
.

San Isidro, Nuevo Leén, Mexico F-6

Tequixquiac, Central Mexico F-7
Richmond Hill, Belize G-7
Pikimachay, Ayacucho, Peru H-9
Alice
:

Boer, Rio Claro, Brazil 1-9

SOA A
2: c. 38,000 to 10,000 B.c.
© Stage
(unifacial tools, burins, and bone tools) Chivateros 1'@
Fort Liard, Northwest Territories, Canada D-4
9 rf 9
Santa Rosa Island, California D-6
Levi Rockshelter, Texas F-6
Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Pennsylvania G-5
Mexico
ae.
Valsequillo, Puebla, F-7
ic
Pikimachay Cave, Ayacucho, Peru H-9
Tagua-Tagua, Chile H-11 #£
SS

@ Stage 3: c.
23,000 to 8000 B.c.
(burins, blades, well-made end-scrapers, and bifacial leaf points)
Flint Creek—Bedwell Complexes, Yukon Canada and Alaska C-3
:

Territory, *

Fort Liard, Northwest Territories, Canada D-4 10 f 10

Wilson Butte Cave, Idaho E-5
New Mexico E-6 .
Lucy,
fo
Lehner, Arizona E-6 ~

Hueyatlaco, Puebla, Mexico F-7

Muaco, Venezuela H-7
Chivateros |, Lima, Peru G-9

@ Stage 4: c.
11,000 to 8000 B.c.
(specialized bifacial points, well-made scrapers & knives, and numerous other
tools)
Onion Portage, Alaska A-3
Lind Coulee, Washington D-5 11 11
Hardaway, North Carolina
G-6 f

Clovis, New Mexico E-6

4
Folsom, New Mexico E-6 Pa
Ajuereado, Tehuacan Valley, Mexico F-7
Tequendama Cave, Bogota, Colombia H-8
“
Alice Boer, Rio Claro, Brazil I-9 a

Fell’s Cave, Patagonia, Chile H-12

ve

Forests and
(EN woodlands
[] Plains Sh
"3 Cave SEA
12 12
:

SS) Tundra ell Other landforms and environments -

SS
 ARCTIC OCEAN

Bering Sea

2
= = oa
?
J \Anangula
Island

Aleutian
Beringland
c. 80,000 to 7000 B.C.
PACIFIC OCEAN Estimated maximum
B.c., use
50. Chinese mask, bronze, eighth century land-bridge area

unknown. Compare 54.

14. Some 1300 miles at its widest, the broad ing, while other
inland, Mongoloid hunters, equipped
uninfluenced continuation of the more Map
with advanced and Mesolithic weap-
tundra plain of Beringland gradually diminished as Aurignacoid
Mousteroid tradition corridors—
projectile point rep- the waters rose with the glaciers. Its
melting of the onry, passed—with the opening of the
Llano in- Canadian forests and North American
resented by the earliest-known seacoasts were thereby lengthened, and along this into the
to the
the Bering Sea plains, there to become ancestral Athapascan,
dustries isolation from Late Pleis- northern arc of the Pacific, Mongo-
requires hunt- Algonquian, and possibly other Indian tribes.
tocene in loids continued their fishing and sea-mammal
technological developments
Eurasia. Isolation from Aurignacoid influ-
ence was
clearly impossible in Siberia; iso-
lation in Alaska is highly unlikely, al-
it cannot be completely ruled out.
though
is an isolation
More
probable, however,
of the ancestors of the Llano complex in
interior North America south of the coa-

of the Canadian Shield

lescing glaciers
and the northern Rocky Mountains.”°°
When the passage through the Cana-
dian Shield then opened, somewhere c.

10,000 to 9000 8.c., various bearers of Au-

and tools mov- of Alaska. The Scythians were Cen-
rignacoid weapons began 56/57. Two examples of Scythian goldwork, showing fishing villages
animals’ shoulders and hips a distinctive tral Asian nomads skilled in horsemanship, who
while behind them the once onthe pear-
ing south, of this of the founded an in southern Russia, north of the
had shaped boss that is characteristic art empire
that for centuries
great landbridge seventh to third centuries B.c. and apparently Black Sea, and are best known today for the ele-
been their home was
disappearing. of and/or China, to the gance of their craftsmanship in gold.
passed, by way Mongolia
Most of the critical evidence from Ber-

ingland itself has, of course, been lost be- to the shrinking land mass.” Further- extending nearly 1,500 km from its south-
neath the waters of what is now strait. more: ‘‘This increase in coastline favored ern
extremity, now the eastern Aleutians,
a
Island in the the numerical of the coastal- to its northern in the Arctic
However, on
Anangula expansion margin
which of its southern of the Bering Sea Mon- Ocean. It was an area that could accom-
Aleutians, was
part adapted ancestors
unifacial and blade Aleuts, Eskimos, Chukchi, modate permanent residents, hu-
coast, a core
industry goloids—the many
has been found, of a date c. 7000 B.c., and and some of the man and animal, and it endured for a
Koryak, possibly
which was
clearly an extension of the ad- Kamchadals.’’*” longer time [c. 70,000 years] than that doc-
vanced of and interior The of the much colder umented for the entire of human
Aurignacoid Japan hunting peoples period
Siberia, which is known to date from c.
interior, meanwhile, were forced to in America. The southern
being occupancy
to 7000 s.c. The move either eastward or westward as coastal area was
ecologically quite differ-
11,000 Japanese prece-
ramic M. Yoshizaki has re- their diminished and at ent from the interior regions and pro-
specialist hunting ground
marked that its material could fit in last These, and not the vided the basis for the differentiation of
easily disappeared.
of that from Hokkaido.” coastal then the who the sea-oriented ancestors of
a context
period folk, were
migrants Mongoloids,
The settlement was of would have into the American in- the Aleuts and Eskimos, and the land-ori-
Anangula fishing passed
folk the of coastline terior. The Indians must be descended, ented hunters of the interior,
exploiting waters a
big-game
rich in marine W. S. therefore, from earlier and later the ancestors of the American Indians. It
life, and, as
Laughlin hunting
has remarked, the inhabitants of that tribes which at one time or another inhab- is obvious that several generations of oc-

coastline not forced to abandon their ited and moved across

cupants, some of them moving slowly
were
Beringland,
of life as the waters rose whereas the Aleuts and Eskimo are suc- eastward and southward, were unaware
manner
gradually
and the shoreline moved back. “In fact,” cessors of the of the that most of their
territory would eventu-
fishing villagers
be
he points out, ‘“the southern perimeter of coast. ally submerged.’’**
Land “The Land The Island industry of the
the Bering Bridge expanded greatly Bering Bridge,” as
Laughlin Anangula
well in ‘“was continental terminal of the landbridge, c. 7000
in absolute length as as
proportion tells, an enormous area
period

38
 eo
Ain
Pt,

tii
eT
54/55. Ivory burial mask. Ipiutak culture, Alaska.

Probably second to sixth centuries A.D. Below, the

mask in situ, resting partly on the skeleton of a child
and partly on the knees of an adult male between
51. Asian influences continued to reach Alaska even 52/53. Ceremonial internment, the burial skull featur- the mask
whose legs the child was placed. Beneath
after Beringland’s however, is ing artificial of
disappearance, as ev-
eyes ivory and jet, an
ivory mouth was a brown
paste: the remains of wood in which the
ident, both in these microliths of the Flint and two nostril each
Denbigh cover, plugs, plug carved to
ivory sections had apparently been embedded and
Complex (to 1500), c. 3000, B.c. and in the remarka- represent the head of some fabulous bird. Skull in which two cheek embedded still. Two
plugs were
ble Ipiutak ivories from Point Hope, Alaska, of the shown in and in situ.
close-up Ipiutak culture, Alaska, bits of jet (one lost) may have been the pupils of
second to sixth centuries A.D. second to sixth centuries a.p.
probably wooden eyes. (Compare the eyes of 53.)

58. Ivory walrus with exposed ribs and backbone (a 59. bear, with exposed
Ivory polar ribs and back-
shamanic feature). On each hip an imitation Scythian bone. On each
hip an imitation of the Scythian boss,
boss (see 56/57.). In an Ipiutak grave it lay at the and a deep slot for suspension
running from the chin;
skeleton’s shoulder, sewn
(as where once
leg and along the belly, to the tail. Ipiutak culture, Alaska,
body holes indicate) to the shamanic costume. probably second to sixth centuries A.p.

was but the earliest of number of fluence

B.C., a
coming north from the Plains as

assemblages testifying to the Asian back- the glaciers retreated and the ani-
game
ground of the and mals
whaling fishing com-
followed, together with their Indian
munities of the North American Arctic. A hunters.
second site, some 4000 years later, from c. A third site, rich in of
astonishing signs
3000 to 1500 B.c., when the both near and remote Asian
landbridge connections,
had tells of the arrival was discovered and
long disappeared, excavated in 1939 on

on the Alaskan coast of the of the the shore of Point where of of the
people Hope, Alaska, at some
skillfully carved, ivory and
Denbigh Flint Complex, from the remains some time between the second and sixth antler animal figurines (see Figures 56 to
of whose
village on the west side of Cape centuries A.D. a
whale-hunting town, 59). A bear cult, a ghost cult, and shaman-
Denbigh on Norton Sound, some 1500 Ipiutak, of no less than 600 semi-subter- ism are
Walrus, and the
suggested. seals,
beautifully worked microflints have been ranean houses in streets whale were hunted with
arranged along toggle-headed
recovered (Figure 51).° “The of the shore of the Chukchi had flour- caribou with the bow
delicacy Sea, harpoons; and ar-

the
flaking,” as one scholar has remarked, ished for about a hundred years. As re- row.
Thus, influences are
apparent, both
“is In one case a its there from
extraordinary. specimen ported by discoverers, are ‘“un-
a general, Pacific, northern maritime
about inch and deniable
long bears
an a
quarter resemblances,” not between tradition in seal- and whale-
only Ipiutak’s
more than ribbon-like scars on burial customs and artifacts and
twenty Ipiutak’s and hunting techniques, from the inland
each face.’ Some of the burins and those of several cultures of northeast cultures of northeast Asia in its shamanic
blades resemble types from the Asia, but also between its features.
European ivory death Indeed, even elements from
Upper Paleolithic; others are similar to masks and certain works of southwest Asia had filtered
early Chinese into its art. So
later forms from Siberia; art 50 and the
post-Paleolithic (Figures 53).*! Moreover, signs that, evidently, disappearance of Ber-
and there few fluted
are a
points of Fol- even of a
Scythian influence are evident ingland, c. 700 B.c., did not dissolve the
som character as
well, representing an in- in the bosses on the haunches North American link with Eurasia.
pear-shaped

39
 Neolithic of mented cultures of the north may actually
Egypt, sculptured represen-
tations of the human form should have have been, not
properly “developments,”
and but to undocumented influ-
Five Basic Races appeared already fully realized sty- responses
The it not be that the ences
coming from the south. In his own
listically secure? May
born of words:
stone
sculpture of the north was

of antiq-
signs of influences of wood from the south, grandiose high cultures
“The
_

In the light of all these an art

sculpture
and led thereby to a blade culture well? to our knowl-
moving west to east
throughout the Pa- as
uity occupied, according
it it not be that in times the no more of the world than a belt
leolithic with nothing as
yet returning, May primeval edge,
from south to from about 20 degrees to about
cul- cultural trend north, as
reaching
is evident that the primary creative was

degrees north; that is, they

were con-
tural centers of the period are to be later, from north to south? the alter- 45
sought May
America in but in nation of the west-to-east and then east- fined to an area north of the Tropic of
neither in nor Asia,
had Cancer. Over this demonstration
in the
pendulations not have against
and Leo to-west an ear-
Africa Europe. Frobenius,
south-to- of the branch of
first years of this century, wrote of the lier analogue in movements, archaeology, ethnological
north-to-south? It science could not fail forever to rec-
of those times as marked north, and thereafter, our
culture-history
is obvious that of wood must that southward of this belt, from
by a general west-to-east trend,” noting everything ognize
India, the Ar-
further that within the western area itself have returned, since those times, to the West Africa, through Malay
what he and that chance can and Melanesia, cultures have
there were
signs of thought earth, only by any chipelago,
have survived—as in arid survived to this whose traits not
only
should be interpreted as an alternation of specimen Egypt. day
cannot be derived from those of the his-
earlier movements south to north, and Such disappearances could explain the
south.® discov- that the distributions of torical cultures, but also represent a world
then north to
Subsequent gap separates
not southern and central African of their own, which is no less distinct from
eries in Africa of the earliest remains, European
this the other than the world from the
only of human life, but also of stone in-
assemblages. It is worth keeping pos- plant
animal. This domain of a second kind of
dustries appeared in Europe,
that later sibility in mind.”
in- The invoked Wil- culture is a fact. This second kind is in all
have confirmed this comprehensive same
principle was
by
fur- the of the and so different from the char-
sight. But Frobenius had something liam Howells to
explain crudity everything
the inspira- tools of Old where acter of the historical cultures that it is not
ther to
suggest, namely, that stone Melanesia, again
tion for the sudden appearance in
Europe wood must have been the material pre- possible to associate it with any historical
well-known “Paleolithic Ve- ferred and most natural. Frobenius de- circumstance; for it offers no external key
of those now

clue to its it
nuses”’ should perhaps also be attributed scribed the southern, equatorial, tropical or
age. Externally regarded,
with the exhibits static vistas and
to Africa, where the first examples would culture, as
compared northern, only perspec-
of stone, but of culture the realm of tives. It to have whiled its life
have been fashioned, not
temperate field, as appears
like the world of its home-
wood. the “invisible counterplayers,’”’ suggest- away, plant
without or
in the of the so-called historic de- land, spring or winter, heights
“Ts it not
singular,” he asks, ‘that ing that many
Late Paleolithic of Europe, also in the of the well docu- depths.
as
velopments relatively

and of tundra, semi-desert, or no-

Map 15. Expanding influences from centers of the sisting in the ways of their paleolithic “fathers empty regions grass,
mads reindeer, yaks, sheep, goats,
earliest high civilizations progressively drew more
grandfathers.” Likewise dwelling in timeless zones range, herding
others in whose unmeasured the step swine, or cattle and, in America, llama and alpaca.
and more of the peoples of the earth into the vortex were past
from to had been taken New influences from new centers are
today reaching
of world history. Pressed to the margins of the conti- hunting primitive planting
those and whose. ancestors had there rested; while in even the most secluded of these tribes.
nents or into remote jungle retreats were per-

Tee SOF
iheep ARCTIC OCEAN
D >

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

at
Andamaneése %0
Veddas .
~«Tasaday
°

ATLANTIC

OCEAN
INDIAN OCEAN
St

Surviving Primitive Cultures

(after A. Lommel)

——
herdsman cultures still survive
Area of mature cultures in historical times
(ea Areas in which

Areas in which hunter cultures still survive Areas in which early farming cultures still survive
eae fee)

40
 “TI would term this of cul- were no more: were
turning for had been drawing back, the African plu-
great group people
tures ‘the invisible (die additional fare to the rivers and the sea. vial line had been north, and
counterplayers’ moving
unsichtbaren in the
history of were fashioned for the where now there is desert, there were
Gegenspieler) Harpoons being
the cultures of mankind. whale and the seal, while across the arctic Moreover, in the rock art of that
plains.
“And its existence is seldom north, from Finland to Kamchatka, Alaska, now-vanished landscape, we see that the
although |

attested in historical documents and so and on across Canada to Greenland, ad- bow and arrow had arrived; also, the do-
can ever be directly demonstrated, of the Paleolithic orders were mesticated dog. The station is
Capsa
hardly aptations type
nevertheless I have no doubt that it has
developing that have endured to the pres- (Gafsa) in Tunisia, after which the period
worked the cultures, from ent hour. has been called the Capsian. Its chief art
upon higher
the south.’ In North Africa, on the other hand, a monuments survive in the Sahara Atlas
Whatever the immediate inspiration new arena of the Great Hunt had mean- Mountains, the Fezzan, and in southern
have whether out of an im- the ice The characteristic
may been, while opened; for, as
European Spain. industry is of mi-
from the south, as here suggested, crolithic flints,
pulse tiny, chiefly trapezoid,
of Mousterian base, the and
or
directly out a
rhomboid, triangular points, with a
in Professor Pilbeam’s ‘’Gar- distribution
emergence geographical greatly beyond
den of Eden” (see page 29) of the Eurasian that of the art—from Morocco to the Vin-

complex of c. 35,000 to
dhya Range of India and from the of
Aurignacian Cape
20,000 B.c.
exactly coincided not
only Good Hope to the Baltic. We have seen

with the on the scene of a race of its effects in the

appearance something Denbigh
of modern character, Cro-Magnon Man, Flints of Alaska
(page 39, Figure 51). But
also with the fi-
Homo sapiens sapiens, but of its origins we know practically nothing.
nal retreat of the glaciers. It was another undated production of Fro-
The climate of Europe at that time was benius’s ‘invisible Its
counterplayers.’’
The
moist and extremely cold. landscape breakthrough into Spain and thence into
of arctic tundra, and the animals northern occurred when the
was an
Europe gla-
cial retreat
upon it were the musk woolly rhinoc-
ox, was
nearly complete, c. 10,000
and and in those it has been
eros, reindeer, woolly mammoth; B.c., purts
also, the arctic
fox, hare, wolverine, and termed, variously, Fina Tarden-
Capsian,
ptarmigan.© However, with the further oisian, Microlithic, Mesolithic, proto-
retreat of the ice the climate, Neolithic, epi-Paleolithic, and Azilian.
though re-
became But then, of course, in Eu-
maining dry, and steppe
cold, as
formerly
conditions to over rope and also now in Africa, the
began preponderate great
tundra. This in addition days were not to last forever. With the
change brought,
to the animals continuation of the the
just named, great grazing glacial retreat plu-
.

herds of bison, wild cattle, the vial line, too, continued northward, and
steppe
horse, ibex, and and as a therewith there ensued, from c. 3000 B.c.,
argali sheep;
result the conditions of human life a
gradual desiccation of the Saharan hunt-
greatly
altered. In the earlier period of the mam-
ing fields and their transformation into

moth, the stations to have desert. This was answered a move-

hunting appear by
been scattered but ment southward of both the animals and
widely comparatively
in this their hunters, in the of north-to-
stationary; period of the great way a

south retreat. So that, of

herds, a shift to a more
continuously just as survivors
of nomadism took the old hunt
ranging style place, at European epi-Paleolithic
to this
least in the
European sector. Farther east, carry on day along the arctic fringes
in the colder reaches of Russia and Sibe- of Eurasia and North America, so too, in

ria, the mammoth remained, and with it, the ultimate zones of Africa, the
refuge
a continuation of the earlier as far as Kalahari Desert and the re-
style deep jungle
to Lake Baikal, and thence onward, we treats of the the Bushmen and the
as
Congo,
have seen, into America. The is Pygmies continue, as well as
they can, as
period
known in as the Solutrean: in of old.
Europe
America it is approximately that of the But the Bushmen, an African
though
third of Miiller-Beck’s schedule race, are not
Negroes. Coon has classified
map (page
35). Moreover, in there had ar- them as one of the five races of modern
Europe
rived, the animals, a new hunt- man, which are
(1) the Austra-
following namely:
race from the east, the Brinn, whose loid, whom he reckons “the Aus-
ing among
talent for the tralian
particular was
fashioning of aborigines, Melanesians, Pap-
beautiful Their uans, some of the tribal folk of India, and
spear, points.® period,
short, was from c. 20,000 the various of South Asia and
comparatively Negritos
to 15,000 B.c.—when there followed an- Oceania”’; (2) the Mongoloid, ““most of the
other cold, wet which the East Asiatics, Indonesians,
period, during Polynesians,
to forests Micronesians, American Indians, and Es-
European steppes gave place
and the grazing herds, moving out north- kimo”; (3) the Caucasoid, ‘Europeans
took with them of the 60. Flint working reached a climax in Europe with the and their the Middle
easterly, many
overseas kinsmen,
arrival of the Solutrean hunters, c. 17,000 B.c. Their
hunters, some of whose descendants Eastern Whites, from Morocco to West
characteristic product was the pressure-flaked, bifa-
went on to inhabit the into Pakistan, and most of the peoples of In-
landbridge cial, “laurel leaf’
spear-point. This fine example is
America. With the forest there had en- from the type site of the culture, La Solutré, Dor- dia, as well as the Ainus of Japan’’; (4) the
dogne, France.
tered Europe, meanwhile, the red deer Congoid, ‘‘the Negroes and Pygmies of
and fallow deer, the forest horse and Africa’; and the
the finally, (5) Capoid, “the.
the moose; but the days of the Great Hunt Bushmen and Hottentots and other relic

41
61. A Pathan from the Indian northwest frontier. Cau- 62. A Shillukfrom the Sudan. Congoid race (Negroes 63. A Taiwan aborigine. Mongoloid race: complex-
casoid race: blue; or hazel to dark and African from extremely
eyes, grey, green, Pygmies): statures range ions, light yellow to coppery brown; hair, black, lank,
brown; hair, wavy to straight; yellow, red, auburn, or tall and lanky to sturdy and very short; complexions, can be very long; little body hair, little beard; face,
brown to black; males heavily bearded; black to mahogany; features
complexions generally prognathoid; flat; incisors, large, usually “shoveled”; eyes, wide
fair to very dark.
very lips everted; frizzly hair. apart, with heavy upper-eyelid fold.

tribes, like the Sandawe of Tanganyika.” Iron

Age Bantu-language peoples seldom
The last group has been named the Ca- or never did: a of life that has contin-
way
poid, he explains, after the Cape of Good ued, little altered to this day, in remote

Hope, near which they live. But since of the Kalahari and
segments among
they once—that is, in Capsian times—oc- some of the
Pygmies of the Congo forest-
cupied Morocco, ‘the cape can be thought land. else had
Everywhere populations
of,” Coon “as
suggests, Cape Spartel.’” greatly multiplied, developed their farm-
Thus the Bushmen the last descen-
ing and metal-using
are worked
technology,
dants of the tribesmen of the out their characteristic
Capsian religions, em-

Great Hunt, southward, first barked forms of social

pressed by on new and
politi-
an
expanding northern Caucasoid popu- cal organization from
ranging powerful
and from
lation, then, c. a.p. 500, by the states like ancient Ghana to intricate sys-
expanding Congoid Bantu, who had re- tems of tribal a wide
democracy among
cently acquired, not only a knowledge of of different and laid foun-
range peoples,
iron, but also an horticulture dations for the of their
improved growth civilization
based on the introduction from Indonesia into modern times.”’”
of the and a Thus it will
yam, superior banana,
taro, have to be among the mar-

which had been 64. A Bushman boy from the Kalahari. Capoid race:
brought to Madagascar ginal peoples—mainly at the northern-
and the Azanian coast complexion, apricot yellow; hair, black, in thick, tight
by a migrating clusters
most and southernmost parts of the con-
(“peppercorn’”); both sexes
steatopygous;
wave
(east to west, now) of Mongoloid male genitalia, normally semi-erect; female, with ex- tinents or in hitherto inaccessible inland
tended labia minora (the “Hottentot apron’). forest fastnesses—that
Malayo-Polynesians.” Stage by stage re- we shall have to

tiring before force majeure, while seek whatever shreds of from

persist- myth Paleo-
ing, like the Tasaday, in the ways of their lithic times still survive.
may
timeless ‘fathers and the
grandfathers,” Whatever their original forms,ritualized
harassed and harried Capoids, having applications, and allegorical interpreta-
abandoned to the invading desert their tions have
may been, they will have gen-
formerly abundant are
hunting range, erally, through the centuries, lost much of
now, ironically, terminating their their
years, mythic force; and yet, like the frag-
still as
hunters, in a second desert, the ments of ancient marbles found in the
southern wastes of the Kalahari. The Con- of stables or in the walls
flooring peasant
goid Pygmies, who, when the Capoid- of medieval churches, they may still be
Capsian bushmen had been dominant in able to
speak to those with eyes and ears

the plains of the north, had themselves attuned the

symbolic signs and sylla-
to
been hunting masters in the Africa south bles of their differ-
gospel. Significant
of Sahara, now likewise have retreated to ences will be evident between the primary
an ultimate sanctuary—and likewise, still Paleolithic and recent mate-
ethnological
as hunters—to survive in scattered vestig- between the of
rials; also, mythologies
ial bands the untamed |
through Congolese he hunting, foraging, planting, and herding
jungle, from Gabon and the Cameroons less than between
tribes, no
those, gen-
to and Rwanda-Burundi. As 65. A Tiwi from Melville Island. Australoid race, three
Uganda ‘
varieties: erally, of the nonliterate and literate tra-
summarized Basil Davidson: (1) full-sized with straight or wavy hair
by (Australoid proper); (2) full-sized with kinky hair (Tas-
ditions. Nevertheless, through all these
“By about A.D. 800 ...
the whole of manian and and to which it will be first task
Papuo-Melanesian); (3) Pygmy- contrasts, our

continental Africa had entered a sized with kinky hair (Negrito).

thriving to
give attention, there will be recogniz-
Iron but for a few in the
Age regions able, also, a constellation of permanent,
centre and the south, where Bushmen themes and which
archetypal motifs, are

and their like continued a Late Stone Age as intrinsic to human

life and thought as

kind of life, and food,

hunting gathering are the ribs, vertebrae, and cranial parts
painting and on rock as the
engraving to our
anatomy.

42
 ARCTIC OCEAN

SHIFTS OF THE HUMAN SUBSPECIES =~ .

FROM PLEISTOCENE TO c. a.p. 1492

Carleton S.
has proposed
a clas-
Coon
sification of
living peoples of the
the
earth into five, originally geographical,
groups: the Capoid, Congoid, Cauca-
soid, Mongoloid, and Australoid. In the
course of the c. 10,000 years since the
ATLANTIC
end of the Pleistocene, the distributions OCEAN
of these five subspecies of Homo sap-
iens sapiens have greatly changed.

Map 16. “Toward the end of the Pleisto-

cene,” states Coon, “after all five geo-
ATLANTIC
graphical races of man had become * PACIFIC OCEAN
OCEAN
sapiens . . .
each race may have con-

tained nearly equal numbers of individ-

uals.”’ Of the five subspecies, the Con-

goid was the most isolated, in contact

with only the Capoid, to the north. Most
of Europe and all of the Near East into
India were occupied by Caucasoids. In- :

donesia
The
and
southeast Asia, by
hearth was
Austra-
China.
eee oe
loids. Mongoloid

ARCTIC OCEAN

Map 17. With the glacial retreat, the two

northerly groups vastly expanded. Mon-

goloids occupied the Americas and the
(/

Pacific isles, and pressing southward, _ NORTH

entered AMERICA
areas
formerly Australoid. Cau-
ATLANTIC
casoids dispossessed the Capoids of
OCEAN
North Africa, who, migrating south, took
possession of the East and South Afri-
can
plains. The Congoid populations
thereby became confined, for a period,
to the Congo Basin and Sudan.
ATLANTIC
PACIFIC OCEAN
OCEAN

Early Post-Pleistocene Epoch

(after C.S. Coon)

ARCTIC OCEAN

CPs
eS
Map 18. The most notable expansion
of the
during the first centuries A.D. was

Congoids (specifically, Bantu), following

the introduction from Indonesia of the
banana and the After 1492, both
yam. a Se >
the Congoid and the Caucasoid expan- e
sions
are
were

today on the decline

prodigious.
except among
The Australoids
NORTH
[D>
AMERIC
ATLANTIC
of India, and the
the aboriginal tribes OCEAN

Capoids are all but extinct.

ATLANTIC “
*
PACIFIC OCEAN SOUTH
OCEAN :
sAMERICA

— Australoids
aa
|
| Caucasoids

ee Mongoloids
:
c. A.D. 1492 —
ian
-

(after C.S.

eae Capoids
51 Coon)

eee Congoids
MYTHOLOGIES
OF THE
PRIMITIVE
HUNTERS AND.
GATHERERS
 I term collective all contents
psychic
that not to one individual
belong
but to i.e., toa
many, society,
a
people, or to mankind in

general. The antithesis

of collective is

individual.

C. G. June,
Psychological Types

As the infant is linked to its mother in in the old creation

a
myth from the Brihad- which, finally, is
philosopher's but the
to
profound participation mystique, even
aranyaka Upanishad (page 13) of that pri- way of
something that in a biolog-
stating
such a
degree that it will absorb, and thus mordial who, in the ical becomes
Being-of-all-beings sense
irrefutably evident
inherit, her tensions and anxieties, so has “I” and when
beginning, thought immediately the mind’s eye, running back along
mankind been linked to the moods and first fear, then desire. the time
experienced, chart of the
branching tree of life,
weathers of its mother Earth. And as the The desire in that case was not to comes to its Paleozoic root
eat, (pages 18-21).
infant unfolds to the laws of
yet according however, but to become two, and then to The two claims, on one
hand, of an

growth of its nature, so too has this hu- And in this constella- individual and the of
procreate. primal existence, on
other,
man race evolved in the of a
tion of
way single themes—first, of unity, albeit un-
transpersonal identity, alternate and
unfolding life through its millions of ap- conscious; then of a consciousness of self- compete in the lifetimes both of beasts
parently separate individuals in all
quar- hood and immediate fear of and of and whenever the
extinction; men;
larger
ters of the earth and all weather-
through next, desire, first for another and then for force takes over, the individual, forget-
ings. Nor has there been any period of the union with that other—we have
a set of ting itself in a seizure, acts in manners
long history when the interaction of these to Adolf Bas- to the often
“elementary ideas,” use
stereotyped species, with lit-
two forces—the inward of tian’s felicitous
organic growth term
(page 9), that has tle or no
regard for
self-preservation. The
and outward of a
been
shaping fosterage—was sounded and inflected, transposed, courtship dances and displays of birds
more evident than during the last of the and sounded and fish
developed, through again are
examples of such perform-
glacial ages, when the stage of Homo sa- all the of mankind
mythologies through ances.
Many of the choreographic pat-
piens sapiens, modern man, was attained the And as a constant terns
ages. structuring develop through intermeshing se-
in all while the strain
quarters simultaneously, underlying the everlasting play of quences of
stereotyped responses to

mothering earth itself was these

passing through themes, there is the primal polar specific signals from the partner, and if
a season of the greatest transformations. tension of a consciousness of duality of these fails from either the
any side,
in what call
Biologically, theologians against an earlier, but lost, knowledge of contradance breaks off.
our animal nature, we are as
deeply unity that is pressing still for realization None of the moves in such
adisplay has
grounded as the animals themselves: and may indeed break through, under cir- been learned. All are common to the spe-
moved and motivated from within by cumstances, in a
rapture of self-loss. cies, released
compulsivelyfrom within
energies that have been generating, shap- Schopenhauer, in his essay ““On the in response to
specific sign stimuli. Among
ing, and destroying living creatures on Foundation of
Morality,” asks how it is fish, for example (quoting N. Tinbergen
earth for hundreds of millions of years. that one can be so moved in his
immediately by Study of Instinct): ‘The courting be-
The of and in- the
patterns impulse response pain and danger of another that, for- havior of a male stickleback before a
preg-
herent in nerves and have
protoplasm getting one’s own well being and
safety, nant female is
dependent on at least two
thus a
long prehuman history, pointing one
springs to that other’s rescue. How is
sign stimuli: the swollen abdomen and
back through many stages of ascent from it, he that what has been described
asks, the special posturing movement of the
the earliest beginnings of life in Paleozoic as the first law of nature, self-preserva- female. .. .
The female’s reaction to the
brine to the present chaos of international tion, can be in this im- male is
suspended way, courting released by two
sign
affairs; and from first to last, the question mediately, spontaneously, and even to stimuli: the red belly and the male’s spe-
has not been ‘’To be, or not to be?” but the loss of the rescuer’s life? To this he cial movements, ‘zigzag dance’.’’”!the “As
“To eat, or to be eaten?” of which desire
replies that this expression of the mystery far as available facts go,” Tinbergen
and terror are the effects—as of compassion
represented is an effect of the
experi- states, ‘‘this
dependence on
only one ora
ence of an antecedent truth of nature, few sign stimuli seems to be characteristic

namely, that “I” and ‘that other” are one. of innate Conditioned
responses.
...

Our sense and of separateness

66. Venus of Laussel, carved limestone block, height experience [i.e., learned] reactions are, so far as we

17 is of a of effect
inches, from a rock shelter (Laussel) in the Dor- secondary order, a mere
know, not
usually dependent ona limited
dogne, France, c. 20,000 to 18,000 B.c.; known also the in which
way lightworld conscious- set of stimuli, but on much
as the Woman with the Horn
sign more
(see pages 66-68).
The paleolithic Venus of Lausse/ (66) and the dual-
ness
experiences objects within a condi-
complex stimulus situations.’’? Continu-
frame of and time. More
faced ceramic statuette (67, on page 49) from the tioning space ing: “The strict
dependence of an innate
Valley of Mexico are here introduced as the muses,
deeply, more
truly, we are of one life: reaction on a certain set of stimuli
of this volume and the vol-
sign
respectively, forthcoming
ume 2.

47
leads to the conclusion that there must be do to in the of our human the intended in-
seem
sleep profoundly growth,
mechanism that which wake at times with a shud- nate come to
a
special neuro-sensory nerves, dispositions maturity.
releases the reaction and is responsible for der, mysteriously, to some sound or
sign In this mythology in its peda-
sense, a

its selective susceptibility to such a

very of recollection. gogical functioning might be defined as a

combination of stimuli. This As observed the the birds, of culturally maintained sign stim-
special sign among apes, corpus
mechanism we will call the Innate Releas- and the fish, the uli fostering the development and activa-
gestalt psychologist
has termed such tion of a specific type, constellation of
Wolfgang Kohler
Mechanism in no reson- or
ing (IRM) . . .

general
The ani- of human life. Its address is not to
two reactions of species have the same
a
ating structures ‘‘isomorphs.” types,
And that each mal, directed innate but to centers of the
IRM.’*
finally: ‘The fact by endowment, comes
rationality primal
reaction has its own mechanism to terms with its natural environment, not nervous
system, “‘central excitatory
releasing
may lead to ambivalent behavior when as a
consequence of any long slow learn- mechanisms” (CEMs) and “‘innate releas-
mechanisms” such moti-
two
sign stimuli belonging to different re-
ing through experience, not
through trial ing (IRMs), as

actions are at the same time.’” and error, but immediately and with the vate the human animal—which, how-
present
The arises: Are there such of recognition. The stimuli ever, is an animal of a
special sort,
question any certainty sign very
innate mechanisms in the hu- that release the immutable with zones between the ears
releasing responses are
developed
man nervous To which the an- and to the inner readiness of that are unmatched in any other beast and
system? correspond
not to im-
swer is, yes, of course!—as anyone whose the creature as
precisely as
key to lock; in are
open, only extraordinary
mouth has watered when his fact, known as
printings, but also to
possibilities of inten-
ever
hungry they are
“key-tumbler”’
has the odor of kitchen structures. tional and other-
nose
caught a
learning performance
must know. However, IRMs are of However, there also are of an- wise unknown to the animal world.
surely systems
two sorts. The first is that noted imal that are established Undoubtedly, the increase in size of the
already response by par-
in the whose ticular In such, the structure human brain the course of what
stickleback, stereotyped re-
experiences. during
actions released effective for of the IRM is described as It is we now know to have been some 4 million
are
by signs ‘‘open.””
the chicks to of will have had some-
species. Baby just hatched, susceptible “impression” or
““imprint.”” years development
And where these to do, not only with our to
with fragments of eggshell still adhering open structures exist, thing ability
to feathers, for shelter if a hawk the first is definitive, learn, but also with the relative
scamper imprint requires propor-
flies overhead, but not if the bird is a sometimes less than a minute for its com- tion of to closed structures in our
gull, open
At what
a heron, or a
pigeon. Furthermore, if the pletion, and is irrevocable. cerebrospinal organization. stage,
wooden model of a hawk be drawn is not to be with one ask, however, was the critical
along Imprinting compared may
wire their react as conditioned which is not threshold crossed? Would the increase
a over
coop, they learning, only
it were alive—unless it be drawn slow and often tedious, but also, as Tin- from, say, the 500 cc of an
australopithe-
though
when there is cine or to the 800 cc of the first
backward, no
response. bergen points out, usually dependent, gorilla
limited of sign stimuli, but on Turkana skull have
Here we have an
extremely precise image, not on
a set
(Figure 21, page 28)
have
never seen before, yet recognized with much more
complex stimulus situations. released the subject from what we

reference not to its form but also An occurs at a termed earlier the “innocence of nature’?
merely imprint instantaneously,
of in Or would this have at
to its form in motion, linked,and besides, moment
ripened readiness when, a occurred, rather,
critical the between the 900 of
to an
immediate, unplanned, unlearned, period of the animal’s growth, some
point cc
Java
Man and the 1275 of Swanscombe? To-
and even unintended system of appropri- innate
disposition intended comes to ma- cc

The Most of the IRMs of the human the about 1450 the
ate action:
flight to cover.
image of turity. day, norm
being cc,

force of such inherited ster-

the inherited enemy is
already sleeping in species are of this kind, ““open,’” open to biologically
the hawk in the
the nervous
system, and along with it the
imprinting; and the imprintings are, of eotypes as the image of
reaction. culture-bound, to the nervous
system of the chick has been
well-proven course, specific
if all the hawks in the time and of the individual’s the more variable
Furthermore, even
place birth, largely supplanted by
world were to vanish, their would earliest and forms of
culturally conditioned imprints.
image impressions, development.
still in the soul of the chick—never They would not be the same for an Amer- An important factor in the
sleep conditioning
to be roused, however, unless some ican Indian born on the Kansan buffalo shaping and of these
by enforcing imprints
and of fish-
accident of art; for
example, a
repetition plains the child a
Polynesian during the first many thousand years of
of the clever of the wooden erman for sharks. They would distribution of our over the conti-
experiment watching species
hawk on a wire. Can it be that in the be different again for the son of a Hasidic nents was the character of whatever land-
central nervous
system of the species rabbi in the Bronx. Yet, in spite of the very scape was entered by and made its own

Homo there number of differences of the stimuli thus of the tribes; and the
sapiens, sleep any great sign any landscapes
such archaic offered in the various theaters of human in the
of three
sign stimuli, surviving from were, main, contrasting
his centuries of evolution life, the innate
energies to be released re- sorts: animal plains; equatorial rain
during periods open
of the mammoth and the cave main the same the species. forests; and coastal
woolly throughout marginal regions,
bear? ‘Our birth,”” wrote the Words- They are not of the culture, but of nature: from which authority over the sea would
poet
worth: innate, pre-rational, and be gained. The earliest periods of
transpersonal, expan-
when alerted, compulsive. sion were of peoples afoot, moving apart
is but a
sleep and
a forgetting: The address of mythological symbols is and settling in slow stages. And wherever
The Soul that rises with us, our
life’s Star, directly to these centers; and the re-
they came, the animals of the area, the
Hath had elsewhere its
setting, sponses proper to their influence are, con-
plants, and the hills became their neigh-
And cometh from afar: neither rational nor under bors and al-
sequently, per- instructors, recognized as

Not in entire forgetfulness, sonal control. overtake The

They one.
ready there from of old: mysterious pres-
And not in utter nakedness, that is to say, which in sacred to
symbols function, as en- ences some
way were

But clouds do we come

trailing ofglory ergy-releasing and -directing signs; and in be known as
messengers and friends. As
From God, who is our home:
traditionally structured cultures, they are the Pawnee chief, Letakots-Lesa, ex-

Heaven lies about us in our

infancy!® deliberately imprinted in
vividly impres- plained: “When a man
sought to know
sive (often painful) rites, timed to catch how he should live he went into solitude
Not only of woolly mammoths, but mem- the individual at those moments of ripen- and cried until some animal brought wis-

ories—deeper—of some seat of silence, ing readiness when, in the critical periods ‘dom to him. Thus were the sacred
...

48
songs and ceremonial dances given the Olmec of Tabasco and Vera Cruz, c. 1500 eons of the heavens. The
circling goddess
Pawnees the animals.’ to 500 B.c. Thus Tlatilco at mother of the
through was
a village alternating tides of life and
In this the of the threshold of who
way, very mysterious way a
development beyond death, formerly had been
chiefly of
the reception of imprintings, there be- the of these first two volumes. A this earth, became then
range equally of the
came established between the earliest hu- third is therefore indicated for the cosmic order in its
history ever-circling rounds of
man communities and their a of those literate cultures and their and
landscapes high day night, creation and dissolution;
profound participation mystique which in which first to and under innumerable
religions suddenly came names—as In-
all comes to manifestation in the of Hathor
truly primitive mythologies temple towers an- anna, Isis, and Nut, Anahit, Sati,
every expression, whether among peo- cient Sumer and in the pyramid tombs of and Kwan Yin—she receives
Mary, wor-

of the broad animal plains, the for- where there to the

ples Egypt, was
joined ship as the supreme personification of
ests, or the seacoasts. timeless earlier of the animal that ambiguous tremendum et
mysteries mystery, fas-
In certain favorable sacred and which is of life in
especially regions, messengers, mountains, plant cinans, death, as of death
then—apparently out of the initiative and grander of the in life.
spirits, anew mystery
rather of the females than of the males—
from the activity of plant gathering the
idea of gardening developed, and along
with that, the domestication of animals.
The earliest zone of such innovations now

seems to have been Southeast Asia,

where there was also developed an art of
sea
voyaging that not
only carried such
domesticates as the yam, banana, and co-

conut to
great distances,
inaugu- but also
rated when
an
peoples who had
epoch
long been apart began rediscovering each
other: that
a movement
today has culmi-
nated in our
recognition of the one family
of man of this planet.

Accordingly, the folkways and mythol-

ogies to be explored in the first two vol-
umes of the present work are of two or-

ders: (1) of and tribes,

hunting
gathering
and (2) of the earliest
planting cultures.
The Paleolithic Venus
of Laussel (Figure 66,
page 47), shown elevating in her right
hand a bison horn engraved with thirteen
vertical strokes, the other hand on her

belly, is from a rock shelter in the Dor-

dogne, southern France, of a date c. 20,-

000 to 18,000 B.c. She is
representative
here of the
mythologies of the hunt, of
which no word survives from
(although
her time) there is rich evidence in the rock

paintings and engravings of a period of

magnificent religious art which endured

for 300 centuries.

Figure 67, on the other hand, is repre-

sentative here of the earliest cul-
planting
ture
stage. She is from Tlatilco (a name

meaning “where things are

hidden’), a

site minutes drive

village hardly twenty
from the heart of Mexico City. There, in
the precincts of a brick factory, an aston-

ishing assortment of ceramic

figurines
came to
light during the decade of the
1940s, all from graves of the Mexican Mid-
dle Preclassic Period of c. 1200 to 700 B.c.

And although nothing the is known of

mythologies of that period (for it is still of

a
preliterate stage of culture), such a figu- 67. Dual-faced in terracotta. Tla-
rine as this already suggests a theme well Pretty Lady figurine red, as
though dyed or bleached with lime. A few
tilco, Valley of Mexico, Middle Preclassic Period, have two heads; another few, as here, two faces. All
known to the planting cultures of the c. 1200 to 700 B.c. From more than 200 Tlatilcan are and
charming, appropriately, they have been
that rich harvest of
namely of the dual goddess, figurines of clay
a has been
world, graves called, as aclass, Pretty Lady figurines. What, how-
collected, finely modeled, highly polished, in a varied their function?
the of the two ever, was
“Beyond the fact,” states
great mothering power of styles. Most are of women with long, slant- who the
range Miguel Covarrubias, supervised excava-
worlds: of the dead and of the living, the
ing eyes, small breasts, short arms, slim waists, and tions, “that these figurines were made to be buried

planted and the sprouting seed. large, bulbous legs; some are
standing, some with the dead, their purpose remains a
mystery.’ But
seated; others carry babies on their hips or caress not, let us add, an irreducible
There is evidence at Tlatilco of influ- mystery: being buried
small dogs held in their arms. Most are naked. Oth- with the dead, they serve as an assurance of the
ences from the earliest of the native Amer-
ers, however, are
stylishly dressed in abbreviated maternal power of the seeded earth there to receive
ican, monumental, high civilizations: the skirts of cloth or of grass; their hair is usually painted them.

49
 EARLY
HUNTERS OF
eh OP
EIN PIA

The Recognition
of Death

The first law of life in the animal kingdom—‘to eat, or

Through all the remains in stone and bone
to be eaten”—remained for Early Man, the Hunter, of the first 4 million
the first structuring law of his years or so of the
own address to the
world. This most evolution of our the earliest in-
was
emphatically so on those vast, species,
northern animal plains of the Upper Paleolithic Great dubitable evidences of ritual, and there-
Hunt, onto which Neanderthal Man (69) was appar- with of hu-
ently the first of humankind to venture. To all appear- mythic inspiration motivating
ances, the human species, in those terminal glacial
man
thought and action, appear toward
millennia, was an
unlikely candidate for survival the close of the Riss-Wiirm in
the mammals then
interglacial,
among abounding in possession the cave burials of Neanderthal Man, as
of the earth. Earlier, the great reptiles had reigned,
for in the burial in
and from those had evolved both the serpents and example discovered,
the birds. (68) It is remarkable that these two related 1908 in France, in the lower of Le
grotto
yet contrary forms—one bound to the earth, the where
Moustier, the remains of
other released to the have been
youth of a 70. Dazed and bewildered, a mother chimpanzee
sky—should recog- about sixteen holds her new four weeks old, dead of polio-
had been left baby,
nized early in the imagination of humankind as
signs arranged in a Still dazed, she carried it into the wilderness
head myelitis.
of the extremes to which the human spirit itself might sleeping posture, resting on the
and returned alone to Jane Goodall’s research
turn. Seen as
archetypal of the powers beneath and
right forearm, pillowed on
a pile of flints. camp.’

=. ao
os
eee
ee
a

Areas of artifacts from burials associated

U Yy Spanish-Levantine and
with

Area
Homo

of painted
sapiens
temple
neanderthalensis

caves
¢ eee North African rock art

aa Southern Africa rock art

of Cro-Magnon man

At hand lay an fine Late Map 19. With sapiensHomo neanderthalensis, the
one exceptionally
first of the human
species to bury the dead with
Acheulean hand ax, and round about
offerings, the history of mythology begins. With the
were the charred split bones of sacrificed
painted cave temples of Cro-Magnon Man, a second
wild cattle.” A few miles eastward of this chapter opens with a pictorial tradition, which then,
in passing—north to south—through Spain to Africa,
site, the grotto of La
Chapelle-aux- culminates in the visionary rock art of the Bushmen.
Saints, there was also found that year the
above, it was between them that the later-evolved
mammalian remarkably well preserved skeleton of a
species had appeared, of which the hu-
man was the latest to come: still bound to the beasts’ male of about fifty (Figure 26, page 29),
order of life, but aware of and
already ambiguities carefully laid out in a west-east orienta-
inventive of symbolic acts by which to neutralize the
mind's tion, surrounded by shells, Mousterian
anxieties, even while continuing the general,
primary battle of life, which lives on life. flints, and the remains of reindeer, horse,
bison, and a
woolly rhinoceros. A hole
contained and
nearby a
single bison horn,
there was another in which the large
bones of the animal had been stowed.°
More recently, at Mount Carmel in Israel,
a
cemetery was excavated of no less than
ten Neanderthal burials, where, by the
right hand of one of the adult males, the
71. The jawbone of a
large wild boar is visible at the

jawbone had been placed of a

large wild
right shoulder of this skeleton from a Neanderthal
boar cave-burial at Mount Carmel, Israel.
(Figure 71).°

Al
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k f NESS
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inn
Fi a
ra exhibit when bereaved,
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fi
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profound grief
(ope Gv ae ¢ Y ea NraeN
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but have no
way to resolve it
(Figure 70).
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Homo have dealt with

,

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fg Neanderthal nef Saimin ASIA the no one knows. But the

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earliest answer of Homo sapiens comes out
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mystery every
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represented analogies of death as
:
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a a case, possibly
8
SNS also as with a sunset to be
C o
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“G Shanidar
AFRICA 7
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r a ~~ on” yor
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followed by a sunrise. Whether caves

( He \
a \
ne
5 oon. dag
\
\c were selected to a return to the
— a ELS, suggest
\
/
Ss \ womb for rebirth is a that has
ea
f( question
= (
— PMount
Carmel eer
is f Md
Te men
A
Po f
Soto ( 2Ke,
—_,
\K a
rN \
_—
been argued; so is the question of whether
Neanderthal Sites jee
» >, ee ,
such flexed those at La Ferras-
P

A Pe
os
“Aly
x
;
” \

positions as

c. 100,000 to 40,000 B.C. \ ne a sie can have been meant to the

WA acd suggest
fetal posture. A second
suggested possi-
Map 20.
is that the have been flexed
bility legs may
and and the been buried ina shallow depression, arms
analogy of
The death sleep and bound to
keep the ghosts from walk-
hard the
associated thought of a
waking are clearly folded, legs drawn up to
belly ing and breaking into
people’s dreams.
while the west- with The
suggested in these finds, and bound, apparently thongs. One of the largest and most important,
east orientation have some male with legs hard- well burial chambers of
may implied (Figure 73), again as as
surprising,
his head and
sort of reference to the setting and rising flexed, lay on his back, all has been reported from the Zagros
of the The buried bison horn has not shoulders stone slabs. The Mountains of northern at Shanidar,
sun.
protected by Iraq,
been nor has the scattering of children, were in shallow 250 miles north of Baghdad. Here there is
interpreted, supine, graves,
shells. Neither do we know what, if any, in one of which tools had been 132 feet with a mouth
scraping a
huge cave, deep
have been of and close hole
the mythic reference in which this
a feet to
might laid; by was containing 175 wide, day no-
boar in the Mount Car- wild ox."
that jawbone of a the ashes and bones of a madic Kurds winter with their flocks.
mel One thinks of later Whatever the have
grave. mythologi- specific myths may
slain
cal figures of the Near East, by a been that inspired these primeval burials,
for in
general idea represented
who ex-
boar, yet rose
again: Adonis, there is one

However, associations of this all: that of a continuation of life beyond

ample.
kind, over a
span of 60,000 years or more, death, whether in this world or some

dubious, and not either to other. Oswald in The Decline

are
possible of Spengler,
demonstrate or to refute. the West, “Recognition of wrote of a
"
Then in France, in 1909, in a cave Death” (Blick auf den Tod) as the initiat-
again
at La Ferrassie, there were found the skel- ing moment of every high, mythologically
etons of two adults, a male and a
female, inspired culture style; and here we al-
it in the first of
head to head, together with four children, ready have awakening
two of whom were at the female’s feet, consciousness to its powers at the stage of
the others little The had Homo Some of the animals
a
apart. woman
sapiens. higher
Within, excavations have opened a
infant, and then S. So-
finally, as Ralph tonic, a
stimulant, an
astringent, a
pec-
succession of levels to a of 45 feet, lecki, the excavator, ““room
depth states, was toral, febrifuge,a and a
collyrium; (3) St.
representing an accumulation of made for the male, who
approxi- was
evidently an
Barnaby’s thistle (Cenaurea solstitialis),
mately 100,000 and at a man.’’”
years, depth important which is collected
by the peasants of
Iraq
dated c. 8600 B.c. skeletons of The flowers of this burial of
twenty-six were
eight today for herbal remedies; (4) a
ground-
a
proto-Neolithic period were unearthed, species or more, relatives mainly of the sel or
ragwort (Senecio vernalis), which
beneath which, at various levels, the re- bachelor’s
grape, hyacinth, holly- button, possesses diuretic, emetic, and
purgative
mains were found of seven Neanderthal and
hock, a
yellow-flowering groundsel, properties; (5) the grape hyacinth (Mus-
burials. That of c. 40,000 B.c. was of a one- of the eight being known
seven
today in cari), of the hiliaceal
family, the bulb of
armed male, from childhood, medicinal herbs.
crippled Iraq as ‘These flower which is poisonous, but which also is col-
whose right arm and shoulder had never Solecki ““were not
pollens,’’ observes, ac- lected for its stimulant and diuretic prop-
developed (Figure 75). He had been about cidentally introduced into the grave, and erties; (6) variety a of woody horsetail
forty years old when killed by a roof-fall hence must
represent bouquets or
clumps (Ephedra altissima), which is a cardiac stim-
in the cave, and at some time in his life the of flowers laid down with the
purposely ulant and may be used as a cure for
arm below the elbow had been Shanidar IV burial technical for asthma and
ampu- [the name
epidemic dropsy; and finally
tated. The fact that he had survived to the male skeleton of this quadruple grave]. (7) the hollyhock, or Althaea (which name
that cared for his fellows to whom The
age, by hollyhock is
especially indicative of is from the Greek atOauww, “to heal’’),
he could have been of much this
hardly prac- since it grows in
separate individual from the roots, leaves, flowers, and seeds
tical help, tells of Old Stone and be
something stands, cannot
grasped in bunches of which a
variety of medicines of a
great
man not
Age formerly suspected. like the others. Some person or
persons many uses can be made. “It may be sim-
The most find, however, the mountainside
significant once
ranged collecting ply coincidence,”’ Solecki concedes, “that
came to
light at a level of c. 60,000 B.c. It these flowers one one.’””* the flowers have medicinal
by or economic
consisted of the skeleton, with a the critical
badly Specifically, plants of this value (at least in our
present knowledge),
crushed skull, of a male about 5 feet 8 earliest known now fu- but the coincidence does
(though invisible) raise
speculation
inches tall, which for a Neanderthaler was nereal were a sort of yarrow about the of human
bouquet (1) extent
spirit in Nean-
large. The had been laid to rest with
body ona
(Achilles santolina) insect-repellent derthals. ...
One may speculate,” he
litter of with
evergreen boughs heaped properties, whose leaves are useful
against continues, “that Shanidar IV was not
only
flowers (Figure 76), of which the surviv- intestinal disorders, colic, dysentery, and a
very important man, a
leader, but also
ing pollens have been identified by micro- as a
general tonic; (2) a
variety of corn- may have been a kind of medicine man or

scopic analysis. An infant had been placed flower (Centaurea cyanus), which is now shaman in his
group.’”"4
first in the two women above the used
grave, as a
diuretic, an
emmenagogue, a One is moved to wonder, also, about

Arecognition of the mystery of death, and 75. From the Shanidar cave in Iraq,
great
therewith, of life, marks the spiritual sep- this one-armed male known as Shanidar
aration of man from the beasts. | was
apparently killed by a rock-fall
c. 40,000 B.c.

72. The entrance to the grotto of La Cha-

pelle-aux-Saints where the skeleton of a 76. The now-famous flower burial known
mature Neanderthaler lay surrounded by as Shanidar IV, of c. 60,000 B.c. The body
grave offerings. was
placed on its left side, head to the
south, facing west.
73/74. This skeleton lying on its back with
its legs flexed is the male in the multiple
burial at La Ferrassie.

53
 The Master Bear

A second of evidence to
body testifying
the force of the mythic imagination in the

ordering of life in Neanderthal times came

to in the first decades of the

light present
century, when series of high mountain
a
grottoes was discovered within which
cave-bear skulls had been stored: Wild-

kirchli, Drachenloch, and Wildenmann-

lisloch in Switzerland, and in
Germany,
Petershohle in Middle Franconia, near

Velden. All were at least 7000 feet above

the multiple burial at La Ferrassie; for, as Two skulls broken open to facilitate the eating of the Drachenloch 8000.
sea
level, nearly Hence,
brains: 77. An opened Neanderthal skull from Monte
observed by the nineteenth-century mas- none could have been entered the
Circeo, Italy. 78. A skull from Melanesia. during
ter
anthropologist, Edward Tylor: ““Men theirof remains the and
period glaciers,
do not 79. A chimpanzee uses a leaf to wipe the
stop short at the
persuasion that sponge
of a baboon.’
have been
judged, consequently, to be-
remnants of brain from the skull
death releases the soul to free and active the late
a long to Riss-Wirm interglacial.
existence, but they quite logically proceed This estimate is
supported not only by the
to assist nature, in order
by slaying men g
early and pre-Mousterian tools found
to liberate their souls for ghostly uses. Zan within but also
them, by the faunal re-

Thus there arises one of the which include three

most.wide- mains, large intergla-
spread, distinct, and intelligible rites of cial species: the cave lion,
Ses panther, cave
animistic of funeral human pM
religion—that and huge cave bear, the principal animal
sacrifice for the service of the dead. When hunted in that time and re-
accordingly
a man of rank dies and his soul to vered. has been observed that in
departs For it
its own wherever and whatever M, ANE
place, me EN

hunting societies, generally, principal the

CS Me me
oe R

Zz LB WZ
that place may be, it is a rational inference cag food animal is the normal pivotal figure of
Wa

ah
uA©
\
of early philosophy that the souls of at- UH MN!
en
MI,
LGA the religious cult.
tendants, slaves, and wives, put to death
Nee tty ye
42
ee y
ray fae A {3 fr) In the
NNARRAS
\

v, vaA
lly
_
“ a ee
ea ee P
/,5

Drachenloch, Dragon’s Den,

at his funeral, will make the same ARNEL
beste Gi

the
journey Reap
-
ey
high on a
peak overlooking village of
and continue their service in the next Oy AL
life,
aS
NUS WE rag Se
Vattis Emil Bachler in the
(Figure 81),
and the is stretched of
argument frequently spring 1917 commenced excavations
further, to include the souls of new vic- which he continued into 1922; and what
tims sacrificed in order that en- entrance to the Land of the Dead. In the he uncovered and
they
may charted were seven dis-
ter
upon the same
ghostly servitude.’’ folk tradition, this headland with its tinct back to
many layers, dating interglacial
In a five-chambered on the Ital- surrounded the wine- times. The first
grotto caves, nearly by two were
relatively recent
ian coast at Monte Circeo, some 80 miles dark has been identified as and of but at
sea, long no
archeological interest,
southeast of Rome, a
single Neanderthal Circe’s Isle. Level 3, cave-bear remains
appeared along
skull, set in the midst of a roughly circular |

80. Profile of the excavation at Drachenloch based

heap of stones, has been found. Recepta- sketch the Emil Bachler,
ona
by excavator, Septem-
cles round about contained the remains of
ber, 1920.
sacrificed animals, and the skull itself was

broken at the base 77), as

open (Figure
were all of those of Solo Man discovered
Cave rock
at The headhunters
Ngandong (page 29).
of Borneo still open skulls that in
way —

Cave interior
order to eat the brains, and there were a
nie
2
x
number in the of ics 1. Dark layer
similarly opened caves
Poxicsce
SOK
OIE
COQT
ERX
RY y
a
4
TRRRRRERRKS
kh gray upper
OAK
x
Y

Peking Man. Jane Goodall has told of one é

ESSER
oe
1 Op
Y
U/ a tad
Eee
4 Wee

MDMBe
=
OU I Ur rm

—
=

of her the brains of eee re

chimpanzees enioying Spee.
Q 4

Ty
|. 2. White
sintersterile
Tlf; ea
tI),
y
Y ly 4 /

‘7;
baboon
4

a from its taken

4
4

freshly
,

young . SIiy

3. CAVE BEAR REMAINS

Uf -—

Uy
y
LY

head, broken at the crown

;
f
4
/y

open (Figure —.

VW/7?e2y,
Goyer
:

S
+
te ip AA MAU) eT —
_
AND ARTIFACTS
EO m4
OO MINN LOOK HXKID EN
V RMN
XY LS Threefold culture level
79).'° Apparently, primates like the taste
xy
PIRES RM
IRRASSO
YEREK
XS ; RNIN (}
4,

of each other’s brains. FER, MQ NY y) KAP

KN ARTERY
en —

However, the for- ,

BPP
EX
KY
ER x ,
OAL RS :

_y =>

mal arrangements of the Solo skulls, and

SRT
IAToN
VOD
AN KY Se
KOK
RXR
IR
MRS

= A 4. bright
sinterlike,
red to dark

earthy,
brown
loamy
the way in which that of Monte Circeo
had been set its of stones,
upon pile sug-
— 5. STONE CABINETS
not cannibalism, but ritual
gest simply a Bae white loam

communion of some kind.

Of interest is the fact that on the summit ~~
6. compact
of Monte Circeo the ruins stand of a Ro- sterile
———
man
temple dedicated to the nymph
7. Bed rock
Circe, who introduced Odysseus to the To tT a
a. Cc. stone skull-repository
bonestoragebin
b. fire hearth
54
 81. Eastern
slope of the
DRACHENBERG OSTSE/TE Drachenberg (Dragon
- (2427 m)
Mount) in the from an air photo made in
WACH EINER FLUGAU
FNAHME VON WALT. ee MITTELHOLZER eaeHOMLE
1918
Engadine,
1918; height, 2427 meters (7963 feet). Drachenloch
(the Dragon’s Den), within which in 1917 the remains
were found of a cave-bear-skull can be
seen
high upper left. selliGilely,
82. A cave bear skull from a stone tabernacle in
Drachenloch, with a
longbone (its own?) placed in its
mouth as
though in offering, “himself to Himself.”

Compare the Ainu bear sacrifice, pages 150-152.

83. In Wildkirchli (the Wilderness another

Chapel),
Alpine sanctuary dedicated to rituals associated with
the hunt, these stone worktables and benches were

the furniture of a
workshop for the fashioning chiefly
of handaxes, but also of implements of bone.

it seems we be here what

may confronting
is a
First, the elder in Paleolithic:
truly
the original cult, of
offering namely,
mankind.’”!”
Doubts this
concerning interpretation
have been expressed by the distinguished
French
authority André Leroi-Gourhan,
who suggests that the reported arrange-
ments
may have been the work, not of
Neanderthalers, but of the later
Magda-
lenians, who ranked the
along with bear,
the rhinoceros and felines
large (lions,
leopards, and panthers), high among the

symbolic beasts of their

mythological
cycles. The cave bear no
longer existed in
their time, yet they might have recog-
nized the
large skulls and bones as repre-
senting gigantic members of the species,
and, in reverence, then have
arranged
and stored them as were found. Or
they
some of the
reported dispositions might
even have been the work
simply of
with Paleolithic artifacts. At Level 4, there “The collection and ar- chance, when bears, on the
purposeful entering
were massive accumulations of cave-bear of the cave-bear caves to hibernate, nuzzled and nestled
ranged preservation
and behind walls the bones of earlier
remains, again associated with artifacts; skulls long bones dry among members of
and at Level 5, stone cabinets made of (Trockenmauern) set the sides of their kind that had died there.'®
up along
the her- It is not
slabs were
found, containing cave-bear the caves; and more
especially, easy to imagine, however, how
well Some metic of the skulls, either in the of the
skulls, remarkably preserved. sealing away people postglacial Magdalenian
years earlier, from 1903 to 1908, at Wild- crudely built stone cabinets, protected by period could have set
up storage bins,
kirchli, the Wilderness Bachler slab or in walled worktables, and other in strata
Chapel, coverings, repositories equipment
had conclu- three to four and five levels
conducted a similar operation, and with flagging, allow for no other below the
there had unearthed actual Paleolithic sion, after the realistic consideration of earth floors of their And with
an
day. respect
have here to the movements of
workshop with stone tables and benches every possibility, but that we to
hibernating bears:
do with some sort of Bear Cult, specifi- Drachenloch and Wildenmannlisloch
(Figure 83). Large quartzite nuggets lay
in Bachler’s
about, brought in to be fashioned into
cally a Bone-offering Cult, inspired by the were, words, ‘‘never the re-

sorts and deathbeds of

tools, while a
superior hand ax and a scat- mystical thoughts and feelings of an Old cave
bears, but the
of both of stone and of Paleolithic involv- dwellings of the cave bear hunters.’’!
tering implements, population; thoughts
bone, gave evidence of the ideas. “At the excavations in Drachenloch and
craftsmanship ing transcendental, super-sensual
of the shop. And Wildenmannlisloch,” he
then from 1923 to 1927, Many ethnological parallels testify to a continues, “‘those
in Wildenmannlisloch, the Wild Man’s broad distribution of cults parts of the caves nearest the entrances
bone-offering
Den, Bachler completed his investiga- in the historic period, especially among proved to be all but barren of both animal
and And and prehistoric remains.
tions, in 1940 wrote, in summary: the hunting peoples of the north. so, One could speak

55
 kind for the of the skulls,
preservation
some of which were even found in what

appeared to be intentionally ar-

symbolic
For there was one
rangements. example,
surrounded a circle of small stones;
by
another had had the bones of a bear
long
its own) beneath its
(possibly placed
snout 82); and a third had had
(Figure
similar long bones thrust its
through eyes.
In the German cave of Petershohle, which
had been excavated Konrad Hormann
by
during the same
years that Emil Bachler
was in Drachenloch, five skulls
working
were found arranged in recesses in
neatly
the walls.
There can be no doubt that we have
a
se
wt

here the evidence of a cult of some kind in

veneration of the cave bear, and unless
the excavators have misread their
greatly
evidence, the cult was of the same
period
as that of the earliest known human buri-
}
als. This is to the of
say, interpretation
death as but a had been
passing applied,
not
only to the subject, man, but also to
the objects of his hunting, and, lest re-

sentment on their part should follow

84. The skeleton of a cave bear. in
huge
in Neanderthal the
Apparently, upon a
good hunting day and so perhaps
Europe times, cave bear was cast
spoil the next, rites of gratitude,
in the role of the Animal Master. Among hunting
praise,
this is and appeasement were enacted. For
tribes, commonly recognizeda power, upon
whose goodwill the appearance of game animals is hunters, the two orders of ritual, burial
supposed to depend.
and animal were
worship, complemen-
the reasons for the first
tary, metaphysical
directly implying a need for the second.
And that the two were
cabinet skulls which finally grounded
containing occupied in one
more than half the width of the chamber system of propositions would seem

to be evident in the
85], evidence comparable handlings
[Figure provided enough of the human skull at Monte Circeo and
for the
significance, both of this area, and
the bear skulls of these mountain caves.
of the backmost portion of the cave: the
most
important place for safe keeping, in
the deepest darkness of the cavern depth ’’”°
‘where
. .
not everyone might enter.’
“What these finds reveal to us,” he de-
The Sentiment of
clares again, “is a
picture of the com-

treatment of the
Wonder
pletely pious largest,
handsomest bones of spoils of the hunt,
this third section of the We this be close
establishing cave
may seem, at
point, to to
|
as a
sanctuary, shut by off a ‘tabu’. In any answering the old question, beloved of |
have to do with the theologians and also of anthro-
case, they nothing formerly
usual hoarding of bones of the hunt; the pologists, of the origins of religion; but in

picture would then have been of

totally a fact, we are not. For, when viewed in re-

different kind. And it was

finally impos- lation to the finds from 4 million
years ago
sible to withhold oneself from this in- at Olduvai and Lake Turkana, these earli-

creasing realization, when, at the end of est, mythically inspired rites of burial and
|
our excavations in Grotto III, at the back
of its
rocky wall, we broke, once
again,
upon a formal funereal row of nine skulls,
SS

=)
ONG
tl SEU!
a
ON Llp mote
fro SUTa3
hin | } {ss
R

TMT
Eee
the im- sea
only of ‘scatterings.’ But picture which had been protected from all dam- 4EEEALES
LE A (leoT
{

fe Nini
re WZ 22)
+
-U,
Pei
Ge

mediately changed the moment one en- slabs of stone laid slant the
age by against
tered Grotto II of a cave and came to those rock wall.’”7! ys

that had served its human inhabit- In sum: There were found in these
parts
ants as
dwelling, work, and sleeping in strata the remains of in-
caves, bearing
quarters—made evident not
only by the terglacial fauna, evidences, on one hand,
masses of animal bones but also by the of workshops for the fashioning of tools
worktools witness to the labors of and associated with the bear
bearing weapons
the one-time occupants.
.

hunt, and on the other hand, of sanctu-

“The aries for the of the bears that 85. In Drachenloch, Grotto Ill, a stone cabinet occu-
striking, intentionally arranged, worship than
pying more half the width of the chamber and
partial shutting off of Grotto III at Drach- were killed. There were fire hearths in the
containing cave-bear skulls protected by a covering
enloch fire hearth beneath worktables and
by a screened caves, stone benches, of large stone slabs. These preserved skulls are

the entrance, as well as

by a
large stone flagstone floorings, and bins of various clearly the relics of a cult.

56
worship, from no more than 70,000 would have to be described rather “‘cre-
dating as

are of the mation” than “burial.” And his insti-

years past, practically present. as

The antecedent 4 million of nothing tution of likewise exhibits var-

years ‘“marriage”’
but skull bones, flints, iations. The Muslim authorization of four
fragments, long
and scatterings of teeth tell us nothing of wives, with a dozen or so—or even
along
what thinking may have inhabited those a hundred or
more—concubines, is not

skulls, what prostrations moved the bones, under one rubric with Ro-
readily brought
or what communion meals graced the man Catholic nor would it
monogamy;
teeth. Amplifications of skull seem to serve the Viconian function
capacities quite
have been registered, from the cubic con- of
‘“moderating the passions.” Neverthe-
tent of a gorilla’s brain of about 500 cc, less in a
general way, the elementary idea
upward and onward to the 1600 cc of can be recognized of an institution (to
Neanderthal and then downward to the an
quote applicable dictionary definition)
1500 of mankind At which and joined in
cc or so
today. “whereby men women are

did human
stage, however, thinking ever a
special kind of social and legal depen-
to field than that of animal for the of
open a
larger dence, purpose founding and
economics: nutrition,self-
reproduction, maintaining a
family.’”° Marriage, so de-
and the to be
species-preservation, building fined, appears already indicated in
and defense of nests, leisure-time enter- our finds from Neanderthal times: in the
tainment, and the comforting of wounds? cave of La Ferrassie, for with its
example,
When did the earth and skies open to skeletons of two adults, head to head, and
wonder and the mind respond with an four children; or in the cave at Shanidar,
exaltation to which everything else there- with the male with flowers,
body heaped
after might become subordinate? beneath which two women and an infant
“We observe,’’ wrote Giambattista Vico had been buried. What the forms or form
in The New Science (1730), ‘that all nations, of in that era
marriage primordial may
barbarous as well as civilized, though have been, we do not know; nor can we

separately founded because remote from tell whether ceremonial manners of dis-
each other in time and the of the dead other than burial
space, keep posal may
human customs: all have some have been observed. However, it does
following
religion, all contract solemn marriages, look much as Vico’s three
very though
all their dead. And in no nation, of
bury elementary institutions religion, mar-

however and
savage crude, are
any riage, and burial may have come simulta-
human actions with manifestation that
performed more
neously to in
period
elaborate ceremonies and more sacred when, in the course of the evolution of

solemnity than those of religion, marriage, life, the first had been attained of
degree
and burial. For, by the axiom that the mind.
“sapient’”’
‘uniform ideas, born among peoples un- The evidence for burial in that distant
known to each other, must have a com- era is secure, that for circum-
marriage,
mon
ground of truth,’ it must have been stantial, while that for asks for a
religion
dictated to all nations that from these much more
generous definition of the
three institutions humanity began among term than the famous one of Parson
them that the world should not Thwackum in
all, so
Fielding’s Tom Jones:
Henry
become bestial wilderness.” “When I mention
again a Two from a Neanderthal site in Tata, Hun-
religion I mean the
This statement that objects Christian and not the Chris-
eighteenth-century gary, that may reflect the awakening of a sense of religion; only
“uniform born tian
ideas, among peoples un- wonder: religion but the Protestant religion,
known each have and
to other, must a com-
86. A shaped piece of mammoth ivory, suggesting
not
only the Protestant religion, but
mon
ground of truth,” or, in twentieth- an Australian the Church of England.” James G. Frazer,
tjurunga.
““a common
ground in the in The Golden
century terms, Bough, greatly (and yet not
psyche,” defines a
tacitly taken
principle this insular view
87. A nummulite (an Eocene formaniniferal fossil) sufficiently) enlarged
for granted in all psychological ap- engraved with a cross. when he wrote:

proaches to the interpretation of myths.

“By religion then, I understand a
pro-
in The Golden
Frazer, Bough, thought to pitiation or conciliation of powers supe-
the observed resemblances as of ‘autochthonous revival.’ rior which
explain hypothesis to man are believed to direct
“the effect of similar causes alike These cases are so numerous that we are and control the of and of
acting course nature
on the similar constitution of the human to assume the existence of a col- human life. Thus
obliged defined, religion con-

mind in different countries and under dif- lective substratum. I have called of two
psychic sists elements, a theoretical and a

ferent skies”’;* and C. G. in his sub- this the collective unconscious.’’™ belief in
Jung, practical, namely, a
powers
of the mind that Adolf Bastian, as
already remarked
sequent exploration higher than man and an
attempt to
pro-
Frazer had thus used the (page 9), employed the term “elemen-
recognized, pitiate and please them. Of the two, belief
ideas”
term
“archetypes of the collective uncon-
tary (Elementargedanken) with ref- clearly comes first, since we must believe
scious’ to those structures erence to the
products of this universally in the existence of divine before
designate a
being
human ground, while in his second
grounded in the general anatomy of our term, we can
attempt please him. to unless But
“ethnic ideas” he
species, to which the observed resem-
(Vélkergedanken), recog- the belief leadsa to
corresponding prac-
blances nized the differences of their
might be referred. “Although tra- appearances tice, it is not a
religion but merely a theol-
dition and transmission cer- the greatly cultures.
by migration among differing ogy; in the
language of St. James, ‘faith, if
a he conceded, ‘there Vico’s institution of “burial,” for exam- it hath
tainly play part,”” not works, is dead, being alone.’ In
are
very many cases that cannot be ac-
ple, as exemplified among the Vedic other words, no man is religious who
counted for in this way and drive us to the Aryans, modern Hindus, or Buddhists, does not his conduct in some
govern

of
measure
by the fear or love of God. On “One
saying: dog barks at a
shadow, and
the other hand, mere divested of four hundred
practice, dogs make it a fact.” But, in
all also
religious belief, is not
religion.’’° the sense in which Leroi-Gourhan has
The has here fallen— written of the
anthropologist perception of the extraordi-
not as as Parson
dramatically Fielding’s nary as an
opening of the mind to
a di-
Thwackum, yet no less inextricably—into mension of it is also
religious awe, some-
a
specifically Christian manner of speech. else. To Vico ‘Wonder
thing quote again:
in his sense the evidence of the
Interpreting is
daughter of ignorance; and the
the cave-bear shrines as the earliest known the
greater object of wonder, the more

prehistoric signs of “a or con- the wonder

propitiation grows.’”’* Whether it be a

ciliation of powers
superior to man,’’ one cockleshell or the mystery of death, the
would have to ask, and leave the or tremen-
open, “
mysterium fascinans mysterium
question as to what kind of powers supe- dum, this wonder is that of which Goethe
rior to man,”’ or what God, the cave bears wrote in those lines of his Faust:
and their relics were to
supposed repre-
sent or to be. Can the huge beast have
Das Schaudern ist der Menschheit bestes
been revered as ‘‘God” in any such sense
Teil.
as that Frazer’s
implied by capitalization Wie auch die Welt thm das
of the term? Or was it even to
Geftihl
equivalent verteuere,
Letakots-Lesa’s concept of an animal sent
Ergriffenfiihlt er
tief das Ungeheuere.”°
by the One Above as a In-
messenger?
deed, was there any One Above at all in
The history of our subject, then, is of the
that period; or were the bears revered,
progressive enlargement of man’s knowl-
other creatures and sim-
among objects, edge of the magnitude of his own
in and for and as themselves?
igno-
ply rance and the of his
André Leroi-Gourhan has found in the
expansion thereby
wonder—and religion.
evidences of Neanderthal times sugges-
tions for a definition of that
religion point
beyond these unanswerable rationalistic
to a certain state, mode, or
questions qual-
ity of consciousness that is
specific to reli- The Temple Caves
gion, basic and antecedent to all the his-
toric orders of polytheism, monotheism,
pantheism, atheism, fetishism, animism, To stand, today, in the Rotunda
even of
henotheism, and the rest. As one of the Lascaux is a The
profound experience.
most authorities in this field
scrupulous mind, flung back through millennia, scans

of he has refused either to

scholarship, a
landscape hung between day and night,
accept as
proven any evidence that is un-
of immortal
underground yet overhead,
certain, or to even
interpret imaginatively herds of woolly
ponies, immense bulls of
evidence that he accepts. The Neander- a now extinct here beau-
species yet alive,
thal bear cult, for he has seri-
example, tiful stags with luxuriously branching
ously questioned. The burials he and all these, the
recog- antlers; among arrest-
nizes but refuses to Yet, he has
interpret. ing, very curious form of an animal such
remarked a number of other, more mod- as cannot have lived in this world even in
est witnesses to what he describes as an
the Paleolithic Two
age (Figure 90). long,
order of interests on the of Neander- horns
part straight point directly forward from
thal Man (whom he does not
regard, its head, like the antennae of an insect or

by the way, as of sapiens rank) that are a of and the

pair poised banderillas;
“not confined to and
eating drinking”: gravid belly hangs nearly to the ground.
little clumps and of red ocher, This surely is a wizard beast, and the most
deposits
assembled shells, collected fossils, of of the whole
piles mysterious presence magnif-
spheroid stones, and a number of curious icent vision.
limestone slabs on which little marks To the
cup right, below this enigmatic form,
‘That the should
appear. extraordinary an
opening in the craggy wall leads to a
have been he re-
explicitly perceived,” pictured rock-corridor known to science
marks, “warrants a the Axial
strong presumption as
Gallery, where, as we enter,
in favor of an intuition of the our are another animal
superna- eyes greeted by
tural, not in the sense in at the
though probably array: right, a black stag; to the left,
which we have conceived of it for some a
large galloping bull; and beyond, the
millenniums. ...
Certain facts suffi- whole tunnel is even to the
spectacular,
ciently well authenticated suffice to show with its herds, of
ceiling, again, trotting
that practices related
not to
techniques of ponies, cows, and at the far end, a
pair of
the material life existed before the period ibexes. Here and there we discover what
of Homo sapiens; we may call them reli- to be darts; and there are
appear flying
gious, because they testify to interests be- four each set,
cryptic quadrangular signs,
yond those of the vegetative life.’”’””
The perception of the extraordinary is,
88. Pech Merle, one of the greatest of the painted
of course, known
something already to temple caves: its stalagmites and stalagtites, when
the animal
kingdom. The Chinese have a struck, resound like gongs.

58
89. Two of the three brothers, sons of Count
Bégouen, at one end of the cave which
great they
discovered and first explored—July 20, 1914 (on the
eve of the outbreak of World War |)—and which is
named in their memory and honor, Les Trois Fréres.

90. The magic of Lascaux is epitomized in the com-

pelling enigma of this unnatural beast, which meets

the eye as one enters the great Rotunda.

as André Leroi-Gourhan has remarked, in

a different section of the composition.”
Beneath the first black stag, furthermore,
and out before him runs a
long, curving
row of
large black dots (Figure 93).
The prehistorians have been hard put
to these Paleolithic of
interpret signs,
which there are
many throughout the
subterranean galleries. Leroi-Gourhan has

proposed what is
perhaps a clue, namely,
a of female and male
complementarity
signs: the female, variously represented
as
triangles, ovals, rectangles, and clavi-
forms; the male, as barbed strokes, short
lines, and dots.*! Moreover, in the assign-
ment of such symbols to various parts of
the great caverns, this scholar has recog-
nized an “The male
apparent consistency.
signs are found almost exclusively,” he

59
 The idea of a temple as
distinguished from a
chapel of the universe is revealed the of an
through imagery
or
shrine—namely, of an enclosed area in which all so in these
anthropomorphic pantheon, here, temple
the forms beheld are of vision—was conceived and caves, the same is made known
mystery through
first realized in the great painted caves of southwest- animal forms that are at once in movement and at
ern France and northern Spain, and most marvel- rest. These forms magical: midway, as it were,
are

ously in those termed by the Abbé Breuil the ‘Six between the living species of the hunting plains and
Giants”: Altamira, Font-de-Gaume, Les Combar- the universal ground.of night, out of which the ani-
elles, Lascaux, Les Trois Freres, and Niaux. As in mals back into which
come, they return, and which is
Chartres Cathedral the mystery of the hidden history the substance of these caves.
very

mm...
ing
ss

91/92. The ceiling of the Rotunda at Lascaux. Today and

ing hunting ground was conceived, by what art
it is impossible to imagine the mood of mystery and realized! The wizard beast, upper left, dominates the
awe that the illumination of this great Rotunda of composition. The bulls are its glory. The opening in
Lascaux must have evoked in those here participat- the wall, lower center, is the entrance to the Axial
ing in the men’s rites. Impossible, also, to imagine by Gallery. That to the right is the beginning of the
what miracle of inspiration this vision of an everlast- to the Crypt and Nave.
Passageway
93. The entire right-hand wall of the Axial Gallery. Some them
variously interpreted. regard as
traps
What the function of this corridor may have been is and arrows. André Leroi-Gourhan reads them as
unknown. It is to the female and male
craggy, yet pictured
narrow, symbolic signs, relevant to an un-

ceiling. As we enter, the black stag with antlers derlying mythology of polarized forces, which, in his
branching is to our right. To our left is a galloping view, was the informing inspiration of all the religious
black bull. The rectangular forms and arrowlike sanctuaries of this Paleolithic era.

strokes distributed among the animals have been

61
 writes, “at the where the
point sanctuary
and in the
begins remotest
parts of the
caves; they also appear in the transitions

leading from one central to

composition
another. Within the central
compositions,
on the other hand, female signs are nor-
associated with
mally signs of the male
set.” A count of the ani-
computerized
mal also led to a of
species recognition
pairings. ‘“Certain animals turned next
up
to each other too often,” this
interpreter
found, ‘for such associations to be ex-

plained only as chance.’ Oxen or bisons

would be found next to horses, for exam-

ple, or bisons next to mammoths. “The

fundamental he concluded,
principle,”
“is that of
pairing: let us not
say ‘cou-

pling,’ for there are no scenes of cop-

ulation in Paleolithic art. The idea of

reproduction perhaps underlies the

representation paired figuresof but what
we shall see does not abso-
subsequently
lutely establish this. with the ear-
Starting 94. Deep in a cavern at Montespan is this roughly
liest figures, one has the of
impression moulded, headless model of a bear. When discov-

being faced with a

system polished in the ered, a bear’s skull lay on the ground before it. Fol-

of time—not lowing a ritual of some kind, a bear’spelt with the

course unlike the older
head still attached had been left draped upon this
religions of our
world, wherein form.
there are male and female divinities
whose actions do not allude to
overtly
sexual but whose male and
reproduction, concerning what we should like to know
female qualities are about the let about
indispensably rites, and, us
say, an

complementary.’ underlying metaphysics. However, it rules

Or we think of the old Chinese out
may any simplistic idea concerning the re-

yang/yin, light/dark, hot/cold, dry/moist, ligious system of Paleolithic men.”

male/female, polarity. In the caves, on the A third
point—of obscure yet indubita-
yin, or
female, side are the ox, bison, and ble when the ani-
significance—appears
hind; on the yang, or
male, side are the mals chosen for representation are classi-
horse, stag, and ibex. At fied and numbered. “First of all,”
Arcy-sur-Cur states
and Pech Merle the mammoth “it be said
appears Leroi-Gourhan, must that, sta-
with the bison, whereas at Baume Latrone
tistically speaking, the number of species
its are the feline and the
companions represented is much lower than the num-

horse; in certain other cases, mammoths ber of known to have existed at

species
are to bovid/horse the
complementary ar- time. Paleolithic artists did not
portray
“The role of the
rangements. mammoth,” just any animal but animals of certain spe-
Leroi-Gourhan concedes, “is hard to un-
cies, and these did not an
necessarily play
ravel.’”” Nor, indeed, have more than a in their
important part daily life... .
The
few of the numerous riddles of these main he
actors,’’ reports further, ‘‘are the
caves been solved. horse and the bison, the animals next in
The recognition of a consistent architec- the the
importance being hinds, mam-

tural order in the distribution of the the the

sym- moths, oxen, ibexes, and the
bolic beasts and signs is another impor- stags. Bears, lions, and rhinoceroses
.. .

tant clue to the of these

mythology play an
important part, but as a rule there
subterranean is
temples. only one representation of each per
“What 95. Very different in from the other
constituted for Paleolithic men and feeling galleries
cave, they are by no means
repre- is the Chamber of Felines with its un-
the heart and of the sented engraved,
special core
caves,” in
every cave.’’%
painted lions, the only carnivores among these
this author declares, “‘is the With to the
clearly panels respect
importance of the abounding herds.
in the central dominated animals bear and of bear
part, by worship in this period,
from the female and female an
category extraordinarily interesting discovery tween the
animals from the
effigy’s paws, lay the actual
signs, supplemented by was made in 1923
by the Count Bégouén skull of a bear cub. The
male and male The
clay body, punc-
category signs. en- and Norbert Casteret in a cave about a tured with a number of holes, had been
trance to the a narrow mile and half
sanctuary, usually a
long and extremely diffi- covered, apparently as a mere
support,
part of the cave, is decorated with male cult of access, at
Montespan (Haute-Gar- with the hide of the beast for a
ceremony
symbols, either animals or the back In the middle of
signs; onne). a
chamber, toward of some sort, which the
of the often a is dec-
during image was
cave, narrow
tunnel, the end of one of the convoluted dealt
pas- sharp blows.” We have no idea of
orated with the same reinforced the
signs, by sages, light of their lamps fell upon a how many years, centuries, or
perhaps
horned men and the rarer animals of
(cave heap clay, crudely shaped to
suggest a millennia this bearskin rack have
lion or
may
rhinoceros). Although crowded bear couchant, but with no head. The served; what the prayers or ritual acts
with this framework is
images quite sim- stump of the neck was smooth and at a
may have been that its serv-
it leaves in the
accompanied
ple; us
completely dark slant, and on the before it, be-
ground ice; or when the last fresh pelt was laid on

62
 its back, to be abandoned at the end of an wherein all orientation to the of in the animal
quarters frieze of the Lascaux Ro-
age, left alone in the silence, and the is lost, and time
rotting, sky stops—or rather, tunda are more than 17 feet long, ren-
at some
point in time releasing its skull— continues without punctuation of day dered with a
fluency and grace of line, as
until struck by the light of an electric flash, and
night—were never
dwelling places, alive as life itself.
some fifteen millennia later. but
temples beyond the tick of time, pre- At the end of the Axial
Gallery there is
The general message, however, is ob- served to us in the
depths, so to say, of a
sharp turn to the left; the tunnel nar-

vious; namely, of a Paleolithic

hunting the historical unconscious of our
species. rows, and, continuing on, we find
a bi-
ceremonial performed Their herds the of time,
among flickering are
herds, not but son/horse group completely cut off from
torches in this dark womb of the of
deep, eternity, out of which the animals of the rest of the composition. ‘Further on,”
earth. For these the and
great painted grottoes, light-world come, back to which as Leroi-Gourhan tells, “the passage be-
chill, dangerous, and for
labyrinthine, they return renewal. Some of the bulls comes a constricted tunnel where we find

LASCAUX: GENERAL FLOOR PLAN

Each gallery has its fascination. The different clue.

very no
Entering the cave today, one confronts di-
groupings of the various animal messengers appeal rectly the breathtaking spectacle of the Rotunda (see
to us aesthetically, and feel joined in
we a
kinship of 91/92). Above are the great bulls and woolly ponies;
experience with the artists who produced them. and to the left, as though herding them, is the “wizard
However, to the special function that each beast” with its “pointing horns”
mystical (90). There is asense
of these galleries served—for millennia—we have here of a presence inhabiting these forms.

96. The grace and rhythm of this beautiful

run of swimming stags en-
immediately
chant the eye at the entrance to the Nave.
100. Inthe Lascaux Shaft, or
Crypt, about 16 feet
below the general level of the cavern floor, is the
most crucial scene in the whole sanctuary: an evis-
cerated bison bull, a masked shaman lying before
him, and a rhinoceros walking by with lifted tail (105).

97. Among the animals of the Nave, some

way along the left wall, two back-to-back

bison are
outstanding.

98. This beautiful

extraordinarily stag
(to the right as we enter the AxialGallery)
matches in position the swimming stags
of the Nave.

101. Not the least of the wonders of the art

of the cave is the of the bulls:
vitality prodigious
their graceful ease of line.

99. Among many the

unforgettable sights of this
subterranean, painted labyrinth is the whole right
wall of the Axial Gallery (93) with its herd of woolly
arctic ponies and this glorious leaping cow.

102. One of the ponies among the animals

on the Axial Gallery’s left wall: very like the

woolly ponies to be seen today grazing and

trotting about throughout Iceland.

63
 lous studies of Leroi-Gourhan have
Painted Caves: demonstrated, there was some sort of my-
Rock Art Sites in
Southwestern Europe thological implication in all this iconogra-
fur-
phy, which is evidently
ae
e Rock art sites “2s Paris represented,
e
Important contemporary cities ° 3
thermore, throughout the entire
great
and
of these French Spanish Paleo-
Arcy+s
Orléans » ur-Cure series
lithic grottoes.
Dijon® 2
The enigma deepens when, on return-
GenevaZ—>
ATLANTIC ing from the Chamber of Felines through
back the
OCEAN the long and narrow Nave to
ewes we turn there to the left,
Passageway,
and descend
through the circular Apse,
means of a modern wooden
gingerly, by
antander 2
oulouse
=»
Marseille ladder, into the Shaft, which is about 16
e Tuc d’Audoube d’Azil
a Mas
espa ¢ ale feet On the down, we note the
SEI Castillo 5

oi
$Les Trois Fréres deep. way
painting of a small, black horse’s head,
&
Zaragoza
2

Barcelona fr
CQ and

composition
most
on
turning,
which
learned and
confront
has
intuitive
baffled
an

of the
amazing
even

many
the

Madrid.
great students of this art. On the left is a

R.
Tagus
rhinoceros, apparently walking away,
Guadian@ te under
whose tail there is an
arrangement
& of six black dots..’’The rhinoceros,” states
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
ayyvitiee
ese
Leroi-Gourhan, “is a back-cave or mar-

guade! animal. : to find it at the bottom

ginal .
.

Seville

of the Shaft, accompanied by aligned

dots, is
perfectly normal.” So far, so

good. But now, behind this beast, to our

there with
— right,
arms, a man
lies, supine
(comparatively
outflung
crudely

21. The locations of the temple bison, back to back, after

Map principal magnificent
caves are shown on this map. Far to the east, in the
which the tunnel again sharply narrows
southern Urals on the south bend of the Belaya
River, paintings in related a
style have lately been
to
along, undecorated corridor, ending in
found in the Kapovaya cave. There may be other the Chamber of Felines. Some thirty ani-
undiscovered sites. The nuclear area of the devel- mal to be well
figures are seen here, as as

opment of this earliest of mankind’s art traditions,

a
great number of signs, distributed
however, was undoubtedly that of southwestern
France, the Cantabrian hills, and the Pyrenees. among three bell-shaped subchambers,
each about 3 feet in diameter. In the first
two are six uncolored engravings of fe-

lines, horses, ibexes, a bull, and

a few engraved horses and, at the very among a
number of male and female The last
end, the red markings that so often indi- signs.
cate the end of the decorated of the composition comprises horses, painted
parts
caves. The Axial Gallery as a whole, strokes and other signs, stags, bison, and
then,” he concludes, ‘‘consists of two al- a
rhinoceros, beyond which, at the rear of
the chamber, there appears again only
ternating groups: cow/rectangles/horses,
such a series of red dots as we found at
and bull/barbed sign/cows, both groups
the end of the Axial Gallery.
flanked by stags; there are
complemen-
and isolated bison/horse Evidently, this whole,
really glorious,
tary ibexes, an

subterranean temple compound was con-

composition.’’°®
We return to the Rotunda and ceived, either by someone or
by some
proceed
master as an ordered
from the Axial Gallery into an
opposite original group,
circular wall lead- whole. But to what end, we cannot
say.
opening in the almost
No crude theory of
ing to the
ample Passageway in which the anthropological
its
figures are extremely faint. In Leroi-Gour- “primitive magic” suffices to
explain
the aesthetics of its
han’s opinion, this chamber is
probably extraordinary beauty,
or the of its
the oldest of the grotto, with a decoration organization, magnificence
based, in his words, “upon a
large ox/ forms. Why, precisely, a cluster of felines

with least bi- here, bulls and horses there, ibexes at the
horse + ibex group, at one

son/horse we ends of compositions, red dots, quadran-

composition.’” Continuing,
the and gles and black dots, various pairings, pos-
enter
sharply narrowing Nave,
tures, and As the meticu-
there, directly before us, to the
right, is arrangements?
that beautiful, now famous frieze of the
heads of five swim-
stags, apparently What is the meaning of such hand prints left on the
To the left is a bison/horse + ibex walls of sacred the world? They
ming. places throughout
with associated and are testimonials to participation in a
mystery.
group, rectangular
barbed with an ox/horse com-
signs, along 103. From Double Hand Shelter, Queensland,
which also includes female and Australia.
position
male These are followed two 104. Froma Paleolithic cave in France.
signals. by

64
 PP 7 OR, i my
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drawn) with erect and what would 105. This of in the

phallus scene
mystery Shaft, or Crypt,
to be bird’s head—or the “holy of holies” of the Lascaux temple cave,
appear a
perhaps he may
represent an
episode from a
legend of that era.
is a mask. His hands also are
wearing Three other, possibly related, man/bull confronta-
birdlike, and there is the of a bird
figure tions have been identified in art
period, works of the
vertical staff at his c. 17,000 to 12,000 B.c.:
engraving on
one, rein- an
perched upon a right. deer horn from a rock shelter, Laugerie Basse, in the
“Birds are rare,’’ remarks Leroi-Gourhan,
neighborhood of Lascaux; another, a
painting deep
“both in cave art and in decorated objects, in the temple cave, also nearby, at Villars; and the
and their in is uncer- third (some 5000 earlier), a sculptured block in
position symbolism years
arock shelter, Le Roc de Sers, in Charcute, dated c.
tain. About all we can is that the lower
say
17,000 B.c.

part of the sign painted here resembles a

male sign.’’*° But birds, on the other hand,

are, in later, shamanistic contexts, the
normal vehicles of in ec-
wizard-flights tion,reading the stick as a male sign, com-

stasy, whether to the underworld, to the

plemented by the falling entrails of the
heavens, or to those realms beyond the wounded which descend in four
beast,
horizon from which shamanic powers de- concentric ovals. These he as a
interprets
rive. Bird-decorated costumes and staves, female sign, suggesting that what we
may
as well as bird transformations, are the have here is ‘a variant form of the assim-
rule in shamanistic contexts. Hence, it ilation of and
phallus-to-spear vulva-to-
seems to me
entirely possible that the wound.” “Does the male he
sign,” asks,
in this or of
prostrate figure crypt, holy “imply an assimilation of
phallus-to-spear-
holies of the cathedral of Lascaux, is not thrower?”
at all a hunter slain a bull and
by The question remains open. But a tell-
here memorialized, as the Abbé Breuil is made when this author calls
ing point
in his of the
suggested interpretation attention to an
engraved reindeer horn
scene,*! but a
shaman, in trance. Be- from site far
rapt a
dwelling not from Lascaux,
fore him is a
great bison bull, eviscerated known as in his
Laugerie Basse, which,
apparently by a spear that is
represented words, “has on one side a bison marked
as
though resting aslant against the beast’s with one stroke and an man
ithyphallic
flank, but was meant to be seen, almost with outstretched arms, on the other side
certainly, having as transfixed its anus a horse.”’ In the Lascaux Shaft, as we have
and its sexual there is
emerged through organ. seen, an
incompletely rendered
There is no one behind the bull from horse, with the bi-
constituting, together
whose hand the lance have been standard bovine/horse
might son, a
composi-
thrown. However, at the man’s feet there tion. ““The same scene, with the same
pro-
is a kind of barbed stick, which the Abbé turns Leroi-Gourhan
tagonists, up,’”’
Breuil as a
thrower, “in
interpreted spear an
continues, sculptured form at Le Roc
atlatl. Leroi-Gourhan this de Sers and in form Villars.””*
rejects sugges- painted at

65
That is to it is the illustra- under his penis, as if a second were
say, evidently penis
tion of a crucial scene from some essential protruding from him.
“The Pindupi refer to black
legend of the period; a
legend, further- magic in
more, that must have enioyed a
long ca-
general as erati, and a special type is de- of the
reer, since the sculpture of Le Roc de Sers scribed as
kujur-punganyi (‘bad-make’). Symbols
is of the Solutrean c. 17,000 B.c.,“4 a Several men hold a
string or pointing
Age,
bone with both hands
Power Female
good 5000 years earlier than the period of and, bending
the painting at Lascaux. down, point backward, passing the mag-
This ical bone beside the The victim
legend, then, we can
register as a just penis. In a and with a
posture gesture eloquent
component of our first known (yet un- is
asleep, and the bone goes straight into of some the of which
documented his scrotum.’”° legend, knowledge
known) mythology, having has been lost, the Venus of Laussel (Figure
flourished, one
way or another, from c.
Strictly thinking, it is improper to make be-
of this kind, jumping
109; also, Figure 66, page 46) stands
17,000 to 12,000 B.c. Moreover, from the comparisons centu-
fore us like the figment of a dream, of
of its illustration in the most in- ries and culture provinces. However, as
position which but
accessible have the Aus-
we
dimly know cannot
bring to
holy of holies of the magnifi- we
already seen
(page 32), mind the The of
cent Sistine tralian natives have had throwers meaning. mythology
great sanctuary—this Chapel spear which she is the remains in
for and
messenger
of the Paleolithic, as it has been called— some 7000 years, so too had the
absolute silence behind her, like the rock
have of Lascaux, to
we
may judge it to been, very prob- people 10,000 20,000 years out of which she is hewn. As reviewed
earlier. Stenciled hands in Aus- by
ably, the inspiring legend of the entire appear the art historian Giedion: “The
with the wizard beast in the Ro- tralia on the rock walls of the Tombs Shel- Sigfried
grotto, and the block are inter-
tunda of the ter and Kenniff also at El Castillo, figure inseparably
representing a
projection Cave; so
locked. In the the
of the shaman in the the Pech and of position selected by art-
power crypt, Gargas, Merle, many more
had
ist for this relief, the block a
slight
of its horns the great European Further-
magic pointing corresponding grottoes. so that the swelled for-
to that of his pointing we have learned of the overhang, figure
phallus. more, something ward When seen from the side,
of Old Stone gently.
By analogy, there is still
practiced in perdurability Age forms and
the curve as taut as a bow.
and where the idea of a
appears strung
Australia a lethal rite of magic principles; spear
phallic It swells up to the supreme point, the
known as the ‘‘pointing bone,” one vari- thrower can have been handed on, so too
maternal belly, then falls away at either
has been described thus can that of a bone. The curious
ety of which by pointing end and sinks into the rock, in
horns of the Lascaux wizard beast are re-
slowly
Geza Roheim:
which the feet seem to melt. The upper
“Black hostile is similar in form to the
or
magic predomi- markably “pointing
sticks’”” part of the body curves gently backward,
nantly phallic in Australia... .
Ifa man
by performers in ceremonies
worn
and the head, between two rock
of the Australian men’s resting
has been ‘boned’, his dream will show it. dancing ground;
projections, seems to be reclining, as
First he sees a
crack, an in the and further, the position of the lance,
opening though ona cushion.’ The piece, in Gie-
three walk- the anus of the Lascaux bull and
ground, and then two or men
piercing dion’s words, is “the most
vigorously
him within the at the the bowels
ing toward opening. emerging penis, spills of the human
from the area which is sculptured representation
When they are near
they draw a bone out between, exactly in the whole of art.’"*”7 And
It from the flesh the spot affected the bone of body primeval
of their own
body. comes
by pointing the miracle is that it was fashioned with
between the scrotum and the rectum. The the Australians. Finally, there is in
chisels of flint.
his Roheim’s account of the Australian rite a
sorcerer, before he actually ‘bones’ Discovered in 1911
by a
physician, J.G.
victim, makes him fall asleep by strewing plausible suggestion for an interpretation Lalanne,* this impressive piece, no more
in the air some semen or excrement which (in Stone Age terms) of the force, not only than 17 inches of a
of the high, was only one
he has taken from his own
penis or rec-
pointing penis of the shaman of
number found in a
but also of those six black dots preserved long ledge
tum. The man who uses the bone holds it Lascaux,
situated only a few miles from Lascaux
beneath the passing rhino’s tail, as
repre-
(Figure 108). ‘The limestoneoverhang
senting the lethal magic of its dung. For, which shelters the
if originally a feature of the legend of the dwelling site,” states
Giedion, “is here particularly beautiful,
pictured bison scene, this formidable
Between the art of the caves and and
106/107. temple
beast well have
the dwelling place itself was on a

the rituals of Australia, there are many suggestive may played the mythic terrace, over one hundred meters
A clue to the strange horns of the wizard role of the shaman’s trance-vehicle fa-
long,
analogies. or
above a down to the foot of the val-
beast of the Lascaux Rotunda may be seen in the
miliar. Where so fea-
drop
lethal sticks” of Australian magic, as here many extraordinary It was, in every an
“pointing
tures fall so into it is difficult
ley. respect, exception-
worn
by two performers in an Aranda initiation neatly place, shelter, and at its end stood
not to a connection.
ally protected
ceremonial.° suspect the sanctuary in which the Venus block
was found, the figure facing outward to-

wards the shelter.’’*’ The other in-

pieces
clude two reliefs of females holding un-

identified objects, and a third female with

what appear to be the head and shoulders
of a male upside down beneath her (Fig-
ure
110), in such a as to have
position
suggested a birth scene to Lalanne, but to

others the earliest known representation

of coitus; further, a few slabs and blocks
incised with female symbols; and
genital
finally, a
fragment bearing the figure of a

male, head and arms

gone, but in an atti-
tude suggesting a
javelin thrower. The
site was inhabited from Mousterian times,
with the period of these sculptures falling
somewhere c. 20,000 to 18,000 B.c.*°

66
 For millennia, the domi-
apparently,
nant in this shelter was the
presence
Woman with the Horn. Alexander Mar-
shack, in his volume The Roots of Civiliza-
tion, has observed that the horn is marked
with thirteen lines. ‘“The count of thir-
teen,’”’ he adds, “‘is the number of crescent
‘horns’ that may make up an observa-
tional lunar year; it is also the number of

days from the birth of the first crescent to

just before the of the mature full

days
moon.’*' The must have
figure repre-
sented some so well
mythic personage
known to the that the reference of
period
the elevated horn would have been as

readily understood as, say, in India, a lo-

tus in the hand of the Shri
goddess
Lakshmi, or, in the West, a child at the
breast of the The left hand laid on
Virgin.
108. The rock shelter of Laussel, site of the images
shown below. On terrace more than 300
a yards
long, fronting a drop to the valley floor, this limestone
overhang served, not only as a dwelling site, but
also, apparently, as a ceremonial center to the mys-
tery of generation.

109/110. Whereas the art of the painted caves was

of animal forms with occasional male magicians

among them, that of such dwelling sites as the rock
shelter of Laussel (108) was mainly of the human
female. These two images from that long-inhabited
sanctuary evidently represent some
mythology of
the mysteries of the womb, the lunar cycle, and the
generation of life. For, although Leroi-Gourhan has
declared that “there are no scenes of copulation in
Paleolithic art” (see page 62), it is difficult to see

anything else in 110, where beneath the female is

evidently a bearded male. In Egyptian art the sky-
goddess Nut overarches the earth-god Geb, her
spouse.

67
 Two triple Goddess monuments separated by
10,000 years:

111. Within a shallow Paleolithic cave at Angles-

(Vienne), three powerful female pres-
sur-Anglin
ences made manifest above the figure of a bull.

Date, 13,000 to 11,000 B.c.

112. Ona altar, formerly on the site

Gallo-Roman
in Paris now
occupied by the Cathedral of Notre
Dame, the image of a bull beneath a tree upon which
there perch three cranes symbolic of the Celtic Triple
Goddess. Inscription: Tarvos Trigaranus, ‘The Bull
with Three Cranes.” Date, probably first to third cen-
turies A.D.

of the that the above the

the belly may have been significant further, on
ceiling en-
earthly order of the womb. The annual
womb the vessel of birth and rebirth, trance to the Lascaux Shaft there is a and of the
as
disappearances reappearances
which in its is matched sign,’” and birds and beasts must also have contrib-
monthly mystery “compartmented rectangular
the measures of the moon. Indeed, if onits stone rim a cluster of ‘““claviforms.’’ uted to this sense of a time-fac-
by general
this were a of the Neolithic These are both, in his classification, ‘“fem- tored For, once as we
goddess age, mystery. again,
we should have no doubt of her meaning. inine” and as such, must have have heard from the Pawnee chieftain Le-
signs, sug-
However, she is of a and to those descending into the sanc- takots-Lesa: ‘““Tirawa, the One Above,
hunting age gested
and the elevated horn is that its was to be of the sent certain animals to tell men that
people, specifi- tuary mystery
.

the and life. This is he showed himself the

cally of a
bison—possibly same
leg- womb, giving renewing through beasts,
the Ve-
endary beast that we have seen disem- the mystery symbolized as well in and that from them, and from the stars

the
boweled in the crypt of the nearby grotto nus
of Laussel, by her left hand over and the sun and the moon, man should
of Lascaux. womb and the horn of the wax- learn.’’
pregnant
Leroi-Gourhan, it is recalled, proposed moon elevated right. in her The of the caves were in-
ing paintings
that the illustrated in that scene The evidence of these two the of the beasts. The
legend neighboring spired by teachings
well known to the witha then, is of acommon on the other hand, and such
was one
period, monuments, Upper figurines,
There rock-carved reliefs those of the
history of some 5000 years or more. Paleolithic mythology whose legends have as Sanctu-
number of the
was a
legend, known to a not reached us, but whose imagery is fa- ary of Laussel, took their inspiration,
tribes of the North Ameri- miliar. For the phases of the moon were rather, from the of the female
bison-hunting mysteries
who married And the the of the
can
plains, of the woman a the same for Old Stone Age man as
they body. qualities of art

bison and through her life-restoring magic are for us; so also were the processes of known sanctuaries of this second kind
became the institutor of those hunting the womb. It may therefore be that the differ greatly from anything found in the
the lives of the slaughtered birth the
rites
by which initial observation which gave in
painted caves.

beasts were restored (page 234). Such mind of mythology of one mys-
man to a For example, at the Abri du Roc aux
rites are known to
hunting peoples every- tery informing earthly and celestial things Sorciers, at
Angles-sur-Anglin (Vienne),
where. There is no reason to believe that the recognition of an accord between there was to in 1948 an as-
was
brought light
the of the Paleolithic knew these two “time-factored”’ orders: the ce- wall a
large relief of
races
nothing tonishing bearing
of such Leroi-Gourhan lestial order of the and the three colossal female
things. points out, waxing moon
presences (Figure

68
111): the loins, legs, and bellies, with ac-
clining female figure carved in a
style the rock wall. But their could not
grace
cented sexual parts, the heads and upper in Old Stone art
unique Age
(Figure 113). entirely be obliterated.... An unex-
torsos lost to view above, in the In Giedion’s
primal ‘The figures lie,
description, pected delicacy of line and an
elasticity in
substance of the mother rock. One the rock
light as a
breath, upon face. They handling the surface of the skin are ex-
thinks of the clusters of
triple-goddess are so
delicately modeled that
they lay pressed, which are otherwise quite un-
later European the Graces unnoticed
mythologies: by the generations of prehisto- known in
primeval art...
.
Three, Fates, Furies, Norns, and the rians who excavated
great at the entrance to the “A new ideal of the human
figure was
triad of the of Paris,
Judgment Aphrodite, cavern. A classic
Magdalenian engraving here announced: a
long-legged, slender
Hera, and Athene. The Paleolithic triad is of a horse is situated
immediately above figure with smaller breasts. It can
only
standing on a bison, so that, as in the the excavated but it was
area, only in 1952 have persisted for a short hour.
Develop-
Sanctuary of Laussel, there is
again an that the female reliefs were discovered by ment followed a
radically different direc-
explicit association of the female with this the keen of an who had tion. in
eyes engineer But, as nature, art has sometimes
beast. The date at Laussel was c. 20,000 been roads in the Sahara Desert
building put forth blossoms
strangely premature
that of this
B.c.; shrine, nearly a hundred for more than twenty years. H. Bessac which are condemned
perish.” to
centuries later, is c. 13,000 to 11,000 B.c. first the left-hand then The
recognized figure, period of this shallow cave
(‘Some
Roughly another hundred centuries, and the right. What first
caught his eye was flickers of
daylight,’ according to Gie-
there is the carved square block of a
Celtic, the formed
deeply cut, geometrically sex-
dion, ‘“‘penetrate even into the farthest
Gallo-Roman altar, excavated from the ual of the left-hand after
triangle figure; recesses’’) is the same as that of the triad
site of the Paris Cathedral of Notre Dame this he was able to follow her outlines, of c. 13,000 to 11,000
Angles-sur-Anglin,
(Figure 112), on one face of which there is and then see the the
companion figure on B.C. Below the figure on the left there is a

standing a large bull beneath a tree with

right-hand wall.... bison; to the right of the other, a
large
three cranes its head and “What
perched upon seems so
strange about these horse. That is to
say, the classic formula
back and with the words Tarvos is their unusual
Trigaranus figures pose, which is of a
Magdalenian bison/horse composi-
(The Bull with Three Cranes) unlike idol’s.
engraved very an Both figures lie tion is here
displayed; and, as Leroi-Gour-
above. In Celtic
mythologies the great Tri- stretched out in
positions of utter
repose, han has observed: “All that is
missing to
ple Goddess repeatedly appears in the one arm bent and the head.
supporting complete the composition is an ibex and a
form of a crane. from
They arise the rock as ‘foam-born’
A third site of this order has from the
significant Aphrodite arose sea. .

.
been identified 50 miles south “Both
lately some forms were
exposed from the be- 113. Almost effaced
by 15,000 years of weather-
of Lascaux, at La to the direct ing, these two
reclining female forms flank the en-
Magdeleine (Tarn), ginning effects of the open air
trance to La Magdeleine, a cave in the Aveyron val-
where, on the rocks at either side of the and variations of temperature, and have
ley (Tarn). They are astonishingly graceful, yet, like
entrance to a shallow cave, there is a re- suffered from the of
severely weathering most female figures of their period, without faces.

69
114. This tiny ivory head, 1%
inches from 115. disk, from a grave 116. Mammoth-ivory ‘“‘but- 117. Headless “buttocks profiles” from
high, Brassempouy Amammoth-ivory
is unusual. It hints of the at Brno, Moravia, possibly symbolizing the tocks image” from Perkama, La Roche (Dordogne).
(Landes)
female (or possibly a
specific vulva of rebirth. Moravia.

woman) seen, not simply in rela-

tion to reproduction, but as a

muse.

istic art, but a conceived abstraction, de-

small male head. The attitude of the Garonne), the undoubted masterpiece.
a statement. The some-
women,” he adds, “is unique in Paleo- Fashioned of mammoth ivory, 5’/, inches livering symbolic
smaller Venus is similarly
lithic art, a nonchalant freedom high, this exquisite little thing, made, it what of Willendorf
reflecting
of which know other would seem, to be held and admired in symbolic, as are all the other figures of
we no
example.’’** that from
this series. one
example,
Approximately a hundred centuries the hand, translates the typical fea-
most Only
Dolni Véstonice in Moravia (Czechoslo-
earlier—roughly contemporary with the tures of its genre into a
boldly styled aes-
Laussel relief of the Woman with the Horn, thetic statement of extraordinary charm. vakia) (Figure 120), is
exceptional in that,
feet and the the realism of the torso, the sexual
i.e., c. 20,000 to 18,000 B.c.—there had All such images are without despite
is On the other hand,
over a
large part of Europe the heads are featureless, the accent falling triangle missing.
appeared in the of the head
four holes suggest
earliest of those female statuettes, no on the breasts, sexual triangle, and but- top
that flowers, leaves, or feathers may have
more than 3 to 6 incheshigh, of which tocks—which in the elegant little figure
been inserted there to the power
the Venus from Lespugne have all been constellated signify
Figure 118, of Willendorf (Aus- seasonal
Mother of the to foster growth.
tria), is the classic representative, and in such a
symbolic arrangement
as
goddess
From Russia notable
Figure 119, the Venus of Lespugne, from Nature could never have brought forth. European many
finds have from stations of
the foothills of the Pyrenees (Haute- For this definitely is not a work of natural- come, mainly

120. From Dolni Véstonice, Moravia, this enigmatic

118. Venus of Willendorf (Austria); limestone;
of and bone lacks genitalia,
4 inches. The without feet, when im- figure clay pulverized
height, legs face has no mouth. In the crown of the
the and its crude
soil of shrine, would support
planted in the a
head are four holes.
image upright.

119. Venus of Lespugne (Haute-Garonne, Pyre-

marks a climax in
development the of this
nees)
genre. Seen here both in profile and in rear view, it
gives evidence of a distinctive (almost modern) aes-
thetic interest in the styling of a work of art.

70
 the Late Paleolithic mammoth hunt, which
continued in that when in the
region,
west, the had been
great pachyderms re-

placed by reindeer
herds and all but for-

_gotten.°’ At Yeliseevici (a dwelling site be-

tween
Bryansk and Mglin on the right
bank of the river Desna), an accumulation
of mammoth skulls in a circle
arranged
was uncovered with a Venus statuette
them as a evi-
among goddess-patroness,
dently, of the hunt. At Kostienki on the

right bank of the Don, where a number of

images have been found, three were dis-

covered in a rounded niche in the
special
wall of one of the huts, about 6 feet from
the hearth. One, of mammoth was
ivory,
without its head; another, of limestone,
about a foot tall (the largest yet found
anywhere), had been broken in four

pieces and thrown back into the niche; the

third was an ill-made of mam-
specimen
moth tusk or of bone. Other here,
signs
and at certain other mammoth hunters’
settlements
along the Don, show that in
that distant day a disaster of some kind
overtook these
people and that it was

thought important by those responsible

that the powers, not of the
121. La Polichinelle, a
tiny figurine (only 1% inches 123. A torso of mammoth ivory found in the wall only people
high) made of vitreous rock and found at Grimaldi on niche of a hut in Yeliseevici on the Desna. themselves but also of their statuettes,
the Riviera.
should be broken.

122. Hematite torso from Ostrava-Petrkovice, 124. Mammoth-bone from Kostienki on the
figure
Moravia. Don; its form the Venus of
suggests Lespugne (119).

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At Mal’ta, near Lake Baikal in Siberia, a cache of

twenty symbolic items, dating c. 16,000 to 13,000

B.c., has been discovered, associated with the cere-

monial burial of(126). These

a child items, all of
shaman’s staff
baton, suggesting a
(Fig-
mammoth ivory, included: (125) six flying geese, one

of which is pictured here; (127) a buckle ure

129); and finally, and most remarka-
engraved on
both sides; (128) six figurines, one of which is here
bly, the skeleton of a
rickety four-year-old
pictured and all of which—like their distant sisters in
child with a
accompaniment of
Austria and the without feet; (129)
copious
Pyrenees—are
mammoth-ivory ornamentation (Figure
a staff or and fish
wand; (130) a necklace; a
(not
shown) bearing a stippled labyrinth. 126).
The little skeleton was found lying on

its back in the crouch or fetus posture, but

with its head turned to the left and facing
east, the direction of the rebirth and rising
of the sun. Over the grave
was curved a

mammoth tusk, and within were

The most
interesting Russian discovery large
of a ceremonious bur-
of all, however, has been made far east- many signs highly
about 55 miles ial. There was a
great deal of red coloring
ward, at Mal’ta in Siberia,
northwest of Irkutsk. Here were unearthed matter in the grave—a common
finding in
of Paleolithic sites—and encircling the head
no less than twenty female statuettes
was a delicate crown or forehead band of
mammoth ivory, from 1'/,; to 5//, inches
mammoth The child had worn a
tall, one
represented as
though clothed in ivory.
the others nude bracelet of the same material and a fine
a cave lion’s skin, (Figure
necklace of six and 120 flat ivory
128). Some fourteen animal burials were octagonal
six of deer, beads, from which a birdlike ornamental
also found: six of the arctic fox,
130). A second
in each case with the antlers and hind- pendant hung (Figure
likewise in the form of a
flying
quarters missing (suggesting that the ani- pendant,
bird, as well as two decorated medallions,
mals were
flayed before burial, possibly
to furnish shamanistic There was lay in the grave. One of the latter seems to
attire).
head and neck of have served as a buckle; the other, some-
one curious burial of the
a
large bird, and one of the foot of a mam- what larger (Figure 127), showed on one

and one side, scratched or

engraved, three cobra-
moth. Six flying birds swimming,
either like wavy serpents, and on the other, a
of mammoth ivory—all representing
showing spiral a of seven
geese or ducks—were found (Figure 125), stippled design
along with an
ivory fish with a
spiral
turns with enclosing it—the
S-forms ear-

labyrinth stippled upon its side; an

ivory
liest spirals known in the
history of art.*
 The of this but also of the universal itself. end around the fireball of a star. Neither
probable dating important spirit
Siberian site is c. 16,000 to 13,000 B.c.°? Hence a term of honor addressed to the in nor in mind do we inhabit the
body
That of the Venus it is recalled, master is Paramahamsa: world of those races of the Paleo-
of Laussel, yogi “paramount” hunting
that of whose lives and life
was c. 20,000 to 18,000 B.c., and or
“supreme” (parama) ‘‘wild gander” lithic millennia, to

La the cobra is a nevertheless the forms

the two
extraordinary caves at
Magde- (hamsa). There figure pro- ways we owe
very
leine and (of the two revered, as well as feared. The of our bodies and structures of our minds.
Angles-sur-Anglin foundly
forms and the colossal earth is a cobra’s di- Memories of their animal still
reclining female supported by head, envoys
that Immovable where within for
Triple Goddess), c. 13,000 to 11,000 B.c.
rectly beneath Spot must
sleep, somehow, us; they
The numerous female distrib- the Buddha sat when he achieved En- wake a little and stir when we venture
figurines
of the and when the
uted over the whole European lightenment; a storm arose, into wilderness. They wake in terror to

Paleolithic field also of these cobra, Muchalinda, left thunder. And with
Upper were
earth-supporting again they wake, a

So, from the to Lake his post and,

encircling the Buddha’s sense of recognition, when we enter
datings. Pyrenees any
Baikal, the evidence now is before us of a
body while sheltering his head with his one of those great painted caves. What-
there
Late Stone
Age mythology in which the hood, protected the entranced one ever the inward darkness may have been
the Naked seated in The central ser- to which the shamans of those caves de-
outstanding single figure was spiritual flight.
Goddess. And she can be of the Mal’ta plaque has a
larger scended in their trances, the same must
already recog- pent
nized in a number of her best-known later hood than the other two and lie within ourselves, visited in
may repre- nightly
roles: of the Wild Protec- sent a male flanked females. And find Moreover, in of the world
as
Lady Things, by I sleep. parts
tress of the Hearth, Consort of the Moon- it difficult to as mere chance the to civilization,
interpret marginal contemporary
bull, who dies to be resurrected—with fact that the reverse of the plaque shows a the beat of the shaman’s drum may still be
herself of the vortex to a center. heard, in to re-
thereby a
personification spiraling transporting spirits flight
of the moon, which has the This is not to
suggest that some school known to our own visionaries and
mystery gions
to shed its shadow (as the of Paleolithic hunters have to men and women mad. Did the
power serpent Upper may gone
skin) its to reborn. Not a
anticipated the Buddha, but to
point out shamans of those caves
interpret their vi-
sloughs appear
few of her images suggest she that in the iconographies of both the early as shamans do today—
pregnancy: sionary voyages
was almost a of child- shamanistic and much later Buddhist shamans whom we can visit and with
certainly patroness
birth and fecundity. In that Paleolithic age trance traditions, there can be recognized whom many of us have conversed? Our
the constellation of is the in the
she was
specifically a goddess of the hunt, same
myth motifs or
only evidence pictorial script
but also, apparently, of vegetation—if we
elementary ideas. Indeed, there is a na- of the silent caves
labyrinthine secrecy
so the Dolni Véstonice tive of a
significant relation- themselves. so hidden and in
may interpret fig- recognition Why deeply
with the little in the word “sha-
urine. Another association ship already indicated parts so difficult of access?
Mal’ta burial that it was she who man” itself, which is derived from the “Some caves with animal art,” as Alex-
suggests
their “‘are
received the dead and delivered
Tungusic saman; this, in turn, being de- ander Marshack has remarked, so

souls to rebirth. rived from the Sanskrit sramana, meaning difficult to

get into and their painted and
The material culture of the Mal’ta settle- “Buddhist monk.’ The bird on the chambers are so
deep that
pros- engraved
of staff Lascaux is not hours time
ment was an
Aurignacoid character, trate shaman’s at a were
spent climbing inside,
from the South Russian waterfowl, not a nor do we find was in and
evidently brought goose; spent engraving, painting,
hunters of the rein- cobras in the West. Like the (or and more time was
spent com-
plains by competent labyrinth ceremony,
deer, rhinoceros, and mammoth. Their these of the bird and out. This would be a
tiring and unec-
spiral), specifications ing
semisubterranean (uncovered forms first in this Siberian onomic for a hunter performing
dwellings serpent appear activity
in an excavated area of some 600 Mal’ta site. are not of European but hunting magic! In true
hunting magic,
square They
had had roofs that remains draw the animal in the sand
meters) incorporating lay- of Asian origin. The question one can or

ers of interlaced reindeer antlers sup- is whether we are to think, with some scratch it on an
open rock surface and

ported by large animal bones. The exca-

authorities, of a
people perform the rite of magic killing quickly.”
plant-oriented
vator, M. M. Gerasimov, in from the south that moved up into diffi- Herbert Kiihn has described his own
recognized, a
the abundant remains of the interiors,” cult but northern terrain of the visit to the main cham-
rewarding great bell-shaped
evidence of a clear division between the hunt, vice of a northern ber, with its overhanging rocks and fis-
or versa, hunting
men’s and the women’s activities, such as some of whose shamanic of the cave known as Les Trois
race, symbols sures,

has been normal in

hunting cultures were later to
penetrate the south, there to Freres at
Montesquieu-Aventeés (Ariege)
everywhere. And, if we
judge from become in
legends of the In- in the Pyrenees:
may incorporated
the evidences of their numerous bone fig- dian Paramahamsas. “The ground is damp and slimy, we

urines and the contents of the little grave, have to be very careful not to
slip off the
in their It goes and then
mythology the goddess was asso- rocky way. up down,
about
ciated with an
imagery of water birds and comes a
very
narrow
passage ten

to which which have to

serpents, something strongly yards long through you
suggestive of Ariadne’s labyrinth may
The Shamans of the creep on all fours. And then again there
halls and
have been joined. The serpents are co-
Caves
come
great more narrow
pas-
bras, and they are three, as the female In one are a lot of red
sages. large gallery
forms in the cave at
Angles-sur-Anglin and black just those dots.
dots,
are three. Six of the birds have the look The animal envoys of the Unseen Power “How the stalactites are!
magnificent
of We know that in no as in times, to The soft drop of the water be heard,
flying geese. Siberia, longer serve, primeval can

teach and to mankind. Bears, lions,

shamans, whose spirits are believed to guide dripping from the ceiling. There is no
bird costumes. We have elephants, ibexes, and gazelles are in other sound and
fly, wear re-
nothing moves... .
marked the bird mask and the bird-on-a- cages in our zoos. Man is no
longer the The silence is eerie The gallery is
. . . .

staff of the of Lascaux. newcomer in a world of unexplored there

shamanistic figure large and long and then comes a

There was also in the Mal’ta little plains and forests, and our immediate low tunnel. We placed our on
grave a very lamp
staff wand are not wild beasts but other the ground and it into the hole.
mammoth-ivory or
(Figure neighbors pushed
wild human for goods and
129). In India the gander (hamsa) is beings, contending Louis [the Count Bégouén’s eldest son,
not of the flight of a spirit, space on a
planet that is
whirling without who, with his father and two brothers,
symbolic, only

aa
 THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUND

131. This
amazing wall of the of Les
sanctuary
Trois
A Fréres,
copied by the indefatigable Abbé
5

seme
‘sii
deade vie i

Breuil, includes (by his count) thirty bison, ten

GS eee
+
oe

horses, four ibexes, and one reindeer. Top left is a

feline head, and hidden the animals are hu-
among
man faces. The central scene is of a semihuman
creature, apparently playing a musical bow and
either following or pursuing two ambiguous beasts.
The one
looking back has a bison head but the body
of hind, while the “reindeer”
a before it has webbed
forefeet.® The presence of some Paleolithic Lord of
the Animals must be represented here. No one
today
can tell, however, if that Lord is in any way related to
the feline head pictured top left, like a sun.
rising

74
had discovered and explored the vast cav-

ern
just eight days before the outbreak of
the First World War] went ahead, then
Professor van Giffen [of Groningen, Hol-

land], next Rita [| Mrs. Kuhn], and finally

myself. The tunnel is not much broader
than my shoulders, nor
higher. I can hear
the others before me
groaning and see

how very slowly their lamps push on.

With our arms

pressed close to our
sides,
we
wriggle forward on our stomachs, like
snakes. The passage, in
places, is
hardly
foot have
a
high, so that you to
lay your
face I felt
right on the earth. as
though I
were
creeping through a coffin. You can-

not lift your head; you cannot breathe.

And then, finally, the burrow becomes

slightly higher. One can at last rest on

one’s forearms. But not for long; the way

again grows narrow. And so, yard by
yard, one
struggles on: some
forty-odd
in all.
yards Nobody talks. The lamps are
inched along and we push after. [hear the
others groaning, my own heart is
pound-
ing, and it is difficult to breathe. It is ter-
rible to have the roof so close to one’s
head. And the roof is very hard: I
bump
it, time again. and Will this thing never

end? Then, suddenly, we are

through,
and everybody breathes. It is like a re-

demption.
“The hall in which we are now
standing
is
gigantic. We let the light of the lamps
run
along the ceiling and walls; a
majestic
room—and there, are the
finally, pic-
tures. From top to bottom a whole wall is
covered with
engravings. The surface has
been worked with tools of stone, and
there we see marshaled the beasts that
lived at that time in southern France: the
mammoth, rhinoceros, bison, wild horse,
bear, wild ass, reindeer, wolverine, musk
ox; also, the smaller animals appear:
snowy owls, hares, and fish. And one

sees darts everywhere, flying at the game.

Several of bears attract us in par-
pictures
have holes
ticular [Figure 133]; for they
where the images were struck and blood
is shown from their mouths.
spouting
Truly a picture of the hunt; the picture of
the magic of the hunt.’
The Abbé Breuil has published a
mag-
nificent series of tracings and
photo-
graphs of the walls of this imposing Sanc-
tuary. The style is everywhere firm and
full of life, not in
paint, but engraved,
fixing forever the momentary turns, leaps,
and flashes of the animal kingdom in a
teeming tumult of everlasting life. And
above them all, predominant—at the op-

posite end of the Sanctuary to the hole

through which we have emerged, some

15 feet above the level of the floor, in a

craggy apse—watching, staring at the ar-

rival with unflinching eyes, is the now

famous Sorcerer of Les Trois Fréres

(Figure
132), the Animal Master presiding over

the animals there assembled. He is

poised
in in a but the
profile dancing posture,

75
 From Les Trois Fréres, French Pyrenees (Ariege). and blood of the
period, c. 14,000 B.c.:
spouting engraved bear
Mid-Magdalenian
(Figure 133, like the
punctured clay mold
132. The Sorcerer, rock painting (black), height in the bear at
22 with animal
sanctuary Montespan, Fig-
feet, ina chamber decorated engrav- 94 on
ings. Drawing by H. Breuil from the original (left).
ure
page 62) do indeed suggest a

hunting magic, it would have to have

been a
magic (given the scene of its ac-

complishment) associated for the hunter

himself with an antecedent transforma-
tion of his own
consciousness, effected in
a sacred place, at a sacred time, and en-

acted in a sacred manner: the that

magic,
is to say, of a sacrament in its
comparable
way with the Christian celebration of the
sacrificed Savior, or with the Mithraic, of
the sacrificed Cosmic Ox.
In such a context, the hunter and the
hunted beast—in ritual terms, the
priest
and his sacrifice—would have to have
been experienced in some
psychological
dimension as one and the same—even as

the mixed form of the

presiding presence
of the semi- the
Sanctuary, semihuman,
animal, dancing Animal Master, already
The beast to be
suggests. slaughtered is
as a
interpreted willing victim, or rather,
as a in
knowing participant a covenanted
sacred act wherein the of life,
mystery
which lives on
life, is in its
comprehended
celebration. And the essential effect of all
this the who to be
upon young boys were

turned the rites of this sacred into

by place
initiated hunters would have consisted,
finally, in the of their minds to
opening
such an of the
experience secondary na-

ture of the
passing forms of time that they
should become capable of expressing a

reverence for life in the act of

taking it. As
Eugen Herrigel states in Zen in the Art
of
Archery, “the contest consists in the archer
at
aiming himself—yet not at himself, in

hitting himself—and yet not himself, and

thus the aimer
becoming simultaneously,
antlered head is turned to face the hall. 133. Punctured this and the aim, the hitter and the hit.’”
by many weapons, engraving
The ears be those of of a
dying bear appears among the animals directly But
pricked might a
stag; are we
justified in
alluding to
any
beneath the Sorcerer. Since the others are not
the round an
owl; the full such recondite Oriental
eyes suggest wounded, this bear is evidently in a
special symbolic
(for us) idea, in
beard to the
descending deep animal role. Compare the punctured bear at Montespan discussing the
imagery of the sacred
chest is of a man, as are the (94) and the wounded bison of Lascaux (105). of a Paleolithic
dancing legs; space sanctuary?
the tail is of a wolf or wild horse, and the
position of the sexual
prominent organ,
placed beneath the tail, is of the feline
species, perhaps a lion. The hands are the
paws of a lion and the chest and
great
torso also be of this beast. The
might fig-
ure is 2'/, feet 15 inches “An
high, across.

eerie, thrilling picture,” wrote Kuhn.

Moreover, it is the
only picture in the
whole
gallery rendered in
paint—black
paint—which gives it an accent
stronger
than the rest.
But who or what is this man—if man he
be —whose is now
image impressed upon
us in a that we shall not
way forget?
The that tunnel was
passage through
surely an ordeal more like the experience
of a intended initiation
psychologically
than
anything of mere magic: almost lit-

erally a
reliving of one’s birth. And, al-

though the numerous that

flying darts(if
is what
they are) and the punctured hide

76
 We in the enlightened West no
longer
have sacred wherein the
any truly spaces
Aristotelian laws of a rational in sec-
logic
ular space and measured time are sus-

pended and a mystical logic, resembling

that of dream, comes into
play—where
the dreamer and his dream, though ap-
parently two, as subject and object, are
actually one and the same. The Orient to

this day, on the other hand, has many

such sacred spaces, wherein life itself is to
be experienced and known as a dream
dreamed by a single dreamer in which all
the dream characters dream too, so that

everything interlocks with everything

else. And how should it then be thought

scientifically proper to admit only the ap-

plication of our own rationalistic laws of

thought to the interpretation of forms

within the sacred space of a Paleolithic

temple cave?
As Ananda K. once
Coomaraswamy
asked: “If we cannot assume that a lan-
is not understood those who
guage by
speak it, we must assume that a doctrine
is coeval with the formulae in
symbolic
which it is
expressed.’ The symbolic for-
mulae here to be noted (1) a
are; departure
from the
light-world of time-factored

knowledge and relationships, through a

subterranean opening, into darkness; (2) visitor to a sunken corridor, where a nar- 134. Ina tiny chamber within the vast cavern Tuc
d’Audoubert (French Pyrenees, Ariége), these two
a
difficult, dangerous, frightening strug- row
passage leads,
through turns, to a

clay bison, a male and a female,

apparently repre-
gle there through a narrow, tubelike pas- small rotunda
ending in a well, and this sent the primal generating couple. Mid-Magdalenian
(3) a
releasing into a vast winds to a
sage; entry again, through turnings, point period, c. 14,000 8.c.
chamber, torchlit, where (4) a semihu- where, at a of about 13 feet, there
height
man, semianimal an form above is an a sort of window, the Abbé tells, through a succession of
presides opening, beyond
Ground. Dis- which looms the Sorcerer. ‘“How the artist “wide halls adorned with the most beau-
everlasting Happy Hunting
coverable the bewildering who drew it,’”” the Abbé Breuil remarks, tiful stalagmitic decorations vast
gal-
tangle
. . .

among
of beasts is a little human with the “could have worked 4 meters above the leries with fairy-like decorations But
figure
...

head, or head-mask, of a bison. There is floor was a which I had to solve all this,’”” he continues, ‘““was in
problem nothing
also a bison with human and without a ladder. Under the comparison to what was
awaiting the vis-
hindquarters myself
and itors the end of the
legs. There are bears, punctured as window there is a small projecting rock at
gallery, where it

by the points of darts, with blood where one’s foot can rest; then tak- formed a rather low room.
spout- right
ing from their mouths (Figure 133). And, ing a firm hold
right to the of the window “Two Bison
carefully modeled in
clay
towards the
as
though guarding the way to the main and making complete half turn,a it is against a
projecting rock,
of this there
sanctuary, there are, in a
chapel just be- possible to sit quite comfortably on the center rotunda, were
[Figure
fore it, two enormous lion heads with uneven
surface, near the right hand en-
134]; another, much smaller, 13 cm
long
bodies in but with faces and to which is the the floor in front of
figure we called
trance at was on
profile, eyes [5'/,; inches],
turned the initiate. first the ‘Sorcerer’, but which is the the two
great statues, a male following a
upon entering really
The of this hunters’ Sanc- ‘God of Les Trois Fréres.’”’® It would have female, their 63
description respective lengths being
and of the whole cave been from here, in the Abbe’s view, and and 61 cm
[2 feet °/, inch and 2 feet]. These
tuary labyrinthine
the Abbé Henri Breuil, to whose hand from the of tunnels and wells statues are about 700 meters from the en-
by labyrinth
the incredible of its tan- beneath trance of the have
we owe
tracings (all of which were
marvelously
cavern.
Although they
gled art,” gives the hint of its likely func- decorated), that the company of initiators a
slight lateral flattening, they are magnif-
fer-
tion. In his words: ‘All these complicated would have worked their effects. icently made; they no doubt represent
hidden to obtain
passages lent themselves to ex-
Meanwhile, in the immediately neigh- tility rites, destined multiplica-
traordinary effects which would be the Tuc d’Audoubert (which tion of the species.
boring cave,
to uninitiated who have “Were these the
inexplicable novices, seems to been, at one time, part of only ones? On the
must have been the of Les
deeply impressed... . system Trois Freres, separated right, downwards under a low vault,
The effect of songs, other later 10 of
cries, or noises, by yards or so
roof-fall), there is there is a roof of clay slightly goffered by
thrown from succession of
or
mysterious objects no one a
magnificent immense a
stalagmitic skin. Here there are several
knows in such chambers that be entered
where, was
easy to
arrange can
only by way heaps of clay, now formless, probably all
a
place.’’® of a
very small opening. The sons of the that remains of other models, reduced to

The Sanctuary, as he tells, is an Count who discovered this the in that cor-
apse Bégouén, clay pulp by greater damp
with floor toward the
a
sloping steeply opening, named it the ‘‘cat’s hole” (and in ner. Ina
neighboring recess, there are
clay
back, the walls at the end, first going through it, the count, their kneaded into form and,
converging puddings phallus
at the
where, right, there is a deep, two- father, got stuck and had to forfeit both on the smooth surface of the clay pool,
fold recess, and on the left, two or three his shirt and his trousers). small-sized heel of a
Having nego- fifty prints young
more recesses. One of these conducts the tiated this ‘narrow one as human who could not have been
gate,” passes, being,

77
 low, narrow
corridor, comprising twenty symbolic a figure at the highest and inner-
little chambers, in the last of which is the most
point of a chamber that is decorated
engraving of this shaman. with hundreds of figures, in the arrange-
dancing
It to look much ment of which
begins very as
though Magdalenian symbolism is
these caves were the Paleolithic counter- with a richness unattained else-
displayed
parts of the men’s where.’’”?
dancing grounds or

secret-society lodges of the African, Aus- Leo Frobenius, however, has sug-
tralian, Melanesian, Indonesian, Polyne- gested a rather different
approach and
sian, and American abo- has looked at the with different
pre-Columbian figure
rigines. The masked and trained in the deserts and
dancing figures eyes, eyes jun-
the one shown in be- of Africa, and a mind filled with
(apparently trance) gles re-

fore the wounded bison at the bottom of collections of and forms

images symbolic
the Lascaux Shaft would then have from of the world.
rep- many parts
resented characters from the First, he out that the
origin leg- points explorer of
ends of the caves themselves. the tunnels of this in his
pictured cave, approach
The of the Lascaux to the
episode Shaft, as we
culminating chamber, passes
have from
seen, was a
cycle of myth through a
chapel-like alcove that is deco-
known for millennia. We can rated with of animals of
only guess representations
at its theme; but if it was linked in the cat two lion
any family; principally, large
way to that of the elevated horn in the heads, the of which amazed
appearance
hand of the
nearby Venus of Laussel, it the Count
Bégouén when he first beheld
must have had to do with them. ‘These Froben-
something are
“
represented,”
the in the ius reminds
mystery signified cycles of us, ‘en face,’ the outlines of
the moon, some of eternal return. their bodies in The male has
myth being profile.
And what, then, of the dancer of Les a mane; its round fix the be-
great eyes
Trois Freres? holder to be
[Figure 137]. They seem

The Count and the Abbé the the

Bégouén guarding entrance to final, most
Breuil first of this chamber of the
thought figure as a
significant cave.’” And
Medicine Man or
Sorcerer, and Sorcerer when one enters this Frobenius
2

de Teele chamber,
is the name which it has been known next there
135. The Dancer of La
by points out, are those innumer-
Gabillou, like the Sorcerer since. Later, however, as the Abbé has able animals all and above
of Les Trois Freres, of the rituals
about, them,
suggests something
told, he revised his and wrote of as culmination of the the famous
of these sanctuaries. A music must have once thought whole,
sounded in theif the the
chambers.
“god of Sorcerer:
as a the “a
figure god, being,’”” as Frobenius recalls,
cave.’’”' Herbert Kithn has the “which and other
suggested Bégouén pre-storians
artist-magician himself; but this, of have regarded as a masked man,” whereas,
more than fifteen years old, can be seen.’’”° is little
course, different from the first to Frobenius’s
eyes, only the legs and feet
Why only the heels? And
why only fifty thought of
Bégouén and Breuil. Leroi- are human. The body, in fact, is not of a
steps? Was this the buffalo dance of some Gourhan states
simply that “this person-
man at all, but of a lion, en face, with
young initiate? There has been discus- combines all the male
age symbols then
sion, but no conclusion. The antlered at the 136. Painted a low-vaulted of
fig- disposal of the artist who executed ceiling chamber in
ure in the other the Altamira Santander
cave near
in northern
sanctuary is a dancer. So it: his horns and ears are those of a rein- Spain.
too is the of Magdalenian period. Discovered in 1879 by the five-
figure a man with a bison’s deer, his is that of a his tail
body man, year-old daughter of Count Marselino de Sautuola,
head and tail that is to be seen in the that this the first
of a
horse, and his was
masterpiece of Paleolithic art to be
in
penis, though
Dordogne the cave of Le Gabillou exposed to modern eyes. In situ, it is an
(Fig- human, is placed where a feline’s would amazing,
spell-binding revelation of the mentality of Paleolithic
ure
135), which is in the form of a
long, be. It is not
surprising to find so
hyper- Man.

78
 upper light-world; here residing, how-
in the timeless where
ever, dark, (4) above
them all there is a lionlike form, en
face,
with great round eyes.
In the of what we know of the
light
mythological world of shamanism—es-
pecially as carried forward in the trance-
visions and ecstatic rites of the
Ostyaks,
Buriats, Yukaghir, Tungus, and
Voguls,
other
shaman-guided peoples of Siberia—
the high of their is
deity pantheons typi-
the Sun; and in the folk
cally legends of
those areas, as well as in those of the
tribes of North America, the father,
testing
master of all the trials and terrors to which
heros is
young are
subjected, again the
Sun. The Sun, then, is both the testing
137/138. In both the lion (left) from Les Trois father and the model of the hunter’s, as

Fréres, and that above from North Africa, the also of the
* impor- warrior’s, given task. His solar
tant feature is the of the
magic eyes. are his darts and
rays spears. By simulta-
neous submission to, and identification
with, his and
round, staring eyes exactly like those of So, if we now once
again review the will, beyond pity fear when
the lions in the earlier The beard the essential act of
chapel. symbolic stages of the journey into the accomplishing living—
can now be seen as of lion’s which is hunter would know
part a mane, cave and to the Sanctuary of Les Trois killing—the
and the antlers and tail now look like ad- himself to be at one with the order
Freres, something of the sense of its initi- thereby
ditions. Moreover, on a face of rock in force I become evident. of his own animal nature. This then
atory will, think,
northwest Africa, in the Sahara-Atlas there will have been a would be the fruit of the realization of
Namely, (1) depar-
Mountains, above series of engrav- these initiations.
high a ture from the
light-world of secular, dual-
ings of elephants and giraffes, an ante- istic
experiences (I against Thee, Thou Such an
ultimately mystical manner of

lope, and a buffalo—all in Me: to devour be thought is fundamental to the hunter’s

represented against or to
devoured)
profile—there is to be where as it is also to the warrior’s
seen, exactly followed by (2) a difficult, dangerous, Way, (as, for
the first of the sun should fall birth in the The
rays upon frightening struggle through a canal example, Bhagavad Gita). sun-

it, theengraved outline of an en

face lion into (3) an earth womb filled with the ar- lion as their mythic model is therefore the
(Figure 138), in a
pose and position very chetypes of all those animal envoys of the usual emblem of kings—as is also the So-
like that of the Sorcerer Les Trois Fréres.”4 Unseen lar the lion’s
of Power that are born to die in the Eagle, counterpart among
Now the lion, as we all well know, is birds. And not of but also of
only kings,
the of Beasts—above all other in
King crea-
conquerors the spirit! The Buddha’s
tures. And in the Sahara-Atlas 139. From the
deepest recess of Spanish Altamira, throne is
engraving, represented as a Lion Throne;
the eyes of this apparition send a
mystic influence
he is
visibly in this position, as he is, also,
radiating through the cavern.
his Word of Truth,
dispelling delusion as

in the of figures in the the

organization cavern
rising sun
dispels the shades of night,
of Les Trois Fréres. These two works has been called his Lion and
Roar; finally,
are of the last millennia of Paleolithic art: his transhistorical, transcendental, eter-
the Sorcerer, c. 12,000 B.c., and the lion nal, so-called is
Law-Body (Dharmakaya)
of the Atlas c. 7000 B.c. The lion, known as the Great Sun Buddha
range, (Maha
furthermore, in its role is tradi-
mythic Vatrochana).
tionally the solar beast. At the sound of And so, in this whole
its the
a startling way,
roar, grazing herds of the plain context of sun-lion has held
symbolism
take do the stars of the
flight, as
sky at together through millennia, which is not
sunrise. And the of the Sahara- to us that the sha-
position say (let again remark)
Atlas lion, touched the first mans of the
daily by rays painted caves were
already
of the sun, illustrates this theme. realized Buddhas. Acorns are not oak
In the of Altamira— trees. But, on the other who
Spanish grotto hand, no one

which is about with that of has ever entered one of those six
contemporary any great
Les Trois Fréres—the beautiful bulls are that the Abbé Breuil
underground temples
painted, significantly, on the has called “the Six
ceiling. Giants’—Altamira,
back to view
Leaning them, one
might be Lascaux, Les Trois Fréres, Font de Gaume,
gazing at the pictured constellations of Les Combarelles, and Niaux—and has let
the night And in a at the the sheer wonder of their
sky. sanctuary masterworks of
back of the cave there is a art deliver to his mind their silent
very strange, mes-

featureless, masklike head of rock, show- sage, will ever doubt that revelations of
ing large, round solar eyes (Figure 139). that order can have come from artists
only
Very generally among hunting tribes (and already great in that transcendent wis-
in the of this Atlas that treat of dom which has been the of the
chapters secret su-

these there is the sun is artists of all time. And

ample evidence), preme where there
the guardian model and of the was an art of such there
patron majesty, was,
hunter and of his sacred also, an into the of
life-sustaining insight nature not
only
the sun’s
art, rays being then equivalent the phenomenal world, but also of the
to his darts, and the stars to the the solar that both
night eye, eye, regards and
beasts to be slain.
shapes phenomena.

79
Advent of the Bow

and Arrow

As a natural between
bridge Europe and
northwest Africa, its
Spain throughout
history has been a of
region contrary
tides, flowing now north to south, now

south to north; and in its monu-

already
ments of Paleolithic art this ebb and flow
is documented in two that
contrary styles:
in the north, of the Cantabrian moun-

tains—El Castillo, Altamira, and the rest

Area is of a kind with
(Map 23, 1)—which
and These on rock surfaces to the
the French cavern art of the Pyrenees paintings appear open
shelters. The
and that of the eastern hills of light, under ledges, or in shallow lively
Dordogne; style, known as
Spanish-Levantine, contrasts radi-
Valencia, Catalonia, and Aragon (Map 23, of the Franco-Cantabrian
cally with that earlier,
Area in both form and content caves and rather, the North African rock
2)—which suggests,
arts of Tassili (pages 82-87) or the South African of
the rock rather of Af-
suggests paintings the Bushmen We note that the bow
(pages 90-101).
rica than of Europe. and arrow have arrived along with this art apparently
In the so-called Franco-Cantabrian art from the south. The human figures—in red, brown,
silhouette—are than 4 to
of the north it is animal forms that pre-
or black generally no more
8 or 9 inches tall.
dominate. The human are not
only much
less numerous, but also very much less Three Mesolithic rock paintings from Eastern Spain,
rendered. In the province of Castellon, vaguely dated from c. 10,000
faithfully Spanish-Lev- to c. 3000 B.c.:
antine on the other hand, as
paintings,
also in most of those of both North and 140. Battle scene, from Morella la Vella.
South Africa, human figures not
only pre-
141. Ibex hunt, from the Gasulla Gorge.
in
dominate but are shown vividly active
festival scenes or encounters. All of the

Spanish figures are small; many, hardly

than a man’s
hand; and an animal
larger
over 2 feet
long is exceptional. The paint-
are in
earthy reds, browns, and
ings
black, and on the walls either of rock shel-
ters or of shallow caves; so that instead of
a
subterranean, timeless world of arche-

herds, what we here behold in

typal
broad daylight are
fascinating village,
hunting, and battle scenes.

We do not know, of course, what tales

or these little have
legends paintings may
illustrated, but of how the people dressed
and lived tell a deal. The bow
they great
and and domesticated have ar-
arrow
dog
rived, for which of itself indi-
example,
cates that this is an art of a later period
than that of the Franco-Cantabrian north:

10,000 to 3000 B.c.

B.c., possibly, perhaps
been
The dating has approxi- not even

determined. Nor is it known what

mately
the (if any) may have been
relationship
between the people here and
represented
those of the related African
possibly
the resemblances are
styles. Curiously,
even closer to some of the southern Afri-
can forms than to
any of the northern; so

that, as Bandi has remarked,

Hans-Georg
“It is not easy to answer the question
whether the
style of eastern Spanish rock
on the or whether
pictures developed spot
it can be traced back to African impulses.
Indeed, it is as feasible that the influ-
just
ence radiated from the Iberian peninsula
to Africa as from south to north.’”’””

80
 Culture Tides ina

Verdant Sahara

During the early glacial ages, the Sahara,

now a
desert, was
substantially popu-
lated. Hand axes of Acheulean are
type
found everywhere: in the sands, about
the rock-strewn wastes, and on the valley
floors of the great mountain massifs. The
later flake tools of Mousterian type asso-

ciated with Neanderthal Man are less

abundant, however, and confined, fur-
thermore, to the north; while the blade
tools and
points of Paleolithic man-
Upper
ufacture, though known from other parts
of North Africa, are in the Sahara.
missing
Then, suddenly, the whole region be-
tween the Atlas and
range Niger river be-
comes
repopulated. Neolithic polished
axes, pottery shards, and arrowheads are

everywhere. And the earliest African rock

engravings also appear at this time, mark-

ing the opening of a succession of epochs

of early Neolithic, as well as of terminal

Paleolithic, art. Henri Lhote, to whose

Tassili expedition of 1956-57 we owe our

knowledge of this history, distinguishes

142. Three from the Valltorta
women,
Gorge. six
intermeshing periods and traditions.

Map 23. Five areas of Europe and North Africa in from 7000
Bubalus-style engravings, c. B.c.
b) paint-
which Paleolithic and post-Paleolithic rock engrav- ings in the so-called Round-Heads style, from c.

ings and paintings are

preserved. 6000 B.c. of a
(See page 83); c) pastoral scenes

cattle-herding “Bovidian” culture, from c. 4000 B.c.,

1. Franco-Cantabrian province: c. 35,000 to 8,000 into which late Egyptian influences enter, c. 1570
B.c., region of the temple caves (pages 58-79). B.C.
(See pages 84-85); d) paintings from an age of
2. to 3000
Spanish-Levantine province: c. 10,000 invading chariot fighters from the Aegean, c. 1200
B.c.
(illustrated on this page). B.C.
(See pages 86-87); and e) crude engravings
3.
NorthwestAfrican province: c. 7000 to 4500 B.c. showing camel riders (Arabs), some dating perhaps
distinguished by majestic engravings of the Bubalus as late as c. A.D. 1200.
(page 82, Figure 143). 5. Northeast African province: more
examples of
4. Central Saharan (including Tassili and the Bovidian
province style of c. 4000 to 3000 B.c.

the Fezzan), representing 5 distinct traditions: a)

Se

CH.
European and North
African Rock Art cae JROPE
:

--4,Franco-Cantabrian
Provinces C3
ee mrosinca xs
(after L. Frobenius)
——

Cy
LS?
°% ——
o
Ne a

0, —4
a

s 8

. XN
Qo ° ASIA
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
ae
“Rea?” of
°
PN MEDITERRANEAN SEA

EAS)
| —_Northwest Africa
ae (Sahara-Atlas)
wet a
Ce
0
ff FP
Central Sahara .
\

(Fezzan) °

Sahara
North Africa
o
(Libyan-Nubian Desert)

AFRICA
e

: —
° :

Yt

Re
xy

INDIAN
. OCEAN

(A
a

81
143. rock engraving of two Bubalus bulls and
Open
an ibis, at Ksar-Amar, Sahara-Atlas range, Algeria.
Height (from tip of left horn to rear foot of main bull),
5 feet 4 inches. The massive majesty of these animal
forms a connection of some kind with the
suggests
art of the Franco-Cantabrian caves. The engravings
are not in caves, however, but on open rock sur-

and their c. 7000 to 4500 B.c., is al-

faces, period,
ready of the Neolithic.

The Bubalus Period, c. 7000 to 4500 B.c.

this
The characteristic subject, after which
is named, is a large buffalo of a
period
now extinct (Bubalus antiquus), be-
species
fore which there may be shown a human
with in
figure worship,
standing any
number of other beasts haphazardly round
about, such as
elephants, rhinoceroses,
giraffes, hippopotamuses, ostriches, and

large antelopes (Figure 143). Like the bi-

son of Lascaux, this North African buffalo
was
evidently a “master animal’”’ North African en lion that Frobenius the Fezzan (Area 4). And, as in the Euro-
upon face
whose will the of the wild with the Sorcerer Les Trois so here, the main
appearances compared of pean painted caves,
herds of the hunt were to de- Fréres in this the animals of the
thought (Figure 132, page 76) was subjects are larger
other beast is shown in Lhote’s of an with occasional human
pend”. Only one so
style, which, view, was
chase, only fig-
venerated in these aram with Neolithic era that com- much less rendered
engravings, early preceramic ures, very accurately
a
sun-disk on its head (Figure 144).” The menced c. 7000 B.c.: a
product of ‘‘the than the animals. In Lhote’s opinion, the
civilization that Bubalus “have demonstra-
Capsian sprang up,” as engravings no

144. Rock engraving at Diebel Bes Seba, Sahara- he declares, ‘‘on the plateau land of west- ble affinities with the
engraved or painted
Atlas range, Algeria (Map 23, Area 3). Bubalus style the
and period, c. 7000 to 4500 B.c. Ram, crowned with
ern
Algeria and Tunisia, among men re- rock pictures of Europe,” analogies,
the solar disk, wearing a decorated neck band, con- lated in
type to
Cro-Magnon Man.’’” in his view, being ‘“probably only acciden-
in the of Below is There three in which tal.’’”? the other hand,
fronted by a man
posture worship. are
major centers Frobenius, on saw

a smaller ram, also crowned and with a neck deco-

of this art and these as an influ-
ration. The of the curious dual en- engravings period style engravings representing
symbolism figure
have been found: the Sahara-Atlas Moun- ence from that had come, north to
circled by what appears to be its own tail remains Europe
unexplained.’ tains (Area 3 on
Map 23), the Tassili, and south, through Spain, and in Africa then
turned, west to east, toward Egypt—to be
met, in return, a series of waves of
by
more advanced cultural influences from

Asia, east to west.

flowing
Frobenius notes, for that the
example,
ram with the sun-disk on its head sug-
gests the sun-ram of the great Egyptian
Amon of Thebes, who was
divinity
god a
first venerated in
Libyan Siwa Oasis,
the
his cult then in times
passing predynastic
into
Egypt. There is a
Kabyle legend that
associates this animal with the introduc-
tion of it makes feasts and
agriculture:
consulted about
festivals possible and is
and harvest.® Thus the two ven-
sowing
erated beasts, the bubalus and the ram,

are of two distinct traditions: an earlier,

from the west, of a late Paleolithic hunting
related to that of the French
mythology
and and later,
North-Spanish caves;
a
from the east, of an
agricultural and stock-

breeding tradition stemming ultimately

from Southwest Asia, where, as
early as
9000 the is attested
c. B.c., sheep (the ram)
as the earliest animal domesticate.*' In the
life and art of North Africa, these two

traditions met in mid-Sahara, in the

of Tassili and Fezzan (Area
neighborhood
4), c. 4500 to 3500 B.c.

82
Period of the Round-Heads, c. 6000 B.c.
from
Among the numerous rock shelters of the
thousands of
eastern Tassili, paintings in
a distinctive style have been discovered,
characterized by human figures with
round, featureless heads. ‘It seems”
states Lhote in discussion of these finds,
“as we are confronted with the
though
earliest works of negro art—indeed, one

is
tempted to
say, with its
origin.’’** Small
to start with, the forms in-
gradually
creased to dimensions: hu-
extraordinary
man
figures over 16 feet tall, and cattle of
natural size. The final works reveal an

Egyptian influence, possibly of the Eight-

eenth for this
Dynasty—which suggests
art a
history of some 4000 to 5000
years.
Its most forms are immense
enigmatic
spirit figures; its most beautiful, some of
the masterworks of the period of
Egyptian
influence; and there are masks repre-
sented that some of
strongly suggest
those of the Coast.
present-day Ivory

145. Plumed Bowman, followed by a woman bear-

ing dotted markings that may represent scarifica-

tions. From Tassili Jabbaren, where hundreds of

paintings in various styles decorate the rock walls.

Period of the Round Heads, from c. 6000 B.c.

146. At Tassili Auanrhet, a

towering massif within

sight of Jabbaren, this masked apparition in the

Round-Head style covers an earlier, white, female
form. Decorated with checkerwork and with plants
issuing from arms and thighs, the figure lacks hands
and feet. Lhote was struck by the horned head’s
resemblance to African masks in the Musée de
Homme.

147. At Tassili Sefar, where the mountain mass

breaks into vast amphitheaters with cathedral-like

formations, a dance of men and women who are

linked, apparently, by a cord. Evolved Round-Head

style with Egyptian influence.

83
 The Bovidian or Pastoral Period,
c. 4000 to 1800 B.c.

These rock stand apart in that

paintings
without func-
they are
apparent symbolic
tion, but of a naturalism and, as
masterly
their discoverer has suggested, may rep-
resent the world’s earliest school of “art
for art’s sake.’”” Figures rendered singly
are the interest is in
exceptional; compo-
sitions. The artists were of the race that
introduced sheep raising to
and cattle
West Africa, and they certainly almost
with them a
knowledge of agri-
brought
culture. Neither Negroid nor
European,
were of an East African Hamitic
they
stock, with copper skin and long straight
hair. Henri Lhote sees their descendants
in the Fulani of today.

aE,
ete A Post-Bovidian Period of Egyptian Influences
The original pastoralists can have entered
the Saharaonly from the Nile Valley. Al-
there is evidence of occupations
though
of that area the Paleolithic,
throughout
next to is known of the transition
nothing
when food
period, c. 10,000 to 4000 8.c.,
and and animal do-
crops (wheat barley)
mesticates and later,
(sheep, goats, pigs,
were introduced from Asia.** The
cattle)
first movement from Egypt westward ap-
to have been that documented in
pears
the Bovidian scenes on the Tassili rocks,
from c. 4000 B.c. Centuries later, there
followed a second movement, about the
of the Egyptian Eight-
period, apparently,
eenth (1570 to 1432 B.c.). By
Dynasty
whom and how this influence was carried
is unknown, but it touched the arts of
both the Round-Heads and the Pastoral-
ists with and
RED,
on
a new
lovely grace.

148. The Horned Goddess, Tassili Aouarhet,

evolved Round-Head style with Egyptian influences.

149. Cattle herd from Tassili Jabbaren. At the right,

one of the animals is being sacrificed. Bovidian or

Pastoral Period, after c. 4000 B.c.

150. Fresco of the Hunters (detail), from a
deep
shelter at Tassili Tamrit, where the green foliage of
immense cypresses against the dull red of surround-
ing rocks, an eighteen-hundred-foot waterfall, and a
scattering of little lakes still suggest a
landscape of
forest glades, grassy vales, and abundant game.
The hunters, armed with javelins and bows, have
designs painted on their bodies. The game is repre-
sented by animals’ heads. Early Bovidian Period.

151. From |-n-Itinen, ahuge masked man, wearing

a helmet and holding what is—apparently—a smaller
mask, or head. The painting, in a poor state of pres-
ervation, is of the Post-Bovidian Period with Egyp-
tian influence.

152. The Dancers, from Ti-n-Tazarift, an immense

natural amphitheater. The bodies’ forms and garb
are of the evolved Round-Head style of 148. Post-
Bovidian Period of Egyptian influences.
 x
The Chariot and Equestrian Periods, i e EN. 4.5

See er
RNS
“Nigeor
Mee

from c. 1200 B.c.

°

s
,

Si .
oe’, eee ely
Yi di
FY
.

4
ip *Tapsus® exo
About 1200 the exact of the ee —
fie
s.c., period a ai
yun oe MEDITERRANEAN
— SEA

of invaders
acta
4 ges a SAC
Trojan War, a large company
_

from Crete to shore in

Mycenaean put
Cyrenaica with the object of conquering ta

known as the 9 Bae Fi an Ces Me.

Egypt, where they were ra
pte
Le itt "eon %
the Sea. The failed Yas ye es
Peoples of campaign
and, retiring to the Sahara, they became es eS amet
¥

5 eo

assimilated there with their Libyan allies. Yee

uananet
3S “f
Henri Lhote discovered, not
only in the OYE SE Ba T
Tassili, but also at stations along an an-
cient trans-Saharan caravan route from
on the Mediterranean coast
Tripoli (Oea)
Land of the Lotus to
(Odysseus’s Eaters)

24. The trans-Sahara Chariot Road with its

Map
at
rock-art sites showing chariots drawn by steeds
From c. 1200 B.c.
“flying gallop.”
at
153. Fresco in three styles from a rock shelter
chariots are
Tassili Adjefou. The“flying gallop” (1)
and
earlier than (2) the file of “bi-triangular” warriors
in style than the . J
3) the scene (coarser
pastoral North Africa and the Chariot Road
ae “Bovidian”). The two warriors with bow and
@ Site of and
paintings.
-shdfavings ‘ot ehariots

shield (lower right) and the horseman (lower left) are ‘

in white who
of the Chariot Period, while the negress ee Sees :

ive nSxg
vw
the
is conversing with companions is apparently of
Note the dog confronting the
“bi-triangular” context.
ram and (below) the mother and child.

86
Gao on the river
Niger, rock paintings of 154. Hunting scene
along the Chariot Road at Ala- 155. From Wadi Djerat, Tassil, rock-doodlings of
n-Edoument. To the left of the driven chariot are the the Camel Period. Inscriptions are in Tifinagh, a Lib-
war
chariots, the geographical disposition wheels of a second outfit. “Flying-Gallop” Chariot yan alphabet derived from the Punic (Carthaginian)
of which “shows,” as he has stated, “‘that after 1200 cursive still used
Period, c. B.c.
script by Tuaregs. After c. A.D. 650.
the horse-riding populations, descended
from the ‘Peoples of the Sea’ and the Lib-
VA
yans, must have reached the Niger by
almost as
early as 1000 B.c.’’™ Five centu-

ries later, Herodotus (d. B.c.) of

425 wrote

the Garamantians Libya, who

of drove
four-horse chariots in which they pur-
sued the
cave-dwelling Ethiopians.® Fi-
in A.D. 19, the legate Cornelius Bal-
nally,
bus returned from Africa to Rome in

triumph, having subjugated Cyrenaica,

the Fezzan, and every city along the old
chariot road to the Niger.**

The Camel Period, from c. 100 B.c. (?)

With the arrival from Arabia of the camel,
after the green Sahara had become desert, hs

the rock of the

art
region declined to the
level of crude pecked-out engravings. The
earliest historical notice of the camel in
North Africa is in a Latin account of the
battle of Tapsus (46 B.c.), where twenty-
two of the animals were taken by Julius
Caesar as
booty from the Numidian King Te
Juba I. A more
likely dating for the petro-
glyphs,
of Islam
however,
(seventh
would

century
be from

A.D.)
the
to
rise
the aOR
present. They are found throughout the
Sahara.

87
 L
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Lake
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4

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Nyasa

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os
,
é
QO Harare
] em
R
bez) Salisbury &
aes E
Makumbe
ee
Cave, &
v7 Great/Zimbabwe oY a
OCEAN
DAMARALAND pai
BOTSWANA f

Rive,
'

oea
ATLANTIC Kalahari //
ws
OCEAN BECHUANALAND
Desert S
Be:£30,
e
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88
e
peled
ledon,,..Gorgea®
i
ae General
of rock
area
art
ee .

s Rock engravings
Poca” [Ls]
1°6
Cae: [= ] Rock paintings

Bushmen
Southern Africa “Valleyaaa today
= sites
Rock Art Sites Special
:

S or town
City
SSCape of Good Hope

Map 25. The rock arts (in various styles) and most
recent rock artists (the Bushmen) of Southern Africa.

South African Painted

Rock Shrines

South Africa, from the river Zambezi to

the Cape and from Damaraland to Moz-

ambique is strewn with rock paintings

and The earliest
engravings. European
settlers in the
region, noticing that the
native Bushmen were still
producing
paintings of the kind, attributed every-
thing to them, and the works became gen-
erally known, accordingly, as Bushman
paintings. The earliest scientific survey of
the field was conducted in 1928 to 1930,
by the members of the Ninth German In-
ner-African Research under
Expedition
Leo Frobenius, and their immediate dis- 156. Rock painting in the classic Rhodesian “wedge” smaller recumbent form below is the entombed sac-

style, documenting a tradition of ritual regicide. rifice, of which the larger, floating, mythic figure per-
covery was that there were at least three
Diana Vow Farm, Rusapi District, South Rhodesia. sonifies the released life-generating spiritual energy.
distinct categories of South African rock collection of humans,
Picture about one-tenth actual size. The body of the Aceremony is in progress. The
art: lines
(1) engravings; (2) polychrome paint- recumbent masked figure spilling its seed is tightly animals, and offerings separated by watery
swathed. the is in the other world,
ings in various
styles, found mainly in the Alittle bird perches on the lifted Knee, and from rest (lower right) mythic
the object in the lifted hand may be a horn symbolic under waves, known in this tradition as Dsivoa.® The
deepest south, but recognizable also in
of the which dies to be resurrected. The 89 item 6.
moon, art style is classified on page as
the earlier of Transvaal and Rhode-
layers
sia; and (3) monochrome paintings exe-

cuted in a characteristic the was

unique The and polychrome paint-
‘“wedge”’ style, wedge-style compositions engravings
which, in Rhodesia, in art. Relevant themes in the on the other hand, were indeed
having originated prehistoric ings,
had as an influence southward collected members of the Stone in character, and of the two,
spread myths by Age
and westward.*” from the Wahungwe, Wateve, the earlier were
evidently the engravings.
Expedition
The and other Shona found rock but
paintings in this wedge style were Batonga, Waremba, These were not on walls,
of especial interest to the expedition, and Sotho (Bantu) tribes in the general on
fragments lying about, the finest
rock
since the area of its origin was that of the neighborhood of Zimbabwe contributed and apparently oldest being of single ani-
ruins of Great Zimbabwe, and the most to the
interpretation of the monuments. mals, pecked out on hard diorite and bas-
Their affiliations neither with the that of of
typical of its scenes and motifs were of were alt in a
style resembling some

works and often of

royal burials and installations. Such could Old nor with the Age, but
New Stone the later North African
not have been with an naturalism. Their dating
produced by primitive early high-culture mythology an
astonishing
of ritual but at Klerks-
hunters and gatherers like the Bushmen. grounded in a custom regicide, of has not been determined,
River
Moreover, the appearance of plants, which James G. Frazer had produced the dorp and along the Orange exam-

classic found associated with

ponds, and rock formations in many of study in The Golden Bough. ples have been

88
 158. Rock painting in the classic Rhodesian wedge
style showing a scene of human sacrifice (below)
with a
goddess among clouds (above). Spiritual
messengers gather and ascend a heaven ladder,
which breaks in a lightning flash that becomes trans-
formed into a rain serpent. Marandelles District,
South Rhodesia.’

1. The large elephants, in a dark purplish

brown, now
very pale
2. The smaller elephant and some
finely
drawn antelopes, ina similar but darker
color and in the best animal style
3. Animals of a reddish color
deep,
4. Animals of inferior ina red
quality, pale
5. A arrive: animals in or
new
people yellow
yellow-brown; some
sensitively drawn,
others lacking finer details

Frobenius’s
6. Human
figures in wedge
for the standing male,
style; example,
center, and the “mourner,” lower
upper
both in a dark Indian red
right;
7. The rhinoceros (an important recur-

rence of a in out-
larger animal), body
line, filled in with a
pale yellow
8. A thin man, a thin tree, and two ba-

boons, all in brown

9. A row of men and women

dancing
full of life, but the end of
(lower left):
157. Pecked-out engraving upright diabase
on an
the fine style (Frobenius’s polychrome
cone. Date undetermined. Height of giraffe, approx- the time of King
2 ft. 3 in. Western Transvaal. style), c. A.D. 1820,
imately
Shaka’s wars

10. Yellow ovals

of kind. 11. A leaf motif, dark brown

artifacts a
typical Capsian (Figure
12. Human
figures in a crude style, care-
15).
The of the also is un- lessly done
dating paintings
but in the Makumbe Cave in the 13. A of red lines, an-
certain, medley fairly bright
included in
Chinamora Reserve, Rhodesia, there is a gular and geometric (not
the section of mural shown here)
mural in which fourteen superpositions 23
ff
have been counted a recent 14. Massive, crude white animals and oc-
by investiga-
humans and
angular forms
tion, and these suggest a series of styles casionally
(also not here reproduced)
from perhaps the first centuries A.D. to

the the of
early nineteenth, period King 159. Rock wall bearing paintings in fourteen dis-
Shaka’s wars and the decadent years Chin-
tinct styles (see text above). Makumba Cave,
thereafter These are: namora Reserve, Rhodesia.
(Figure 159). styles

89
 Style 6 is of the context associated with northeastward of hundreds of dis-
began
Zimbabwe and of a
date, accord- affected Boers and their families
probably (in ox

ingly, between a.p. 600 and 1500. How and with vast herds of cattle and
wagons
much of the rest should be attributed to into in
sheep) regions already danger
Bushmen is unknown. These little from the of tribes
people depredatians scattering
had been for millennia the sole inhabit- from the war machine of Shaka.
King
ants of the
hunting plains of inland East The Bushmen, in the midst of all this
and South while
Africa, along the whole turmoil, had become accomplished horse
Azanian coast to as far south as thieves and cattle the
Deagoa rustlers, to
exasper-
Bay, there had been since ancient ation of both their white and their black
running
times a sea-traffic of merchantmen from In the rock mu-
encroaching neighbors.
Egypt and
Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, Ara- rals of their final we see them vic-
period,
bia, Persia, India, Indonesia, and even at a driv-
toriously riding “flying gallop,”
China. The
gold, tin, and mines in stock.
copper ing off herds of the newcomers’
the neighborhood of Zimbabwe had been
worked for this trade from as cer-
early,
tainly, as the seventh century A.D.; yet, in
the interior there had
underdeveloped
been only primitive Bushmen until, from
the sixth century onward, the Bantu tribes
that now inhabit the region began pour-
The Bushman Trance
ing in from the northwest.
Carleton Coon
Dance and Its Mythic
interprets the Bushmen
as
having been originally one of the North
Ground
African, Capsian hunting races, forced
southward, first by Caucasoid and then

by Congoid (that is, Negro) In a detailed of 8478

pressures study polychrome
(pages 42-43). George Murdock views rock paintings in the
Drakensberg area,

them, on the contrary, as of South and Patricia Vinnicombe found that the num-

East African Either were ber of animal did not

origin. way, they species depicted
160/161. The eland, the Master Ani-
not driven from the match those of the Bushman diet. ‘’Of the outstanding
finally Drakensberg mal of this is to be killed in
mythology, a
special,
and other last of the animals she “ante-
holding grounds portrayed,’”’ reports, sacred way, whether with a spear or with a bow and
best-known and best recorded of their lope are the main focus of interest, arrow. The hunter identifies himself with the animal
yet
struck by his poisoned dart and, the
polychrome works of art until the late paradoxically, available during painful
archaeological hours of its
nineteenth and twentieth evidence from excavated
dying, observes food and behavior ta-
early centuries.
living sites indi- boos thought to advance the poison by virtue of this
The earliest to cross the cates a of smaller animals
Congoids preponderance mystic identification.

Drakensberg range into the Caledon Val-

ley were a Bantu people, the Sotho, c.

A.D. 1600. under from

Retiring pressure
other
advancing Bantu tribes from the
north, notably the Shona, they had ar-

rived even with

peacefully, intermarrying
the local Bushmen; and one of the high
periods of recorded Bushman poly-
chrome art
(Style 9 of the above listing)
is of the two centuries in this
following
region, c. 1620 to 1830. The end came
only
when later Bantu tide of tribes-
a Nguni
men, in from the Zulu
flight expanding
in Natal
conquest state set
up by the chief-
tain Shaka c. 1818, crossed the whole re-

gion, heading northward, ravaging and

as
plundering they passed.
Meanwhile, the Europeans, who had

long been established in South Africa,

were also expanding into Bushman terri-
tories. The Portuguese Henry the Navi-
gator, in the fifteenth had marked
century,
the uninhabited of Good
Cape Hope as a
suitable station for
stopping ships under
weigh to the Indies. The Dutch colony
was established there in 1652; and it was

not until c. 1770 that their first encounters

with the Bantu occurred
ever-advancing
in the of the Great Fish River.
valley By
then the invincible British had entered the
scene who, after a series of political ex-
took control of the
changes, Cape in 1814,
after which, in 1835, the ‘Great Trek’’

90
 first told the of the
rather than antelope in everyday diet.””° me name wife of the
her and
do the paintings present a fair sample to whis-
Nor ear
great god put lips my
of the of the region. They are, as pered, barely audibly, ‘Huwedi!’ Next
species
Vinnicombe declares, neither a menu nor
day, unfortunately, she had a
high fever.
but the illustrations of a Late She recovered, but the an end
a checklist, episode put
Stone in which the most to
trying to learn from her about the
Age mythology, my
wives of the
prominent figure is the eland. (Compare gods.’’”
Leroi-Gourhan’s finding in relation to the
According to this authority, the Kung
the in the
number of species represented in today have two
gods: one, the great,
of the great caves, page 62). east, where the sun rises; one, the lesser,
paintings
in the where it sets. Both have
In
keeping with this finding, the folk- west, wives

tales of living Bushmen the and are attended by the of the

represent spirits
eland as the first and favorite creation of 162. AKung dancer entering trance. dead. The great god created first himself,
their a then the lesser god, then their wives, each
principal divinity: god variously
named, in the various Bushmen areas, as of whom bore three girls and three boys.
He also created the its and
Gauwa, Kaggen, Dxui, Gao na,
Hishe, The Bushmen’s gods, seriously re- earth, people,
and so on. ‘‘mantis,”’ and it different from this folk- all To himself, the
Kaggen means garded, are
very things. praise great god
is in this character that the god commonly tale character. Lorna Marshall found that named himself, saying, “Iam Hishe. lam
as an insect, but as the of Botswana were afraid even to unknown, a
stranger. No one can com-
appears—not exactly Kung
manlike in the utter their ‘“We aware,” mand me.”’ He himself with a
an
ambiguous, figure My- gods’ names. were
praised
of the she tells, “of their to number of names: Gara, for example,
thological Age Beginning. unwillingness speak
when he did
It is told, for example, that during that of religious matters
early in our work and things hurtful to
people. ‘“He
when all things acquired the forms therefore waited until our relations were causes death among us,” the people then
period
that must be theirs, now and forever: well established before would ‘He causes rain to thunder.”
questioning say.
at a where reeds stood, them .. . .
Sometimes we talked liter- Or, again he would declare: ‘’I am Gaishi
Kaggen, place
his son-in-law’s shoe in the water, re- in and at least in low gai, a bad thing. I take own No
soaked ally whispers usually my way.
to watch it grow into an eland, voices, ‘the one in the east,’ ‘the one can advise me.’’”’ To the lesser god he
turning daily saying
and when the animal then from all of his but the
approached one in the west.’. .
.The woman who gave own names one,
the reeds, he would fondle it, rub its sides
to eat. But his
with honey, and give it honey
the ichneumon, on him
grandson, Ni, spied
and, where all the honey
one
day discovering
father.
was
going, reported to his Presently
Kaggen went away, hunting three days for
more and when comb that he
honey, every
found was he took this for a warning.
dry,
but his eland
Returning to the reeds, he called,
did not come. He looked for its spoor, found
and its trail, discovered Ni
blood, following
and his father the beast.
butchering
aimed an arrow at them, but it re-
Kaggen
turned so close to his head that he narrowly
missed himself. Then he attacked
shooting
with a club; but the others, overpowering
him, made him wood for their fire until,
carry
his slain eland’s in a
discovering gallbladder
bush, he it. This covered him with
pricked
darkness and he However, he was
escaped.
himself now unable to see. So he threw his

shoe into the where it became the

high sky,
moon, shedding light.”

163. Rock painting of a Bushman dance, Daucor’s

Cave, Nocosasana Valley in the Drakensberg, South

Africa. To the clapping of the women, some with
babies on their backs, the men dance, led by a
figure
wearing rattles on his calves who is either masked or

undergoing transformation into an

antelope.

164. Trance dance of the Kung. During the course

of the night, the men, circling to the women’s clap-

ping, collapse into states of visionary flight.

91
 165. Rock painting, Rainbow Shelter, Ndedema
Gorge in the South Africa. A range of
Drakensberg,
eland heads above a rainbow, with human be-
legs
low, representing, in Harald Pager’s view, “a trans-
formation from human to antelope form or vice
versa.” This
suggestion is supported by the pres-
ence, lower left, of an ales, or “flying buck,” the
image of a human spirit transformed in flight. (See
pages 98-99.)

The degree to which

primitive hunters can become
identified with the
symbolic animal upon whose good
will the well-being of the tribe is imagined to depend
is illustrated, not only in the myths and rituals of the
Bushmen, but also in their hunting practices and in
the imagery of their visions. The eland, which in their

mythology occupies the high symbolic place, is not a

necessary contributor to their diet. Subsistence is
based on some
thirty-odd plant species gathered by
the women, who range daily with their digging sticks
within a few miles of the camps collecting birds’
eggs, turtles, lizards, and other small game. The
oldest, the human name, with which he men hunt over much larger ranges, and the animals
appears in the folktales: Gao na, “Old of their encounters hold in their minds a
high position,
Gao.’’ And to the wives he all of his both as
challengers to their skills and as presences
gave
of occult import. When the Bushman dies he is him-
divine names in their feminine forms:
self transformed into an eland.
Hishedi, Gaishi gaidi, and so on, but each
also had her own human name, which
can be pronounced aloud without fear.”
As Old Gao, the great god is at once
166. Rock from Valltorta Castell6n.
painting Gorge,
himself and not himself, and the people
tell his old tales without restraint. 167. The main
hunting weapon of the Bushmen of 168/169. Great skill is to stalk alert
They required an
the Kalahari is
light bow, with a range of no more
a animal to within of these
say his name aloud and even howl and range flimsy but lethal ar-
than 25 yards, that shoots unfeathered, rows. As revealed in the two
roll
poisoned photographs below, the
on the ground with at his
laughter arrows.
Compare the magnificent weapons of the first requirement in this game of death is intense
humiliations. “Like men,” states Lorna forest-dwelling Andamanese (pages 118-119). identification with the target.

Marshall, ‘““he
subject to passions,was In the Cape Bushman legend of
Kaggen Kaggen’s wife bore the first eland and
Kag-
hungers, sins, stupidities, failures, frus- and the first the
eland, same
duplexity is gen tried to kill it
by throwing sharpened
trations and humiliations, but men evident in the tales of Old Gao. sticks, but he missed. Then he left
imag- as
Kung (again for
ine his to have been three
on
a larger scale and The narratives carry, protective behind a days) to fetch arrow
poison, and while
more than their own. Like of he was his sons discovered and killed
grotesque screen
radically reductive metaphor, gone,
Bushmen of his the eland. he rebuked them fu-
today, great concerns reflexes of the greatest mysteries. It has Returning,
and To riously. But then he and his wife mixed fat
were
hunger sex. the Kung the been noticed, for that the shoe
example,” from the animal’s heart in with
two worst sins, the unthinkable, un- can be understood as
symbolic of the va- a pot, together
some of its blood, and churned. The
speakable sins, are cannibalism and in- and as of semen. The shoe of drops
gina, honey, became, first, eland bulls, then cows, which
cest. Old Gao committed both these sins would have
Kaggen’s son-in-law, then, over the earth.
He ate his older
spread Whereupon Kaggen
unconcernedly. brother- been the of and
organ Kaggen’s daughter, sent his sons out to hunt them. And that
day,
in-law and his brother-in-law, the
younger honey fed it as an
eland, his own
game were
given to men to eat.”
and he his son’s wife.’’
raped procreative seed. In another version:

92
 From the moment the
eland is struck, the successful
bowman is bound to a
sympathetic routine of magical
observances, to be followed
throughout the period of
the stricken animal’s dying, often a day or more.

Intentional identification with the animal whose oc-

cult power is to be invoked through the exercise of a

ceremonial is commonly achieved by masquerade;

for the energy of which the animal is the vehicle or

agent is conducted through some critical aspect of

its form. The masks that in our
demythologized time
are
lightly assumed for the entertainments of a cos-

tume ball or
Mardigras—and may actually, on such
occasions, release us to activities and experiences
which might otherwise have been tabooed—are ves-

tigial of an earlier magic, in which the powers to be

invoked were not simply psychological, but cosmic.
For the appearances of the natural order, which are

separate from each other in time and space, are in

fact the manifestations of energies that inform all
things and can be summoned to focus at will. The

mythological association of the eland with the moon

and a recognition, thereby, of the coincidence of the

lunar and female cycles has rationalized the celebra-
tion of eland ceremonials in contexts relevant to

fertility, especially those rendered by the women

attending a girl’s first menstruation (see page 100).

170. Profile of aBushman eland dancer.

covered with darkness—until the new

moon
appears.
Patricia Vinnicombe calls attention to
the Bushmen’s use of blood and fat as

components of their paints. Herbert

Kuhn has that blood and fat
suggested
have been
ingredients of the
may paints
of the caves.” Thus the act of
European
painting may have been, as Vinnicombe

suggests, a ritual act of restitution in the

sense of the restitution and
very multipli-
cation of eland in the second
Kaggen’s
version of his legend. “It seems reasona-

ble,” she writes, “to that the

postulate
Bushman artist an role
played important
in this and that
propitiation ceremony, by
recreating visible eland upon the shelter
walls, Man the Hunter was reconciled
with the
Kaggen thereby restor-
Creator,
ing the balance of
forces that
opposing
was so for the of the
necessary well-being
Bushman psyche. Through the eland, the
Bushman established and maintained
communication with his god. Through
the eland, the eternal cycle of sacrificing
The hunter’s need to kill in order to live here of the life in order to conserve and life,
apparent equivalence god’s promote
is in this as an institution and was
ritually expressed.’ In the
justified legend life-giving death-dealing powers can- sum,
of the First and the not be accidental. mythological eland sacrifice, of which
Being himself; god’s
ambiguous relationship both to the ani-
Kaggen’s creation of the moon after his every hunting kill is a duplication, is the
mal slain and to its is our clue to eland has been butchered is another inexhaustible vessel out of which the
killing sig-
what in would be termed of the
literary criticism nificant sign. One shoe had become his bounty great god’s worldproceeds.
the anagogical of the tale. The eland; the other became the the And hunter, in his sacrificial
meaning moon: every killing,
shot at those his eland endowed with the is in the role of identified
arrow
butchering two
being equally Kaggen himself,
back and with the animal of his kill and the
turns
nearly strikes the god him- power of rebirth. Moreover, to
procure
at same

while in the second time the is with

self, telling of his tale, the required honey or poison, Kaggen left guilty, as
god guilty, the
it is he who is the first to the kill. the scene for three the moon is three primordial guilt of life that lives on life.
attempt days:
In the first version he went off to find dark. And when he returns to find
nights
honey; in the second, to
get poison. The his eland dead, he is his own act
through

93
 171. Opening stage of a night of trance dancing.
on the danceground, a few women
Having gathered
of the camp have built a fire and, clapping time, have
begun humming. A few men, each hunched tightly
forward, have already begun circling around them
with short tight steps. Others will presently join the
circle, and the dance may continue all night.

172. One of the dancers has been

(center) over-
come
by the energy known as ntum, a hot uprush
from the pit of the stomach, up the spinal cord, to the
brain.

According to a
Kung Bushman legend
of in 1975
Botswana, published by Mar-
guerite Anne Biesele:

A woman named Be was alone in the bush

one in Namibia, when she saw a herd of
day
giraffes running before an
approaching thun-
derstorm. The rolling beat of their hooves
louder and in her head with the
grew mingled
sound of sudden rain. a she
Suddenly song
had never heard before came to her, and she
to
began sing.
Gauwa (the told her it
great god) was a

medicine song. Be went home and the

taught
song to her husband, Tike. and
They sang
danced it
together. And it was, indeed, a
song
for
trancing, a medicine song. Tike
taught it to
others, who passed it on.'°!

Kung medicine are to be

songs thought
endowed with a
supernatural potency
known as the Mythological
ntum. In
Age
of the
Beginning, quantities of this power
were
put by the great god into a number
of things: medicine songs, ostrich eggs,
certain and fruits, the
plants sun, falling
stars, rain, bees, honey, giraffes, aard-
’’'°?
varks, blood, redwing partridges, and ‘death Potent medicine
thing.’ men,
eventually their portion of ntum becomes
fires made in certain situations; also into on the other hand, can meet and face so hot that it boils. In the of Lorna
report
certain who function, Gauwa insults of the
persons, might down, hurling Marshall: ‘The men
say it boils
up their
then as medicine men and healers. Ntum kind at him in trance,
grossest when, they spinal columns into their heads, and is so
is not nor invoked in those whom
personified, prayer. are
curing the god has af-
strong when it does this that it overcomes
Undifferentiated, it varies in force in the flicted; for the of their own ntum them and
power is, they lose their senses.’ The
various
things it informs: beneficent in at such times, enhanced. resemblance of this
description reports to
some, always strong, but in some The occasion for the activation from
things supreme India of the
rising of the Kundalini is
dangerously so. Ntum is so strong in the of ntum is the trance dance, performed by amazing.
great god that should he approach an or- the males of the small bands to the It is
generally during the of the
period
dinary mortal, like a bolt his and wordless
lightning sharply rhythmed clapping approach of this crisis that the work of
ntum would kill the The
man.
Kung call chanting of the women. The exertion of
healing is undertaken. It is then also that
ntum a “death the dancers
thing”; also, a “fight.” tirelessly circling heats their the medicine man can
challenge Guawa.
“These are states Lorna medicine which
expressions,” power, they experience His
body is indestructible. He can walk
Marshall, used the substance in the
pit of the
as a
“frequently by Kung physical into the fire, pick up burning brands, and
for or the stomach.'® The
anything strong dangerous: women’s
singing, the rub them over his
body. A younger dan-
for
sun, example, is also a ‘fight’ and a men
say, “‘awakens their hearts,” and cer
may go wild when he first breaks into

94
174. The spirit of the visionary voyager has just
returned to his inert body, which has been lying in
the condition known as “half death.” The moment is
a delicate one and, if
failed, may result in full death

(see page 96). His friends, who have been watching

for
this critical moment, are here ministering to a safe
return.

173. The entranced member is lowered to the

ground. His spirit has departed on the
visionary jour-
ney from which is derived direct knowledge of the
invisibles and their landscape (see page 96).

gradually, the trancer other men

staggers;
come to his aid and lead him around until
he shouts and falls down, comatose, in
the state of “half death.” The sudden
trance, on the other hand, is announced

by violent
a
leap or somersault and instant
“It is Lee
collapse. noteworthy,’”’ remarks,
“that many of the older medicine men,
with of in trance
years experience states,
do not the ‘half-death’
go through
phase. The discipline displayed
...

by
these older men is the result of years of

training, during which they learn to

bring
their reactions under control.’
The and of control
gaining maintaining
over the force of ntum is the first require-
ment of this since it is
rite, only when
brought under human direction that the
force can be is to Its heat
applied healing.
simultaneously activated and held in

check, not only by the dancer himself, but

also
communally, through the ritualized
dancing and songs of the group, where
the control, as well as excitation, is gov-
erned the and
by clapping, singing, pac-
of the whole affair
ing by the women.
this experience. As Richard Their
reported by rhythms are complex, built into 5- The contrast of male and female roles in
B. Lee: “He into the fire, off and 7-beat
plunges runs
phrases. And their body pos- this rite reflects, Marguerite Biesele
as ob-
into the
struggles when
dark, restrained, tures are
tight, hunched forward, arms served, a consistent
symbolism in the
kicks, squirms (perhaps injures himself), close to the sides, slightly flexed. Others mythic and social of the
assignments
and
finally falls into the comatose state join the round, and as the night runs on, sexes. Women
gather plant foods, and
’’1%
called ‘half-death.’ those trance to their and linked
approaching begin con-
power prestige are to

Ordinarily danceground a is chosen centrate their role of this

intently. as
providers resource.

only a few yards from the encampment, “They look down at their feet,” states Men hunters and have
-

are to do with ar-

and
typically dances commence when a Lee, ‘‘or stare ahead without
orienting to rows, arrow
poison, spears, quivers, and
handful of women
light the central fire, distractions around them. The body is other
hunting gear. The female is associ-
sit in a circle around and and
tight it, begin to tense
rigid. Footfalls are
heavy, and ated with childbirth, menstruation, breast-
sing, clapping time. a few of the shock waves can be seen
Eventually, rippling milk, the gathering of plants, solidarity of
the in behind
through the body. The chest is heaving,
men to circle
stray them, the nuclear family, the moon, and the or-

with short, in veins

heavy stamps asingle line, are
standing out on neck and fore- igin of water. Men control
lightning with
which, from time to time turns about to head, and there is profuse animal and their
sweating.” horns, potency is associ-
circle the other of rattles Trance some 30 to 60 minutes ated with
way. Strings supervenes the sun, semen, heat, trance
around the men’s ankles stress the beat. later, either or of a sudden. If and the of fire.
gradually dancing, origin

95
 ‘“‘Trancers,’’ Biesele observed, ““seem to

flirt with the dangerous heat of the fire,

coming as close to it as
they possibly can

in the effort to make the ntum boil within

them.’ If it boils up too
quickly, how-
ever, they go into trance before they can
cure; hence those feeling it
coming too
soon draw back and cease
dancing for
a while. “Significantly,”” she noticed,
“women offer such men water with
which to cool off. Women also watch to

prevent insensate trancers from burning

their bodies in the fire.’”1

Generally, as Lorna Marshall also has

seen, attributes associated with women

are considered antithetical to those of

in the
men;
yet, cooperative rapture of the
trance dance, the two combine, as she has

observed, ‘‘with such that

precision they
become organic being. And
like an in this
close configuration—together—they face
the gods.”71

When the
Kung dancers break and pass
into the state of half-death, their spirits fly
along threads of spider silk to the sky.
These are the ways of passage of the gods
and of the dead between earth and
spirits
heaven.''° Marguerite Biesele has pub-
lished the rendered account of one such
astronaut:
spiritual
“When people sing, I dance. I enter the
earth. I go in at a
place like a
place where

people drink water. I travel a

long way,
very far. When I emerge, I am
already
climbing. I’m
climbing threads, the threads
that lie over there in the south. I climb one

and leave it, then I climb another one.

Then I leave it and climb another. . .

And when you arrive at God’s place,”’ he

told her, ‘‘you make yourself small. You
have become small. You come in small to

God’s place. You do what you have to do

there. Then you return to where everyone
is, and you hide your face. You hide your
face so
anything.
you won’t see You come
and and and
come
finally you enter come

your body again. All the people who have

°<3f
stayed behind are
waiting for you—they
fear you. You enter, enter the earth, and

you return to enter the skin of your body.

giagagapammamsenananes.°
~
+,
..

sound
And
of your
you

to
say
return
‘he-e-e-el’

The
to
your
ntum-masters
That

body.
is
Then
the

are
you begin sing.
there around. take and
They powder
blow it—Phew! Phew!—in your face.
take hold of your head and blow
They
about the sides of your face. This is how

you manage to be alive again. Friends, if

they don’t do that to

you, you die....
You
just die and are dead. Friend, this is
what it does, this ntum that I do, this ntum

here that I dance.’711"7

175. Two male dancers, silhouetted in the dawn,

whirl before their audience. The session, which be-

gan at sundown, has run

through the night as a

dream shared by all.

96
 It is thus that the
entirely possible flying looked straight before him, while the two
in the Bushman known
figures paintings, front feet held
limp in front of him sud-
as
“flying bucks” or alites, may represent, denly moved and pointed downwards to
not
only spirits of the dead, but also those the earth.
“ ”’
in
flight of the living trancers in half-
“Please, how high is the sea?’ Klara
death, and that such scenes in the
painted asked.
sanctuaries as those of the Sebaaieni “Mantis lifted his looked and
head, up
Cave, where there is one such alesflying, raised his front feet to at the
long point
are to be interpreted, as Harald Pager has cloudless blue sky. I could not make sense

as “the Bushman’s idea of of the

suggested, ’’7
questions or Mantis’s positive re-

their ‘eternal to the

hunting grounds,’ sponse to them. Klara had never been to
of which the great the We that
everlasting scenery sea. were at moment some

ntum masters in their half-death states thousand miles from the nearest coastline
visits three or four times a month." and she to without
pay was die, alas, ever

Neither Vinnicombe nor

Pager has the sea. Yet her attitude of extreme
seeing
found anywhere in the Drakensberg, reverence, the of Mantis,
shape
strange
however, anything like the figure of a
his uncanny responsiveness to the sound

and remarks that “there is of her and her 176. Inthismasterpiece from the Sebaaiene Cave,
mantis, Pager worship on tongue, ex-

no mantis cult treme at the outcome made an

in the Ndedema Gorge of the Drakensberg Range, a
among contemporary delight of mythic “antelope men” passes mys-
procession
Bushmen and there is evi-
no
objective impression I was never to
forget.’”1"° teriously above a panorama of earthly hunting, fight-
dence of Bushmen Hottentots had the of Left of center in
or
having Van der Post advantage, ing, dancing, and domestic scenes.

this insect in the past.’’”1 the left panel is the a/es, or “flying buck,” reproduced
worshipped course, of a child’s unreformed sense of
above as 177c.
Laurens van der Post, however, who wonder, as well as of little
appreciation
was born and raised in South Africa, re- and the idea of an
things, extraordinary Alites (‘flying bucks’) are envisionments of spirits,
calls very well the tales of his old black insect as manifestation or
messenger of almost certainly those of the dead, and possibly
those of trance dancers flying from their bodies.
nurse, Klara, who had had a Bushman an unknown was neither incredible
god “There was belief,” states Harald Pager, “that the
mother and ‘With all a
who, on one occasion, went to him nor absurd. that,’” he souls of the fly through the air.” And he illus-
dead
down on her knees before a mantis in the could write of Mantis later, trates this point with an arranged display of forty-five
fifty years
it with her hands folded alites, selected from eighteen sites in the Ndedema
grass, ‘bowing to “there was
something curiously human above
in front of her like a Christian at about his face. Its heart Gorge. The series of examples reproduced
prayer.” shape, pointed (177) is abridged from that presentation.'' Pager
ita name [ had not heard and cheek bones and yellow skin—
“Calling chin, high
.

calls attention to the range from nearly human to bird

cannot remember,” he recalls “she begged I realize now how like a Bushman’s that and antelope forms. Immediately apparent in a num-
ber of the more human of the figures is the resem-
the Mantis in a low hissing voice, ‘Please, face was. Besides, his eyes were extraor-
how low is the sea?’ To amazement and as if of
blance of their posture—arms held back and
a for-
my dinarily big bright, capable ward pitch of the body—to the stance of Kung trance
the head of the Mantis turned and he extra dancers.
perception.”1””

98
178. Harald Pager describes the “antelope man” D. N. Lee and H. C. Woodhouse, two authors cited
as “a human being whose legs and/or arms termi- by Pager,'* write of the alites as
representatives of
nate in hooves. Most antelope men also have ante- spirits of the dead, quoting in support of this view
lope heads,” he adds, “but this feature alone is not both a belief that “Bushmen were
formerly springbok
considered sufficient for identification.”'* Some have and were changed into human beings by the creative
argued such figures represent disguised hunters, power of the mantis,” and also the idea that “the
but hooved legs and arms don’t support thisreading. spirit of a Bushman houses itself in the body of an

Pager points out that “antelope men” are

larger than animal as it goes to the eternal ‘Bokveld’.” Pager
human figures in these paintings and more to those statements
grandly joins a third, reported by Bleek, '°
dressed. “The arithmetic mean of the sizes of all that antelopes seen near Bushman graves are the
human figures in the Ndedema sample,” he ob- spirits of the dead.
serves, “is 91 mm, while for the antelope men it is
248 mm. Moreover, the majority of human figures
are
depicted naked, while only four of the eighty-
eight antelope men are without habiliment. All the
others wear either karosses leggings, or what and
appears to be tight-fitting fur garments. Leggings . . .

in particular are
hardly even depicted on an ‘ordi-
nary’ man. All antelope men wear
body ornaments,
often in elaborate quantities. That these figures do
depict some extraordinary beings is without doubt
and their significance is perhaps contained in an
account given to Frobenius by a Bantu who said that
the paintings of humans with animal heads were the

figures of dead men.”

99
 Why, then, do we find no mantis in the

paintings? The answer must lie in the dis-

tinction between the “feared,” unuttera-

ble names and the “human” names of the

gods. The painted caves and shelters

were in some sense sanctuaries, ad-
dressed, like the Bushman dances and
other ritual observances, conjuring to the
of ntum. A sacred
place is one in which
such rituals are
performed, and the sanc-
tuaries of Old Stone Age art were evi-

dently such places. Their imagery, there-

fore, is of an order appropriate to the
exaltation of consciousness, whereas folk-
tales, told for amusement or even for in-

struction, are
turned, as it were, toward
the world. The god comes to view in them
in his “human,” apparently harmless,
form, to
play the clown for his people’s
enjoyment; and the appearance of any
such radically reduced burlesque of a
in sacred
divinity a
place would be

incongruous.
179. Rock painting of the women’s Eland Dance in The the other is for
folktale, on hand,
celebration of a
girl’s first menstruation. From Ful-
enjoyment, and since the best kind of en-
ton’s Rock in the Drakensberg.
in release from the
joyment is tension,
The boys’ Rite of the First Kill and the
girls’ Rite of tales best loved are of the carnival kind,
the First Menstruation are their respective rites of
where the
god feared appears in carnival
passage to maturity. The girl is thought to be charged
with a force that must be defended both from the form, as
together with a com-
an insect,
sun’s rays and from contact with earth.'® Head cov-
pany of incongruous little players: his
ered with a kaross, she is carried on a kinswoman’s
wife, a
dassie; their daughter, an
eland;
back to a shelter apart, where the women, removing his adopted daughter, a
porcupine; his
their own karosses, perform the Eland Dance to an
a blue his grandson, ich-
eland song that is among the most ancient of Kung sister, crane; an

musical expressions. the eland/moon and his niece,

identification in the
(Compare
legend on page 91.) At the end,
neumon;
a little springbok,
swallowed by an
elephant (like Red Rid-
the girl is washed, anointed with eland fat, and
painted on her forehead and cheeks with inghood by the wolf), whom he then must
designs,
the meanings of which have been lost."’ rescue. To each a of
special manner
speech has been humorously assigned,
180. A Kung Eland Dance today, photographed by imitating the shape of the mouth of the
Lorna Marshall. kind of animal represented. The curious

LT.

EE.
2

va
:
‘
+
-

a : — |hg .

“\
wu ?
. s

oo = a
i 7.
ave) >
’ 9
ne
eg
iy
9 y

Ben
it ieee
ao
ee
et
or.

rf
ER
 “click” of the Bushman is
language played
upon with all sorts of bizarre additions
and alterations of accent. Nor do all the
tales of this carnival have to do with the

burlesqued great god As and his friends.

iri the
everywhere universally enjoyed,
ageless heritage of the animal fable, one
of the most
popular themes is of the out-

witting of the great by the small—best of

all and usually, by some clever counter-

part of our
European Reynard the Fox. For
example:

Jackal, out
hunting, one
day arrived at

Lion’s house and, seeing the lion’s wife there,

asked: ““Good lady, where is your husband?”

“My husband is
man,” she
a
replied,
great
“not to be spoken of by such as you.” “Softly,

proud lady,” Jackal cautioned, “your hus-

band is my servant.” And he trotted away.
When Lion arrived, his wife greeted him
contemptuously. ‘““You are
nothing. Jackal
was here. He told me that you are his serv-

ant.’” Amazed, he demanded, ‘Where is that

fellow now?” And she answered, “Oh, very
in the bush close
likely by, awaiting your re-
turn, for I think he requires your service.” “I
shall show you something today, dear wife,
that will stop your foolish words,” Lion said;
and he left to look for Jackal.

181. String figures, or “cat’s cradle” games, are of

a world-wide distribution. The precise figure here

displayed by this young Kung Bushman wife is

known in Hawaii as Ma-ha-lii-lii and Pu-kau-la; in
Ireland as the “Ladder” and the “Fence”; and in

Nigeria, among the Yoruba, as the “Calabash Net.”

An example of this same
figure recorded from the

Osage tribe of Oklahoma was called by the collector

“Osage Diamonds.”

He found him in the bush and

asleep
roughly roused him. “Jackal, you told my wife
that you wanted to see me; so now follow
me!”” ’Tis the ‘““Ah!
Waking, Jackal replied:
voice of my
lordly friend. Alas, good friend, I
am
blind, and being blind I stumbled upon
house I cannot see and
your unwittingly.
therefore cannot follow you.” “Then I shall

carry you,” Lion said. And he took the jackal

on his back.
Now Jackal had concealed with him hornets
and bees, and Lion’s
as
approached they
house he released them, so that they attacked
his mount, and Lion, on reaching the house,
ran before his wife in
great pain, while Jackal
lashed him with a
whip and goaded him on.
“Faster! Faster! Do as I bid, you knave!”” And
as
they sped past the house, Jackal called to
Lion’s wife: “Aha, So hus-
proud lady! your
band is a not to be of
great man, spoken by
such as I! Nevertheless, he is my servant, as I
told you. See how I ride and beat him!”’
And the lion’s wife, humiliated, turned

away.''®

182. In tales told for the

enjoyment gods put off
their and become transformed
majesty through the
magic of the
story-teller’s art into entertainers. The
Kung tell tales
of a mythical past which they consider
to have been actual, not mythical. The “old old peo-
ple” of that imagined time passed on what they had
been taught by the Creator, and the old have trans-
mitted this teaching to the young even until today."

101
 ca)
Se
!

é S
-

iS m

ae
i
ae :

mt
:

4
et 7

gee
N¢ =
5 , :

-
,
i
*
.
3

>

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a

XY rte
|

ae
*
**

A
-

ware,
fas

eiee‘4
aa
 LIVING PEOPLES
OF THE

EQUATORIAL FORESTS

slits in the center of his forehead and over

The Forest Song of

The Pygmies of the African rain forest (183), and the each eye, gouged from each
a little flesh,
mysterious Tasaday of the Philippines (184: first dis- and rubbed a black into the
the ash-paste
covered
represent
in 1971 still dwelling in their ancestral
at opposite ends of the Afro-Asian
caves)
equa-
Pygmies cuts. And it was later that same
evening,
torial belt a quality of human life in accord while the men were that he first
with nature singing,
that has enchanted everyone who has written of heard the molimo.
A small alone in the forest, heard such a
them. Not fear, but an
easy confidence in the unfail- boy,
“First I heard it call out of the
ing bounty of the Lord of their forest is the character- beautiful song that he went to see who was night
istic ground-feeling bird—the from the other side of the
of their casually organized
very singing and, discovering a Bird of Nepussi
societies. Fear, on the other hand, incredulity, and the Most Beautiful in the Forest—he river... ; it sounded like someone
Song
bewilderment overcome them at the forest's edge, it back to the to be fed. His but it was not a human voice. It
where the uninterrupted of the sky and plains
brought camp singing
space
father was
annoyed having to give food
at toa was a
sound, some-
opens out before their eyes. Hardly could a contrast deep, gentle, loving
be greater than that between the worlds and world-
mere bird, but, the boy pleading, the bird was
times off in a
breaking quiet falsetto,
views of the jungle and the plains. fed. Next its was heard and
day song again, sometimes
growling like a leopard. As the

iy

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7 Semang 4
8 Mimika
\A

Map 26

the boy again returned with it to the camp. men their of to the for-
sang songs praise
The father was more than before, but
annoyed est, the molimo answered them, first on

again the bird was fed. Then a third and

day, this side, then on that, around so
the This the bird from
moving
again song! time, taking and that it
swiftly silently seemed to be
his son, the father told him to run and
along; at once.
when the was the man killed the everywhere
boy gone,
still it beside
and with the bird he killed the and
“Then, unseen, was
right
bird, song,
me, not more than two feet away, on the
with the himself. He dead,
Map 26. The peoples treated in this as
song, dropped
chapter, other side of a small but thick wall of
completely dead, and was dead forever.'”
representing the mythologies and folkways of the
leaves. As it to the of the
simplest hunters and gatherers of the Old World replied song
tropical forests, are:
(1) the Pygmies of the Congo Colin men, who continued to as
Turnbull, who returned with this sing though
Basin; (2) the Tasaday of the Philippines; and (3) the were the sound
Andamanese of the Bay of Bengal. Other
fable from one of his long stays among the nothing happening, was

peoples of sad and and

of the Ituri forest, tells of the wistful, immensely beauti-
about the same culture stage include: (4) the Hill Pygmies
Chenchu of southern India; (5) the Veddas of Sri forest voice of marvelous instrument ful. Several of the older men were
a
sitting
Lanka; (6) the Selung and (7) Semang of the north-
called the to which he in- near me, and one of them, without even
““molimo,’”’ was
ern
Malay Peninsula; and (8) the Mimika of New
troduced at the close of his first visit. looking up, asked me if I wanted to see
Guinea. The folkways and mythologies of these dif-
Three of the hunters had taken the molimo. He then continued as
fer in detail, of course, from those of the three socie-
leading singing
ties here treated. However, in the main they are
him the forest though he didn’t care what
into to make sure, as
they particularly
equivalent and, indeed, any two or three of them
said, that he would return. were my reply was, but I knew he did. I was so
might have been chosen to represent the profoundly They
to make him “‘of the forest.” With a
overcome
by curiosity that I almost said
sweet and melancholy message to us of our own, going
memories of the wilderness. ‘yes’; I had been hard to
forgotten, deepest rusty arrow blade they cut
tiny vertical fighting stop

103
 from
myself trying to
peer through the
The Rain Forest Domain of the leaves to where it was now
Pygmies growling away
almost angrily. But I knew that
rain forest Pygmy
ee Equatorial
not allowed to it until
Areas inhabited by Pygmies youths were see
(ea had themselves
Efe Pygmy tribal names
they proved as hunters,
as adults in
Pygmy eyes, and although |
now carried the marks on
my forehead I
still felt So I
unqualified. simply said, no,
I did not think I was to see it.
white ready
“The molimo gave a
great burst of song
and with a wild rush swept across the

e camp, surrounded
by a dozen youths
packed so tightly together that I could see
ne
4 Turkana
nothing, and disappeared into the forest.
»

Efe Seko (L. Rudoif)

2 fj oe Those left in the made no
camp comment;
Se
iy

with their and

Mbouti
Mt. Ru
Vd
Ete,
(/enzort4(SY
AN.
=
at
ad
they just
after a while
kept
the
on

voice of the
song,
‘
. molimo, re-
Lake Edwerd/
79 plying to them, became fainter and fainter
and was lost in the and in the
finally night
depths of the forest from where it had
=!
come.”
Lake
The contrast of the two worlds and of
the of life and of these
ways thought Pyg-
mies and the Bushmen could be
INDIAN
hardly
ATLANTIC more extreme. both are
OCEAN
SEEN Ethnologically,
classified and
as hunters
gatherers. They
are the true “primitives” of Africa, surviv-

ing from Old Stone Age times in the ways

of their fathers and grandfathers. How-
is of the sunburnt
ever, one
plains, the
other of the deep forest. The Bushman,
dependent utterly on the miracle of rain

Map 27. Lake Victoria, with the great Serengeti

animal plain, Rift Valley, and Kenya highlands to the
east, Tanzania to the south, and the Mountains of the
Moon (Mount Ruwenzori) to the west, marks the

general area of the first appearances of the running

humanlike apes of the plains that evolved into Homo
habilis and eventually into the present human race.

The return of the ancestors of the Pygmies to the

forest was, therefore, a
secondary development, like
the return to the sea of the ancestors of the whales.
The forest received them, prehuman arboreal skills
were recovered, and for untold millennia, until well
into the first millennium a.p., these little “singers and
dancers of God” (as they have been called) were the
sole inhabitants of their wilderness.

185. The forest itself provides all the materials nec-

for a come to rest on level of late

essary life-style a
Paleolithic technology. Impermanent leaf-thatched
huts are raised and struck as the little groups of thirty
or more move about.

186. Deep-forest hunting is a very different affair

from hunting on the plains. A party sets out with nets
and lances for a day’s catch.

104
 for his is Then will be well and
and on the killing of animals life, everything good lers. Off goes the arrow, while the dan-
dominated sense of the So when our world is well roll about
by an enduring again. going cers scatter, the ground, grin
tension of and hunted, then also we
sing to the forest because we and The drama is rehearsed
opposites—hunter 1
roar.
again
and rain, female and male, life want it to share our and
drought happiness.” again to the accompaniment of the
1”
and death; whereas the It is to extract from the thunder of the drums.”
forest-dwelling impossible frag-
at home in a rain-soaked ments of lore and custom
reported of the Turnbull tells of
Pygmies, jungle a
honey-gathering
rich in roots, and fruits, are sus-
Pygmies secure idea of what the mis- dance: ‘““The and
leafage, any men women
divided,
tained the abun- Paul Schebesta, of the order of the and while the
substantially by vegetal sionary pretended to be honey
men

into which enter with a sense White Fathers, called

dance, they Pygmy Theology. gatherers, dancing in a long curling line
of accord, and of which the animals are a However, the contrasts with what we the
through camp, looking up with exag-
natural “The forest is a father and know of the Bushman forms give clues. as if searching for some
part. gerated gestures
mother to us,” said Turnbull’s old initia- For example, though both races are
appre- of bees, the women danced in an-
sign
like father and mother ciative of the values of dance and
~

“and other
Moke; long line through the trees
a the
tor, song, at

it us we need—food, their applications of these arts are of the

gives everything very edge camp, pretending they were

shelter, warmth and af- different. There is no trance

dancing re- the bees. The two lines
clothing, gradually came
. . .

fection. well, ported of the

Pygmies; no trance
flights; closer and closer the
Normally, everything goes together, women

because the forest is

good to its children, no
healing. Though the dances are named
singing in a soft, rhythmic buzz, buzz,
but when there must be “chimpanzee dances,” “elephant dances,” buzz, while the to hear
things go wrong men
pretended
areason.... and so on, their character is rather of free but still not to see them. Then the women

well in our than of a maintained seized attacked

“Normally everything goes pantomime strictly burning logs of wood and
world. night when we are sleeping,
But at form intended to launch the participants the men, tapping the logs on their heads
sometimes things go wrong. Army ants into exalted spiritual states. “A chimpan- so that a shower of sparks fell over them,
invade the camp; in dance that I Father Sche-
leopards may come zee saw,” states
stinging them like the sting of the hon-
If
and steal a
hunting dog or even achild. besta, ‘“demanded considerable histrionic
eybee. At that they all gathered up the
these would not the
we were awake, things ability on
part of the performers. Only embers, and where some of the younger
So when something big goes men and boys take part in it. They pro- had been
happen. men
building an elaborate
like illness bad ceed
wrong,
or
hunting or
through the entire camp with slow hearth of
special woods and
special leaves,
death, it must be because the forest is movements, their faces work- moistened the
serpentine to
just right extent, they lit
and not after its chil- in weird The eldest of the
sleeping looking ing grimaces. the great honey fire. There was no flame,
dren. So what do we do? We wake it up.
group, armed with bow and arrow, but dense clouds of smoke billowed
rep- up-
We wake it up to it, and we do resents the hunter, who lurks behind a
by singing ward. Men blew on their honey whistles,
this because we want it to waken happy. bush or tree, and takes aim at the revel- women and
clapping hands, everyone
burst into the song of magic that would
travel with the smoke and call the bees to
1”
come and make more
honey.”’
These are
very different affairs from the
trance dances of the Bushman. A very
different affair, also, from the Bushman’s
hunt is that of the Itis a hunt with
Pygmy.
nets, in which the women as well as the
men
participate. One hears little or noth-

ing of that severe ritual of the

separation
male and female sectors that is basic to

Bushman life. Nor do we hear of anything

comparable to the Bushman rev-

erence for the animal slain. Turnbull, for

example, tells of the killing in the course

of a general hunt of a sindula: an

animal,
not much larger than a small dog, which
had broken one of the nets. A
through
of about thirteen had
youngster speared
it, it the to the
pinning through belly
ground, and the little beast, full of fight,
was doubled up, biting at the shaft with
its teeth. One of the men an-
sharp put
other its neck, but it still
spear through
writhed and fought. A third spear pierced
its heart, and the little beast expired.
“They stood around,” states Turnbull, “in
an excited at the
group, pointing dying
animal and One about
laughing. boy,
nine years old, threw himself on the

ground and curled up ina

grotesque heap
and imitated the sindula’s last convul-
sions. The men their out
pulled spears
and joked with one another about being
afraid of a little animal like that, and to

emphasize his point one of them kicked

the torn and Then
bleeding body. Maipe’s

105
187. The Pygmies are
superb hunters. Here they
have killed a
gorilla twice the size of any two of them.

188. Through a section of the forest a

long net is
being laid, into which the animals will be driven by
the noise of the whole encampment—men, women,
and children—closing in unseen
through the rank
tropical growth.

mother came and the blood-streaked Man of the Forest. Oruendi

swept Another name, allud- camp replied that Epilipili, who
animal its hind and threw it
up by legs ing to its
guardianship of the dead, whose had always existed, was the one who cre-

over her shoulder into the basket on her

14
spirits inhabit the dark
places, is Gate of ated all
things. In this account his image
back.” the Hunters’ ad- was somewhat with
Abyss. prayers are confused, however,
The Pygmies, in Father Schebesta’s dressed to this who then that of the First Man.1?7 In
presence, may Aporofandza,
terms, ‘do not feel a consciousness of before the the where the
go them, opening way, drop- Nduye camp, Creator’s
sin. not troubled
They are
by fears leaves
. . .

5
ping as
signs. An elephant trum- name was unknown, he was
pictured as

through guilty conscience.” “Tore

They are pets. must have struck him,” they an
aged being with a
long beard which,
not, that is to
say, troubled as the Bush- And to the kill. As when to and created hurri-
say. away they go a
swung fro,
men are
by the to kill in order to
necessity thanks
offering they will
lay a
piece of its canes, thunderstorms, damaging and
live. Nor, in the instance, was flesh rains.
present on some leaves.
!”° He was Lord of the
Lightning and
there of shared
any sign compassion—any the Rainbow: the latter was a
huge ser-
suffering with the animal—such as in the
pent, and both were
greatly feared. But
Bushman rites is in here
apparent every stage again there was a
tendency to attrib-
of what, for them, is The
an
intensely ritual- informing spirit of their forest is ute some of the god’s
qualities to the First
ized act of sacrifice. There is no known to the various who in
enduring Pygmy camps var-
Man, turn was identified with the
art the
Pygmy celebrating outstanding an-
iously; as Tore, Arebati, Epilipili, Baatsi, moon,’ and the moon with the chame-
imals of their forest. Their address is, or as Father with who climbs the
simply or
Grandfather, leon, highest trees.!”°
rather, to the forest itself, of whose the comment that no one knows the The of the Maseda called
really people camp
bounty the animal slain to be eaten is a name. When asked about “creation’’ their of this Baatsi. He
by counterpart figure
product. For there is a in whose
presence informing investigators own
mythology dwelt above and was Lord of the Dead,
their forest, one of the names of which is this is
concept important, a
Pygmy of the dangerous when offended. Incense offer-

106
 addressed to him. In the words or are to work of them- owlike, thin apparition. It can also
ings were
they thought appear
of one informant: ‘When the fire is kin- selves? The term for their is in dreams. It assemble and dwell
Pygmy power may
dled and the leaves thick smoke, which is a coun- with other Jodi in certain in
cause a
megbe, approximately meeting places
we ‘Grandfather, Great Father, let of the Bushman ntum; and like the forest. And there is a diminutive
say: terpart spe-
matters well with for I inheres with force in cial known as which in
go me; am
going ntum, megbe especial variety, mbefe, leg-
into the forest!’ Or when the fire is
lighted certain animals, plants, and things. Crabs ends appear tricky little forest
as
imps.
the occasion of a storm and the smoke it, for It ascends with These serve as
spirit gamekeepers of the
on
possess example.
rises, it is done so that Baatsi may see it the rising smoke of the incense ceremony, Forest Lord. When a
child, newly born,
and smell the incense. Then we call where it attract bees, move the died in the Koukou camp, Father Sche-
upon may
him, ‘Father, children are clouds or rouse the Lord of the besta was told, ‘“He has become a
mbefe.”’
saying: your away,
afraid. Cause the wind to for Forest to action. individuals make And on another occasion he was told that
cease; your Living
children here are and behold, we use of it in their lifetimes, and at death a
every person who dies becomes a
Tore,'”
many,
shall die.’ Baatsi our and hears of man’s is on to his a
counterpart of that
sees
plight part portion passed supreme power
our stretches forth his arms, and son. “It is to receive this,’” states Sche- which has just been described as the cre-
cry,
the storm flees.” Others de- besta, “that the eldest son bends down ator of all things, and who has been al-
thereupon
clared, however, that the smoke worked over the father and his mouth in existence.
dying puts ways
of itself. “The incense chases the clouds against his. The transmission is believed Curiously, it turns out that in one of the
Also the sound of the to take the mouth... published legends, this same Tore had a
away.” segbe-pipe, place through .
an instrument carved from the wood of a The other with the dead.’’”*' It mother, who now was dead. It had been
part goes
tree struck however, that the son’s in that of which we all
by lightning, was interpreted may happen, part once-upon-a-time,
some as itself the wind in which case it becomes a know from
our
fairy tales, that she had
by frightening may escape,
but others even the same worm and dies. been given charge by Tore of his fire, to
away, by (or eventually
informant, if asked on another There is a second element, keep watch of it while he—who had
occasion), spiritual just
heard who then attends to which leaves the the nose made for himself a of liana—would
as
by Baatsi, body through swing
the work to be done.” and is carried to the Lord of the Dead by go whirling above the forest tops to
great
The essential here is of the flies or bees. And there is, finally, third a distances. One of his names, in fact, in
question
power of the Pygmy rites. Are their ap- part, known as the lodi, which remains
recognition of this activity, is the One
effects due to the action of a with the and is visualized as a shad- Who To And Fro Above the
parent god, body Swings
Abyss.

One day it
happened that when Tore was

enjoying his swing, a Pygmy, lost in the for-

est, chanced upon the fire while the old
mother was stole it, and fled. But the
dozing,
wakened then
mother, by the cold, cried out
in alarm son, to
who, flying onher his swing,
easily caught the Pygmy and returned the fire
to its
place.
The little thief, on
reaching his camp, re-

lated the adventure, and one of his brothers,

stronger than he, determined to it.
attempt
The old mother was but
again sleeping, again,
when she woke to the cold and cried, her son

came
swinging over the forest and recovered
the precious flame.
But now there was an
exceedingly powerful
named with
Pygmy Doru, greatly endowed
megbe, who, on
hearing of these two failures,
clothed himself in the feathers of a raven
[a
sacred, magically bird] and to
potent began
hop and then to “as as to the heavens
fly high
and as far as to the horizon.”” He his
winged
way to the fire, and
again the old mother was

dozing. She woke to the cold a third time, and

a third time calledson, to her who came
again
his
flying on
swing. But the pursuit, this time,
went over mountain and
differently, valley,
the and down to the
up to
sky abyss, until
Tore, exhausted, grabbing hold of a treetop,
called ahead in “Doru, Doru,
anguish: my
brother, we are born of the same mother and
are of equal birth!” But the birdman had flown
on and, at the Pygmy was
camp, already
sharing out the fire, for which he was
being
richly rewarded. Everybody was
giving hima
maid to wife, and the of the was
joy camp
great.
Not however,
long thereafter, people began
to die, one after another. For Tore, having
189. An animal having been trapped, the men
per-
form a dance of joy, but also of gratitude to their
Forest and its bountiful Lord.

107
 Saat AaB

A gallery of Efé Jean- failed in

Pygmies, photographed by his wild pursuit, while still would
Pierre Hallet:
clinging our
theologians call the Godhead,
to the branches of his tree, had called out to but an undifferentiated power, which in
his mother, who had not When his
190. A six-year-old boy listening to a replied. the Kalahari is ntum, as and
story.
he
experienced
strength returned, therefore, went to seek
in the
191. Ayoung woman, no more than eighteen years here, as
megbe. This power
forest,
her. And there, at the where their fire
old. Girls are mature by the of nine at the latest. place dwells in all
age
had been, she dead of the cold. ‘For things, in some more evi-
192. A young man of thirteen. The males also ma- lay this,”
than in others;
then said he in the dently supremely, but not
ture the age of nine. bitterness of his erief, “the
by in such
shall die.” uniquely, imagined Creators as
193. Anolder man, about fifty-five years old. people
So the Tore Baatsi, or, in the Kalahari,
194. Two women.
people now had the fire, but death Kaggen;
young
had come, and the Age of the
Beginning was yet, in a gifted human being its portion
ended.'° may become so
augmented that he may

challenge and even the

Carleton Coon (see pages 41-43) states: “We know
outpoint pre-
then, as in the Bushman sumed Godhead.
nothing about these little people, except that they Apparently,
have lived in the equatorial forests of Africa for world, so also in this of the the
as
Pygmies,
long a time as is covered by the records of history.” ultimate
metaphysical term is not what

In the of Doru’s of
legend outwitting
Tore, there are three themes, besides that
of the elevation of to a
magician’s power
the whichof are aof
potency god’s,
worldwide distribution: (1) the Fire Theft,
(2) the Origin of Death, and (3) the End of
the
Mythological Age. Themes 1 and 2 are
not often combined, as here, but 2 and 3

frequently are; and Schebesta gives a

number of
examples from his Pygmy rep-
ertory. In the the blame is
simplest,
shared by a toad and a
frog.

Muri-muri [another name for Tore] had

givena pot to the toad, him not to break

telling
it, for death was shut up inside. The toad met
a
frog who offered to the
load, and
help carry
though the toad for a moment hesitated, the
pot was
heavy and he let the other take

charge—with a warning, however, to be care-

ful. The
frog hopped away with the pot, but
let it fall. It broke, death from it, and
escaped
that is
why people die.‘

From the
Pygmy camp in Apare comes
the
strange legend of how, in the Begin-
ning, there was
only Masupa, who cre-
ated for himself two sons and a
daughter,
one of the sons, ancestor of the
Pygmies,
the other, of the He would
Negroes.
speak unseen to them, and he gave them
one commandment: never to to see
try
him.

108
 lived in a
large hut, from
Marsupa apart,
which the sounds could be heard of hammer-

ing and forging. [The legend, that is to say,

cannot date from earlier than the knowledge
in this area of iron, c. A.D.
500.] That was an

altogether-happy time, with no need to work.

Or at least, the two sons had no such need. To 195. Four Efé girls being taught the movements of
a dance by an older woman
(with a
baby on her
the daughter daily the given task had been of
back!). Music, dance, and mime are the arts through
and to be
fetching water gathering firewood, which the Pygmies give expression to their charac-
at and since she
placed Masupa’s door, was
teristic communal joy in existence.
to know what the one she was serv-
burning
ing looked like, one evening, as she set the

waterpot down, she decided to wait and see.

She hid behind a

post, and when Masupa’s
arm reached out for the pot, she saw it, richly
adorned.
was He informed his chil-
Masupa enraged.
dren that he now would leave them and that
the days of their ease were ended. He gave
them weapons and tools, taught them the use

of the forge and of other things necessary for

their maintenance; and, especially angry with
his daughter, he told her that she would
henceforth be a
toiling wife and
bring forth
her children in
pain. Then secretly he left
them, passing downstream along the banks of
the river, and no one has seen him since.
Death came with the death of the woman’s
first child two after its birth. She had
days
named him, with a
premonition, Death Is
J

Coming. And no one has escaped death os

:
oF

since.’ 3)
a

t
\

Another version of this theme struck

Schebesta with especial force as
suggest-
ing a
myth with which he had long been
familiar. It was told by an
eighty-year-old
member of the Maseda camp, who de-
clared that he had heard it from his father.
“At that time,” states
‘anySchebesta,
Biblical influence on the
Pygmies was out
°°
of the question.” (Compare Frobenius’
comment on the Bassari creation
myth re-
produced on
page 14).

A with the of the Moon created

deity help
Baatsi, the first man.
[The Moon of this legend
is female; the name of the we do not
deity
learn; and Baatsi, it is recalled, was in another

recorded from this the name of

legend camp
the Creator
himself.] by The was made
body
with blood
kneading, then clothed a skin, was

lived. His Creator

poured in, and the man
then in his ear: “You will live in the
whispered
Tell them of my
forest and beget children.
command, that eat of all the trees of
they may
the forest but one, the Tahu tree.”” Baatsi in-

deed children and, having warned

begat many
them of the forbidden to
one
thing, departed
his Creator in the heavens. But a
preg-
rejoin
nant woman one was filled with a
craving
day
for the forbidden fruit and so worried her hus-
band that he the into
finally crept secretly
forest, the fruit, quickly peeled
deep plucked
it, and hid the peel beneath leaves. The Moon,

however, who had seen, told the Creator,

who was so incensed that he cursed the hu-
man race to die.

“T could not believe my ears,” states

Schebesta. “That was the Creation story

*%”
of the Bible.” And another Catholic
father, the French Jesuit Henri Trilles,
who during his time with the Pygmies

109
 SD OD
SSA | 7

196. Bes,god of the Egyptian folk tradition,

a pa-
tron of music and dancing and of children. Repre-
sented always full-face (which in Egyptian art is ex-
ceptional), he first appears c. 2000 B.c.—on mirrors,
ointment jars, and other articles of feminine use—

apparently inspired by Pygmies brought for enter-

tainment from the source-lands of the Nile.

197. Three Pygmy “dancers of God.” Twelfth-Dy-

nasty Egypt, c. 1950 B.c. Cairo Museum.

also recorded a version of this who lives When will

legend, kare, eternally, sighs. . . .

Majesty confer on
you far higher
it as a demonstration of the truth
regarded you bring him to the
ship, choose reliable awards than those given to the Conser-
of the account in Genesis 2 and 3, inter- men to watch both lest vator of Divine Seals in the of
keep on sides, per- days King
preting both texts as variant chance he should fall the
1°
literally, into water...
. Isosi.””
chronicles of the same When he
prehistorical sleeps at night, post ten stout In the
Egyptian Museum in Cairo there
evene fellows
sleep alongside him. My Maj-
to is a little
sculptural piece of three such
Pygmy dancers, known as the Little
esty yearns mightily to see this Pygmy. Pygmies dancing (Figure 197), from the
Dancers of God, were
already appreciated See that you bring the Pygmy alive, hale period of the Twelfth
Dynasty (twentieth
in Pharaonic Egypt as
early as the Sixth and sound, to my palace, and then My century B.c.). And in the time of Queen
Dynasty (c. 2350 B.c.), as we know from
the of a now-famous letter
reading en-

graved on a
facade of the tomb of the
Prince Herkhuf of The letter
Elephantine.
was sent
by the Pharaoh Pepe II (Nefer-
kare), at the time still a
child, in
response
to word from the that he was
prince bring-
ing from the forests of the south a
living
Pygmy dancer.
I

“You announce in
your letter,’”’ states
the Pharaoh’s order, “that you have

brought from the Land of Trees and from

the Land of a Dancer of
Spirits, Pygmy
God, similar to the one whom the Con-
servator of Divine Seals, Ba-Wes-Djed,
from Punt the
brought during days of
King Isosi.... Hail to the Dancer of
God, to the one who rejoices the heart of
Pharaoh, to the one for whom Nefer-
King

198. Efe boy playing

harp (ndomu), an the bow
important instrumentEgypt associated in ancient
with the god Bes. The Efé harp has five strings, more

are used by non-Pygmy tribes. Usually played solo,

it may also appear in ensembles.

199. Efé girls ina dance without meaning, but one

filled with joy in being.

110
Hatshepsut (1501 to 1480 B.c.), expedi-
tions were still sent the Nile to
being up
the Land of Punt: there is, on a wall of her

temple at Deir el Bahari, a bas relief rep-

resenting the queen of that land in a

procession. So that, if, as

Jean-Pierre Hal-
let reminds the of the
us, Pygmy legend
forbidden fruit suggests some sort of link
with the Bible, the influence may have

passed, not from Genesis (a relatively late

text) to the Pygmies, but from the Land of

Trees, down the River Nile to the Phar-
aohs, out of one of whose Moses
palaces
came.

Yet it may also have come the other

way, for, as Father Schebesta has noted,

“

in a
Pygmy legends very strong Negro
!*°
influence must be reckoned with.”

They are not

primordial tales, but second-
and late. The element of
ary Masupa’s
forge, for example, a
betrays knowledge were such work. ‘It’s their 200. Giant ato tree, as a
percussion instrument, its
of iron, while the fact that the two sons of doing heavy
winged buttress roots being natural sound boxes;
own
fault,’ said one of them, him-
the and a rousing
god—a Pygmy Negro—had self. have sinned.’
”

And the
usually three men
play to accompany dancing girls.
“They leg-
nothing to do but sit around in the
parad- end then was related of the and
201. Men's flute ensemble, each flute of a
single
isiacal age while their sister hauled wood daughter tone. Melody improvised, three octave range.
two sons of
and water, for an assumed Masupa."™
speaks already There is the other
male this disfran-
some evidence, on
superiority. Indeed,
hand, of an earlier stratum the their
chisement of the female is underlying were tied; whereupon, singing ceased
clearly a lead- lore of these
mythic Pygmies, from a
pe- and Moke (Turnbull’s initiator) spoke.
ing function of the Pygmy legend, as it is
riod when the of
position women was not “This woman,” he said, “has tied us
up.
also of the Bible story. And
appropriately, the
in Schebesta’s
same as
today. We have already seen She has bound the men, bound the hunt,
report of his first hearing of that the had
creator, Tore, a mother. and bound the molimo. We can do noth-
the tale while in the in
Pygmy camp Mothers antecede their not Another of the then de-
sons,
Apare, he declares: only ing.’’ company
temporally, also, but in a clared that each had to admit
symbolic sense, they now

“I was with a circle of my ontologically. And Turnbull tells of that he was bound, and to the
just chatting give
little when of watching an
extraordinary festival in woman as a token of the men’s
friends, a
group panting something
the which the women not defeat. And when a of certain
women came into camp, their bent Pygmy only joined quantity
the men in
shoulders laden with bundles of fire- singing the molimo songs, but food and
cigarettes had been agreed
at times took the lead.’ The the old dame
wood, which were almost heavy enough
even
high upon, went
solemnly about
moment of a dance
to kill them. Involuntarily, I allowed a was
performed around among the men
again, untying them, and
sarcastic remark to about the the molimo fire by two females—a as each was untied he began again to sing.
pass my lips skinny,
lords of creation who sat there red-eyed crone and a
young matron. When all were in the molimo was
lazily song,
and while their wives Their performance climaxed when the old. free, and the crone
smoking yawning departed.
dame went into the flames The
and, whirling mythic ground of this stunning rit-
and scattered the fire in all direc- ual is in detail and
kicking, every evident, in con-

tions. It the
became, then, part of the men trast, furthermore, to the lessons of the
to
gather back the brands and, themselves current The and of
myths. image mystery
in a
circle, to return the fire to life
dancing are
represented by two women, cir-
life. Twice this occurred, after which at central sacred
again cling opposite poles a
the women withdrew and the men were fire: one a crone, the other in the beauty
alone. of mature to across the
youth. Eye eye
“There is an old states Turn- blaze, each the future of the
legend,” was
past or

bull at this “that once it the other. But it the who

juncture, was was crone, alone,
women who ‘owned’ the molimo, but the entered the fire, kicking its embers about,
men stole it from them and ever since the to be taken restored to the fire, and
up,
women have been forbidden to see it. in flame the men. Then it
preserved by
. . .

There is another old which tells she, who them twine

legend was again, brought
that it was a who stole fire from for the knotting of
woman their nets
hunting and,
the in
chimpanzees, or, yet another ver- in a
telling moment of silence, had them
sion, from the great forest The all tied in her The is ob-
spirit.’”° power. allegory
Fire Theft a female! Fire is the vious. She released them of her free
again—by own

forest’s while the voice of the will to the works with which she
greatest gift, perform
forest is the molimo. had them: the of the
charged handling
The men were still singing when the nets of the hunt and the maintenance of
old woman returned, alone, with swift life’s fire, of which she was the sole mis-
and strides. She held in her hands a tress and bestower.
agile
long roll of the twine used for making As Turnbull has shown, the character-
hunting nets, and while the men
sang on, istic hunt is a hunt with
Pygmy snares

she moved about among them, knotting a and nets, in which both women and men

loop around each singer’s neck, until all and even children participate. Such may

111
have been the oldest
hunting style of the happened to make life so difficult?” be-

plant-gathering people of this forest— longs to a

plane of consciousness much
which is situated,
by the way, immedi- closer the surface of
to
things than those
ately to the west of that
high plateau deeps from which the controlling images
where the earliest human races are now of these two orders of life arose, not rea- Ancestral Caves of
to have The soned but Such
supposed appeared. hunting compelled. questions
the Tasaday
bow was a much later, Capsian-age in- spring from the moralizing intellect, ask-
vention. Hence, the Bushman hunt, with ing for information, meanings, and justi-
its arrows and associated rites, fications. And the to them in The of the of Mindanao
poisoned responses mystery Tasaday
is of a later culture than the the of is Had this little cluster of less
stage Pygmy way explanatory origin myths may unsolved.
not in than
hunt. The two are
representative of the represent any significant way the thirty souls actually continued into
earliest known orders of living and of more
recondite, the twentieth A.D. of life
unspoken requirements century a
way
the one infected with and assumptions of a people. Moreover, and of 50,000 B.c.? Or had
mythic thinking: thought they,
such origin myth may be for
anxiety, in constant need of ecstatic reverted? When
as an some discov-
re-
just seen, reason,

lease; the other with contrived to confirm such ered, June 7, 1971, true
inspired, rather, joy intentionally they were
gather-
and a confident, childlike in vested for those not even hunters. Toads and
participation privileges as, example, ers, frogs,
the natural of its world, the won- certified to the “lords of creation’ the and crabs, and liz-
bounty by tadpoles grubs, rats,
der of which is rendered in the voice of fable of the Tahu tree. ards were the meat items of their menu.

the molimo, to its Thus two

though tightly inter-
distinct, wild
responding Pygmies’ Biking (a starchy potatolike tuber),
of strata of
myth are to be recog-
songs praise. locked, yams, palm piths, bamboo shoots, and
These, then, are two orders of nized: one
grounded, as dreams are, in various fruits were their Food
contrary mainstays.
life, determinant of the the deepest level of the psyche; the other was eaten, either baked inside leaf
life-styles, my- raw,
and rites of the most fantasized and controlled by interested wrappings, or roasted in hot coals from
thologies, primitive
peoples known: one, of the widespread- parties who, ironically, may in the end fires made with fire sticks. Their occa-

animal the other of the shelter- come to believe, themselves, in their theo- sional stone tools were fashioned
ing plains, readily
forest. were not arrived at
logized mythologies. from the pebbles of their stream and could
ing They by
but are in fundamental be affixed with rattan to crude
reason, grounded bindings
experiences and requirements touching handles (see Figure 29, page 31). Thorns,
very deep levels of the psyche. In con- also, were used. The most serviceable im-
202. A family of the cave-dwelling Tasaday: Bilan-
trast, such questioning as ‘“Who made the was sort of stone of a
gan, the father, hiswife, Etut, and (clockwise) a
boy plement a scraper
world?” “Why?” “How?” and “What not yet named, Lobo, Lolo, and Natek. kind found the in
throughout Philippines
archeological strata of Late Paleolithic
dates.'° they And inhabited
caves three
in a limestone 400 or 500
conglomerate,
feet above a creek that provided all their

frogs, tadpoles, and crabs, as well as

water. The caves were reached by climb-

ing up vines or roots, and the grace and
ease of the Tasaday’s arborial skills were

as
amazing as those of the African Pyg-
mies. Indeed, like the Pygmies, they were

true forest children, absolutely at home

and at in the of their
peace protection
wilderness; equally ill at ease and afraid at

even the sight of an open plain.'*”

The evidence of their is inter-
language
It is of the fam-
esting. Malayo-Polynesian
reach of which extends
ily, the immense
from in the west to Easter
Madagascar
Island in the east, and from New Zealand
in the south to Taiwan and Hawaii in the
north. Within this great linguistic lineage,
the closest relative to the dialect of the

language is the nearby Blit, of the

Tasaday
who today, hunter-gatherers,
are not,
however, but agriculturalists. When, then,
did the parting of the Tasaday from these
A
now more advanced neighbors occur?
loss from the language of about 20
percent
of its Blit-shared words has been esti-
mated to indicate a from each
separation
other of some 700 to 900 years, from about
A.D. 1100 to 1300. And this is additionally
because, at that time, there
interesting
were Indian influences in
strong present

203. the vines, rattans, and descending

Among
roots in front of the Tasaday caves, Lolo sits snug
and at ease.

112
 +

J i

agcs,
‘3

,
he
Poey
tS go
; ~,
—

>
.

cn
fa
‘

ro
the
Philippines and at least three words in They told of a
godlike man named Be-
the Tasaday vocabulary have been recog- bang, who was the first person on earth.
nized as
perhaps derived from Sanskrit or He had two wives, Fuweh and Sidaweh,
some Sanskrit-related namely, and all three had been
tongue; Tasaday. Bebang
Tasaday, diwata, meaning ‘good, great, or was owner Of the top part of the caves and

godlike man or
spirit’’ (Sanskrit, devata, Sidaweh of the lower part.’ ‘Our ances-

“a divinity or god, divine being, or image tors,”” one of the young men, named Ba-
of a god’’); Tasaday, mu-lan, meaning “to declared, “said a came to
layam, person
plant’ or
‘‘putting something in the them in their and said he was the
sleep
ground” (Sanskrit, mil, “to strike root, to owner
[of the forest] and that our moun-

be and “to tain is He owned the

rooted,” amumulat, plant, to
Tasaday Mountain.
transplant, or to
grow’); and Tasaday, mountain. He told that to our ancestors

sawa, meaning “spouse” (Sanskrit, sava, and they told us.”’°* “Our fathers and our

“a fathers’ fathers lived here. We never heard

generator, offspring, progeny’’)."8
The Tasaday were not an inbred group; of Tasaday living anywhere else.’’ ““My
had been, before in touch father’s father told father, and
they discovery, my my
with other forest tribes, notably the Tasa- father told me,” this young
man said

fang and Sanduka, from which at least again, “that we can roam in the forest in
two of the wives had come.!° Moreover, daytime, but must come back to the cave

the two or three adolescents occasionally at

night. It is always safe there.” “Our
talked of going in search of wives. The ancestors said never to leave this place.
surprisingly different hair also be- They had a dream that said if we
types good

on
.

oh
oe
ie
{
ng we Cy
J
sa

mae i

a
hea)

e
Lay»
»
a a
sa
5ae Na et .

im?
7
op

&
ag
a
a
la:
GE 1. el
eee
cone
my

Se. a

bs
7

tokened a
mixing. They varied from 204. Balayam, the leading bachelor of the group,
springs from the big cave to his own.
straight and thick to soft and curly, also to

wavy and coarse; there was even one fair- 205. Lolo’s younger brother, Lobo, climbs on a

skinned child whose hair was straw-brown swinging vine 100 feet long.
and
straight.’
In would not
get sick. We have
spite of all these inconclusive we a
signs stayed
of possible outside influences, however, little sickness—like coughing—but noth-
the that the ine bad.”
overwhelming impression
Tasaday made who first There was bird about as as a
hand,
upon everyone a big
saw them was of an authentic Middle Pa- with brown and white head and tail,
body
leolithic cave And the evi- that called le mokan, whose
community. they appear-
dent of the few ance took as a not to venture
implication fragments they warning
known of their myths and legend tells of from the cave.’ Also, in
general, going
their having remained in the caves from out “It has was
by night dangerous:
of old, as at the place of their beginning; thorns, snakes, leeches, can-
things you
the been
caves
having assigned to them not see,”’ said Balayam. “And you might
by their ancestors, of whom they talked a slide off a cliff or steep hill. In the
daytime
deal. Their from the these
great separation Blit, we can see
things, and our bird
then, and from such other possibily re- warns us; when it calls, we still.
stay My
lated tribes as the Higa-onon, Sanduka, father told me that. If you go out when
»

Tasafang, Ubu, and Tboli, would have the bird calls, bad
something may hap-
had to have been not of the Tasaday from pen—a branch may fall on or
you, you
the others, but of the others from these fall down or a snake
may yourself, may
caves of their common ancestors.!°! bite you.’
114
 When asked what most feared, the pointing stick; see
Figure 107, 66.) the folk in the
they page wandering wilderness,
answer
given was, “Thunder! . . .
. The Balayam said that his father had effected with them the Ark of the Cove-
bearing
big word The worst a cure for this, and that after that the cave which in
thing . made
. .

nant, Jerusalem was

per-
We
about
are
afraidof it.””"°
their
And when asked grew big
It is not
and
much
Ogoo
of
came no more.'™
but
manent in the Temple.
reckoning of time, a
young
a
mythology, what The
Tasaday are
monogamous and ex-

Dul ‘“We count motifs there are standard stock:

woman, by name, replied, represent pressed shock at the suggestion of the
from the voice of thunder; a lunar
one to ten moons.” ‘What is a
reckoning of possibility of sharing or exchanging wives.
moon?” “It is when the moon comes and time; the auspices of a warning bird; the They had no special marriage ceremony.
then “Where does it notice of a
mystic Owner of the Forest, “We all
goes away.” go?” gather round the new
couple and
“We don’t know.’1 announced to the ancestors in dream; a
say, good, good, beautiful, beautiful,
There were two stories told First Man, with two wives; the that’s all.’”” And
by Balayam authority how long does a couple
that or not have been learned of the ancestors; a variant of the “Until their hair
may may pointing- stay together? turns
stick and
motif; finally, a legend of a pe- white.’’!© Indeed, the Tasaday had no rit-
riod of folk
wandering, which is in conflict uals whatsoever. If one of them died in
with the other
>
bas
legend of a residence in the the forest, the body was left there, cov-
ae
from the
Tag
Tasaday caves
beginning. And
»*
curiously, the image of the small cave car-
207. The Tasaday take turns twirling a fire drill to
ried on bamboo poles and set down at
ignite dried moss.

Tasaday, where it remained and became 208. Mahayag, successful at last, exhibits the blaz-
is not unlike the biblical
enlarged, story of ing moss to his son, Biking.

206. Udelen, one of the young married men, rests

in the waters of the stream below the caves.

from somewhere else. The first was of a

small cave that his ancestors had carried

on bamboo when traveled.
poles they
They would stop, set
up the cave, and
search for food. But returned one
they
time to find that the cave had into
grown
a
large cave that they could not
carry, and

they decided to
stay there forever. Was
this the site of their home? Ba-
present
layam did not make that clear.
The other story was of a man named
who carried a stick that he swirled
Ogoo,
in a stream until a hair clung to it. The
direction in which the hair pointed led to

people, and Ogoo went after them. He

his stick at and their fin-
pointed people
gers and limbs fell off. (The neighboring
Tboli had this story too, and it
strikingly
resembles the Australian theme of the

115
ered with leaves. If someone died in the
cave, the body was carried into the forest
and left. And nobody wanted to
speak
any more of the one who had died. ‘“What
is it when he dies?
happens to any person
What happens to that, in him, which was

living?” “The sugoy (the ‘spirit’) goes

away, goes out—then you are dead.”
“And where does this ‘“We
spirit go?”
don’t know.” “Where did it come from to

start with?” ‘‘We don’t know that

either,””** Another expressed,view was

however; namely, that the souls of the

dead reside in
treetops.’® Balayam pro-
that ‘The soul be the part of
posed may
you that sees the dream... .I dream,” he

said, ‘but I don’t know where it ends or

starts.” The word for both the dream and

the seer of dreams was
lomogul.'*° There
was some talk of fairies: rock fairies,
stream fairies; and when a rash appeared
on the neck of one of the company of

visitors, it
brought a
laugh and he was

told that a had urinated on him

fairy
there.’ It was observed
Tasaday that the
and
always kept their genitals covered,
one
explanation was that this was for pro-
tection
against witches. Another view,
however, was that the protection was

and
against insects, leeches, thorns, raspy
vines.' When child was born, the only
a
was that the
accompanying requirement
father either bury the placenta or
hang it
in a certain tree—not too
high and not too

low—where the Tasaday always put pla-

centas. Was it the custom, then, to visit
this tree from time to time? “No. Once it
is put there, that is all we do.’

touches down
209. The “big bird,” the helicopter,
on the bamboo-and-sapling platform made to re-

ceive it. When it was first seen, and then arrived,

most of the Tasaday fell to the ground in terror.

210. After receiving from one of their native visitors

(a hunter and herb-gatherer named Dafal) some

metal tools and elementary instruction in their use,

the Tasaday learned from him to make pounders of
bamboo and rattan with which to hack the starchy
pith from sections of Caryota palm. John Nance pho-
tographed these implements in use and observed:
“Several men often worked together with the L-
shaped pounders to break loose and shred the pith
in the sections of halved palm. Each man
put one

foot on theground and the other atop the wood to

hold it steady.’'

The whole history and prehistory of tool use in the

rain forests of Southeast Asia—where, for millenia,
implements of stone hardly advanced beyond the
“chopper” stage—remains, and will ever remain, un-

known; for the availability of wood—and especially

of bamboo, which is infinitely practical—has left
nothing for the archaeologist to recover and analyze.
Indeed, it was in recognition of this fact that Leo
Frobenius characterized the historical role of tropical
cultures, in relation to those of the stone-age north,
as
being an “invisible counterplay” whose contribu-
tion to the development of the early arts of civilization
could not be tangibly documented, but only de-
duced—as, for example, in his recognition that the
sudden appearance in Cro-Magnon art of carved
stone figurines implied a probable influence from a

region abounding in wood (see page 129).

 With to social
respect government—the
order and attitudes were
authority—the
equally casual. Asked who was the head-
man, “Nobody,” came the answer. ‘‘Who
decides who does what?” ‘We do as we

like.” And the of

atmosphere harmony
and ease the was
among group amazing.
“The best I’ve ever seen
people anywhere
are the Tasaday,’’ was the comment of one

of the visitors; and he later added: ‘“Where

did we take the wrong turn?’’?”!
One insight into what
more
might well
be called the
archetypology of mythictheir

imagination deserves mention, namely,

their almost immediate deification of the

genial and devoted official, Manuel Eli-

zalde, Jr., the conductor of the discover-

ing expedition, who became, thereafter,

their protector and the sponsor of the es-

tablishment of their forest as a national

sanctuary. They named him Momo Dakel

Diwata or
Tasaday: “great big man, god
(diwata) of the Tasaday”’; or perhaps, ““who
brought good fortune (diwata) to the Tas-
aday.’"!” “’This is what our ancestors had
been telling us,” one of them was over-

heard to say, one

night. “It has come true. 211. Elizalde, who discovered the Tasaday and is
As our ancestors said it, we should in idolized by them as a messiah, is here surrounded
stay
by four of the children.
this place of ours and a man will
good
come to us, and that is Momo Dakel Di- The tantalizing question of the innocence of those

wata utterly primitive cave dwellers—in contrast, for ex-

Tasaday. Now it seems that our fath-
ample, to the savage reputation of the almost equally
ers are not dead, because the father we
a new
primitive Andamanese—acquires complexion
have now is more than our
fathers; for he in the light of Nance’s observation that they are prob- Map 28. On Mindanao, the southernmost is-
large
gives us knives and on the ably the descendants of a company from the coast land of the Philippines, is the forest home of the
things puts which fled into the jungle (not more than ten, nor less Tasaday. Some 2500 miles to the west are the is-
necks of the The
big surprise that
women.
than four, centuries ago) to escape pursuit and cap- lands of the Andamanese. But if the character of
we can’t understand is the of
coming ture by pirates. “Most researchers,” Nance declares, “man at one with nature,”
represented in the shyas

Momo Dakel Diwata “have estimated their inside [the forest] at dwellers of the Philippine forest
Tasaday in that big has
presence cave
sanctuary,
from 400 to 1000 years. Studies of tribal folk living
.. .

suggested to many the innocence of the idyll of man

bird [manukdakel, the When
helicopter]. nearby outside the forest suggest why people may before the Fall, a very different judgment has gener-
we first saw Momo Dakel Diwata Tasaday have sought sanctuary in the forest centuries
ago.’’’? ally been given of the Andamanese, whose custom
he had few now he brings They are, therefore, of a regressed, not primary, it was, for millennia, to slaughter
companions, every ship’s com-
which shows his love and gives us primitivity; they know how to make fire, but otherwise pany that the gods of their monsoons would occa-
many,
lack the elementary inventions even of the of sionally toss onto their beaches.
more
_

age Occupied by the

help. stone. As Nance remarks: “The Tasaday, who did British in 1857 and by the Japanese in 1942, the
Balayam had. had a dream, one
night, not dominate their environment, were as close to Andaman Islands are now a
colony of India, and the
when Elizalde had been nature as
people known in modern times.” native population has all but disappeared.
sleeping with the any

Tasaday in their cave. “Ihadadream...

that I was on to look for
my way biking re
and to make a
trap. I saw a small white 4

boy on
top of the mountain, sitting on the
2?
stone. He said to me: don’t
‘Balayam, stop oo

of
and
making traps looking for biking.’ I CHINA
think this was the of Momo Dakel
spirit
Diwata whose with
us in
Tasaday,
whatever we do.’
feeling
“All
goes
of us are Se G ;
PACIFIC
OCEAN

now the sons of Momo Dakel Diwata Tas- INDIA

aday,’” said another of the

chatting com-
4 &
pany,
old women.
“including
We must
you, Kuletaw.

always
Even
continue
you
to
Hill

8
Bay of
South
China
. ‘De
2
a

aa :
Islands

Qa
‘

Vile
~)\Mindanao
c
=

look for the food that we eat, so that Momo Bengal :

Sea
Sulu
Island

® C ato
Andaman >
Sea
Dakel Diwata see it and taste Islands x
Tasaday ns
5

may oF
.
ae Tasaday
“hs ally Andaman
4
i ada
:
: © >
Sea : .
0

2 Nicobar Celebes LP ae
o
le
Ww
eddas ‘s /slands Sea /) ©
Guinea
SRI LANKA g oS Malay s 2
Semang = l.

Mimika
a :

Ce
GOs
pg. SG :

4
“We have much to learn from the shy, Borneo @ 5
innocent, lovable people Nance discovers INDIAN OCEAN

for us,” wrote Lewis Mumford in com-

ment on
John Nance’s book The Gentle
Southeast Asia and Indonesia
Tasaday; ‘above all, what it means to be
Domains of selected ethnic

the lesson that

[=] groups

truly human, ‘advanced,’ Selung Ethnic groups

AUSTRALIA
‘civilized,’ scientifically progressive man .
City or town

has almost
forgotten.’’!”6

117
 In contrast, however, with the of working stone. Their tools were of
“gentle way
who knew of wood, shell, and bone, but also bits of
Tasaday,’”” nothing weap-
even of the hunt, iron gathered from shattered ships. And
ons, weapons nothing
carried beautiful
of enemies or of fighting, but only the they extraordinarily long
The Andaman refuge of their caves, the Andamanese, bows, with two sorts of arrow: one, with
on their of islands off the southern a detachable head fixed by a thong to the
strip
Islanders tip of Burma, enjoyed such a
reputation shaft, which would quickly bring an ani-

for that, their beaches mal short when shot in the thick jun-
ferocity although up
If the when discovered, were the in the of sea-lanes traversed for gle; the long other, and fine, for shooting
Tasaday, lay way
only people on earth still inhabiting millennia by the merchantmen of China, fish 212). They also had har-
(see Figure
caves, the Andamanese were of the Borneo, India, the Persians, Arabs, Ro- poons for the seahunting of porpoises
very
and
few with no method
making of fire. What mans, and finally, Portuguese and Dutch, dugongs from outrigger canoes.
fires they had were carefully tended in
they remained innocent of history until In
language, the Andamanese were iso-
with them the in took it them- lated from all other
their villages and carried on British, 1857, upon people. Physically,
journeys, kept alive in wood that could selves to
put a
stop to their
murdering of however, they are classified as
Negritos.
ashes the is- An Asian race of stature and
smoulder long without turning to
shipwrecked crews
by occupying pygmy
lands. It then found that they had traits of skin, hair, and face,
breaking into flame. '”
no
or was
Negroid
the males average 4 feet 102 inches tall,
and the females, 4 feet 6 inches. Their
name, from the Malay Handuman, was de-
rived, apparently, popu- from that of the
lar monkey warrior, Hanuman, of the
Sanskrit Ramayana. Other, widely sepa-
rated peoples, known also as Negrito, are

the Semang of the Malay Peninsula, the

Tapiro of New Guinea, and the Aeta of

some of the high mountain districts of the

Philippines. And there are other indica-

tions, as well, of what must have been a

very early Negrito substratum underlying

a
large part of the Southeast Asian quarter
of the globe. But only the Andamanese,
on their island chain, remained uncon-

taminated outside influ-

by perceptible
ences until the middle of the nineteenth

century; and so
they have been generally
taken to
represent, in their mythology
and customs, a
truly primitive stage of

development of the human race.

In 1952, however, Lidio Cipriani, exca-

at a marked on the as
vating place maps
Bee Hive Hill but in Hindi,
today called,
Goal Pohar, uncovered in a
prodigious
kitchen midden (the accumulation of
which have as he
“may easily required,”
states, “‘a period of no less than 4000 to

5000 evidence of
years’) unquestionable
a distinct threshold of acculturation at

some date. through the

very early Cutting
mound, found, from the top toa
he
great
depth of about 6 inches, chips of broken
bottles, rifle bullets, pieces of iron, and
the like; then, through the greater part of
the midden to within 3 feet of the bottom,
the bones of pigs, pottery shards, crab

legs that had been used

smoking pipes, as

and clamshells well-preserved; finally,

through the last 3 feet, no
pig bones or

pottery, no
crab-leg pipes, but clamshells
that were
heavily calcined, showing that
they had been exposed directly to the fire.
His conclusion:

212. Posed photograph from the period of Rad-

cliffe-Brown’s visit to the Andamans (1906 to 1908)
exhibiting the extraordinarily beautiful Andamanese

long bow and its two kinds of arrow: the long for

shooting at fish, the short for the jungle.

118
 “The Andamanese, on their arrival did the Andamans and the Nicobars, allow- were to be able to com-
They supposed
not know pottery. Previous to its intro- the that a common for- municate with
ing supposition spirits while awake, as

duction, food was roasted in the fire or in of as yet unknown

eign influence, origin, well as in dream; to cause and to cure

hot ashes; later it was boiledin to both of islands.’

pots.... spread groups disease; to
prevent bad weather by the
The first Andamanese is of
pottery good According to A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, at recitation of charms against the sea
spirits
make, with clay well worked and well the time of his visits and researches and the
(from even
against great deities of the
burned in the fire. The more we
approach 1906 to 1908, half a before the southwest and northeast Tarai
century monsoons,
the strata, the more it
undergoes a extinction of these there was one and to have of the
upper people), Biliku; knowledge mag-
Bones of Sus andama- essential that
degeneration. underlay the whole
belief of ical of minerals, plants, and cer-
.. .

powers
nensis [the Andamanese pig] begin to ap- their social and mythological order; tain animals; and to be
fully acquainted
later than They become
pear pottery. namely, of a power thought to be danger- with the personages of the myths. Each
more
frequent, the more we
approach the ously present in certain foods (pig, will have come into
possession of his
top levels. The inevitable conclusion would tortoise, and dugong), as wellas in in of three
people power any one or more
recog-
seem to be that the ancient Andamanese at the moments of their life crises (birth, nized ways: (1) by dreams, (2) by dying
knew neither nor the hunting of and death), and in and
pottery pubescence, marriage, returning to life, or
(3) by meeting
It is that both and do- who had
pigs. likely pottery anyone recently killed another. and consorting with spirits in the
jungle.

od

eee

mesticated Sus were introduced by one The native technical term to an 213. Lacking the shell fishhook (otherwise well
referring
known throughout the Pacific), the Andamanese
and the same
people. . . .
Human buri- immediate presence of this power in any turned their great bows and longest arrows to the
als,’’ Cipriani states further, or was oft-kimil, meaning
‘‘occasionally person thing harvesting of fish.
took place in the kitchen-middens; how- “hot.” “In its various uses,” declares Rad-
ever, only the skull and the long bones cliffe-Brown, “the word ot-kimil denotes a

were
placed in the grave, after having condition of danger due to contact with In sum, according to Radcliffe-
then,
been preserved in the huts for some that the interaction of the differ- the
time, power on Brown, following are the implicit be-
as is still done in the Nicobars. These ent manifestations of which the well- liefs the Andamanese cere-
underlying
skulls and bones show the same of the monial order:
physical being community depends.”!”
characteristics as the present day Anda- There were, however, certain persons, “(1) There is a
power
or force in all
manese. No traces of cannibalism were male and female, who were to or that in affect
supposed objects beings any way
found.” Further: the
pigs, now wild in the have come into some sort of or the social life. (2) It is virtue of this
possession by
islands, arrived probably as a domesti- of this were known that such are able to aid or
mastery power. They power things
cated And ‘There are in- as a term ‘‘one harm the The mat-
-
species. finally: oko-jumu, meaning literally society. (3) power, no

dications of cultural connections between who from dreams,” or “dreamer.” ter what be the or in
speaks may object being

Jag
which it is
present, is never either essen-

or able evil, but is

tially good essentially
to both good and evil results. (4)
produce
with the power is dangerous,
Any contact
but the danger is avoided by ritual precau- 214. The ornamental “snake” pattern in white clay,
tions. (5) The degree of power possessed here shown on the face, might be carried to the chest
and back, the outside of the arms, and the front and
is to
by anything directly proportioned back of the It was used to decorate brides and
legs.
the effects that it has on the social life. (6) and the dancers at initiations and
grooms, corpses,
The power in one
thing may be used to
mourning ceremonies.

with
counteract the danger due to contact
215. Posed photograph, taken by A.R. Radcliffe-
the power in some other thing.” And fi-
Brown between 1906 and
suggests 1908, some- that
nally: ‘’(7) If an individual comes into con-
thing of the variety of traditional whole-body pat-
tact with any thing and successfully terns, executed in white clay (odu) by the women,
who paint themselves and their male relatives. The
avoids the danger of such contact (as, for
clay is mixed in a wooden dish or shell and applied
instance, in such experiences as
give to with the fingers. The women compete in the creation
the oko-jumu his super-normal powers), of new and interesting designs. The same clay—but
he becomes himself endowed with applied differently—is used to indicate bereavement
power
and for initiation rites.
of the same kind as that with which he is
in contact.’’18°
Thus, as
among the Pygmies and the
Bushmen, so here among the Anda-
manese, there is an
informing power that
is recognized as inherent in dif- in
things
It is known to the
as
fering degree. megbe
Pygmies, ntum to the Kung Bushmen,
and ot-kimil to these Southeast Asian is-
landers. Of the
Tasaday, nothing quite
is
comparable reported, unless something
of the kind be implicit in their (possibly
Sanskrit) term diwata. They expressed fear
‘of thunder,
night, and the open plain.
Talking with foreign visitors early in the
1970s, they avoided speaking of the dead.
Safety was felt in the forest by day, in the
cave
by night, and in ancestral custom,
though nothing of a ceremonial order has
been recorded of them. In summary of the
lesson of the Andamanese interpretation
of ot-kimil, Radcliffe-Brown states in con-

clusion: “The society itself is the chief

source of protection to the individual; the

spirits are the chief source of danger.’’!*!

And this would seem to hold in a
general
way, as well, for the Tasaday, Bushmen,
and Pygmies.
For the Andamanese, was
protection
given principally by ceremonial ornamen-

tation and ceremonial acts. White clay

and red the
paintdesigns on
body, scari-
fication, the wearing of certain protective
leaves and of ornaments made from the
bones of feared animals, or, in the case of
a widow in the skull of her feature of both peacemaking and war
mourning, 216. Two villages, terminating a tribal conflict, cel-
deceased husband—such were the orna- ebrate a
peacemaking dance. ceremonials, initiatory pig-eating and tur-

mental counteragents to the “heat,” ot-

217. the oval tle-eating rites, or at the termination of
Village huts surround danceground.
kimil, of a threat.'** And of cere-
mourning. The eight or ten
open-fronted
spiritual The sounding board in the mid-foreground was

monial acts, there were two of struck by the song leader's foot while the men
family shelters of a typical Andamanese
especial
force: and the dance. The former danced, circling in file. Seated behind the sounding set
up around
an
weeping village (Figure 217) were
board, the women kept time, clapping their thighs. end of which eT
was never a
spontaneous personal elliptical dance area, at one

but demanded was a aslant, to be struck

expression, always a rite, sounding log by
in which the two essential ele- at death, when friends and rela- the foot of the male leader. And, as
by custom, passive; song
ments were the and the em- tives embraced the ornamented the Bushmen, so here: The women,
weeping corpse among
brace. It was seen to have been and when the bones of a dead man on the clapped time and
practiced wept; sitting ground,
when two friends relatives met after recovered from the in chorus
(here, however, not
or or woman were
grave; sang clap-
been for some time like- and at the end of ceremonies, ping their hands but their thighs, with
having parted; mourning
wise, at ceremonies be- when the mourners with their their legs out straight before them), while
peacemaking wept
tween tribes; at when the rela- friends who had not been mourning.'® the men danced round and round, for
weddings,
tives over bride and at The dance, on the other hand, was en- some five or six hours a
night. ‘In the
wept groom;
dance of the Southern Rad-
initiation ceremonies, where the female joyed as a common
nightly entertain- tribes,”’ states

relatives and the initiate remained well a

cliffe-Brown, “each dancer dances alter-
wept ment, as as
practiced formally as

120
 rices of the earliest known
planting and
pig-domesticating cultures. The mythol-
was
ogy never
systematized by an estab-
lished and number of
priesthood, so, a

versions have been recorded of

practically
all its characters and events. Indeed,
every oko-jumu had his own collection of
tales and on different
might, occasions,
give completely different versions of the
same
episode.'® And yet, a number of
constant themes as a
emerge background
which all the
against legends play. All
deal with the time of the Ancestors, when
Biliku, Bilika, Bilik, or
Puluga, lived on

earth. And all that that

recognize period
ended when a broken tabu roused the

—
deity’s wrath; a
catastrophe immediately
Lodo,
Fier
“
E

a
and the
Cee —"
o

€
os lad
eC
Dee ET

followed, world became as now

known. We review the with a

nately on the right foot or on the left. vanced yard or a two around the dancing
may myths
view to this classic order.
When the the first
dancing on
right foot, ground.”’!** There was in these dances no

movement is a
slight hop with the right trend toward trance, as
among the Bush-
foot, then the left foot is raised and men; nor do we read of anything compa-
down with a backward rable either with the
brought scrape symbolic Pygmy
then another
along the ground, hop on dance of the two women, young and old,
the foot. These three movements, with their imitative
right or
honey-hunting
which the time of two beats of the mime. The
occupy value, rather, was
simply of a
and Tales of the
song, are
repeated until the right leg is
rhythmic form, and the effect, a sense of Myths
tired, and the dancer then changes-the social unification: a force to
stay the indi- Andamanese
movement to a
hop with the left foot, vidual in his confrontations with the
daily
followed by a scrape with the and of the the the
right powers wilderness, sea,
another hop with the left. The arms were animals slain to be eaten tortoise, In the
(pig, Beginning
held out in front, thumb and fore- and the of
straight dugong), mysterious powers
of one hand interlocked with those the In from the of
finger life-passages from birth to death, and sea came
floating a
big joint
of the other, and as a man
danced, he the spirits, then, of the dead. bamboo of a kind that does not
grow in the

remained in one for then ad- The chief Andamans. [Joints of this kind drift ashore
spot a time, divinity in the mythology of
from Burma, to be and made into
picked up
buckets.] The bamboo split and there came

forth from it, like a bird from its egg, an infant,

the First Man, whose name was
Jutpu,
“Alone”. As a child he built a little hut for
himself and made a little bow and arrow. As
he he made and
grew bigger huts bigger bows
and arrows, until one
day he found a
piece of

quartz and scarified himself. Then he felt

alone and from an ants’ nest took clay which
he molded into a woman’s shape. She became
alive. Her name was Kot, “Clay’’. The two

settled at Teraut-buliu, where Alone fash-

the
ioned other people of clay, who became
make
Ancestors. He
taught them to canoes,

bows and arrows, to hunt and to fish. Clay,

meanwhile, taught the women to make bas-
kets, nets, mats, belts, and to use
clay to
paint
218. A decorated with these little people was a
personification of patterns on the face and body.'**
girl protective pandanus
leaves at the time of her first menstruation sits for the northeast in the
monsoon, named,
three days in a
special hut in a
required posture. No
various dialects, Biliku, Bilika, Bilik, or Other storytellers had it, either that
longer a child, she will now receive a new name, a
whose character, in with Alone emerged from the buttressing root
“flower name,” after some
plant or tree in bloom at Puluga, keeping
the time. The two staves aslant behind her are for that of the season itself, was of a tree and cohabited directly with an
stormy tricky
her to lean back upon in sleep, for she is not to lie ants’ that the First Man
and temperamental, at once beneficent nest, or was not
down during the whole term of this period (some two
and Sometimes envisioned as Alone, but the southwest monsoon, Tarai,
weeks) of her meditation on her new estate. dangerous.
whose wife the of and
a
great spider, Biliku was usually female. was woman
clay,
219. Young woman
wearing her sister’s skull as a
The milder southwest their the the the
monsoon, personi- progeny, wind, storm,
protective, or curative, amulet. Certain substances
fied as Tarai, then be her husband, sky, and the roughfoam of a sea.'*”
and objects—white clay, red paint, shells, bones, might
with the birds, the and the A different
pandanus, and certain other leaves and woods— sun, moon, fundamentally mythology
in a
were believed to give protection against the “heat” their children. The moon could some- is
apparently represented legend in
(kimil) of dangerous conditions, times, and foods.
which
Among such were illness, storms, the end of the
times turn into
pig—which is an a associ- it was a female, Lady Crab, who
in from the
rainy season, murder, menstruation, marriage, death,
ation
(pig =moon) that immediately sug-
came
floating sea, already
birth, and the initiate’s first eating of pork, turtle meat, gests that at least some of the motifs of pregnant, like the joint of bamboo from
or
dugong. this which the First Man, Alone, was born.
apparently very primitive hunting-
have been And it she who then bore the Ances-
and-gathering mythology must was

derived from the Southeast Asian mat- tors.'*° (Compare the North Australian

121
 or
Puluga—who, after the world, when he
¢
creating came to the creek in front of his hut,
The Andamanese
(after A.R. Radcliffe-Brown)
fashioned Tomo as the First Man, black he was unable to cross with the burden. Bilika
Coco Islands
like the Andamanese, but much taller and was inside Her children were
asleep. outside,
Aka-Bo =
Tribes “6,
bearded. And Tomo what playing; and when saw their father’s
having taught they pre-
to eat and how to live, Puluga created dicament, they ran into the hut to tell their
mother. Bilika came out, down on the
Lady Crab to be his wife.1™ lay
There is bank, stretched out one
leg so that it reached
a
prominent series of myths in
to the other shore, and Porokul, with his
which the First Man is a monitor lizard. pig,
came
safely home on the of his wife’s
This swim in bridge
large, prolific reptile can
offered limb.!%”
North
water, walk on land, and climb trees, and
Andaman
Island was thus the obvious local candidate for The Andamanese have a number of
the classic role of master of other
mythological legends likewise treating of magic
the three worlds. in association with the pig. For example:
ANDAMAN
At first there were no until Civet
Middle SEA Sir Monitor Lizard, out
fishing one
day, saw pigs, Lady
Andaman
Cat invented a new
game. She made the
piece of black
a which he
Island
floating wood,
Ancestors run on all fours and grunt. Those
brought home and placed above the fire to

dry. Then he sat down to fashion an arrow. playing the game became pigs and ran off into
the jungle. the herself be-
2

Barren While bending over this work, he heard some- Whereupon, lady
atangty Island
behind
came a civet cat.’
Island one him laugh. The wood had turned
°

4®2& Ritchie's into a woman, who became his wife.!*

Archipel.
renipelago Do we think here of Homer’s Circe,

« More
Sir Monitor
often
Lizard’s
it is
Lady
wife.
Civet Cat who is who

The
turned

had
men

no
into swine?

i ) pigs ears, noses, or

eyes. They
Port Blair
= -@

In the just roamed around the and the

‘
< ,

days before his marriage, when he village people

North oe ate a of them. But
@“Island had his initiation great many they were such
Sentinel
4
bo-} e just completed rites, Sir
oe &
Monitor a nuisance that Dove bored holes in their
<= Lizard went into the jungle to hunt Lady
os pig and,
somehow
climbing a
dipterocarpus tree, got
heads

they ran
for ears,
off into
eyes, and nostrils;
the forest, where
whereupon,
they have
caught up there by his genitals.
Civet his remained.'”
un, ANDAMAN ~~ Lady Cat, recognizing plight, climbed
ae
ISLANDS:
pe
up and released him. The two married, and
The first pig caught in the had nei-
.
xX
the Ancestors are their children.'” jungle
ther eyes, ears, nor a mouth. When its
captor
) it on the fire, it swelled in the heat and
Little
Andaman
if :
&N
put
Onge \ AREA
The Hunt six holes blown its
Island
(i
SEN
‘>
MALAYSIA Wild-Pig suddenly were
through
head, making eyes, ears, and nostrils. Then it
The earliest Andamanese knew neither
perceived that it was
burnt,
being jumped
pottery nor the pig. Both were
imported from the fire, and ran off. The hunter
flung a
Map 29. 207 islands: the largest three—North, c. 3000 B.c., and the of the
prominence large leaf, which struck it as it plunged into
Middle, and South—being known together as Great feral in their
Andaman. Tribal customs, north to south, were in- pig myths shows that an the sea, where it became a
dugong with the
associated (Neolithic or Bronze leaf as its
creasingly archaic. Age) my- flippers.”
thology must also have been in at
brought
A turtle came to a
that time. The pottery deteriorated, the huge swimming camp by
the and and
domesticated pigs ran
wild, and, as the
sea
called, “Bring out your canoes

legend of Old Woman, But ac- catch me!” Then it with the
page 133.) mainland fell a number
swam
away peo-
to mythology apart,
cording others, for whom the First Man
of its elements became absorbed ple following. And when they were far from
into the
was Iomo, meaning simply Ancestor, it land, it suddenly turned, upsetting them. The
local traditions.
was he who, on noticing Lady Crab swim-
hunting-and-gathering men became turtles, and their canoes were
The curious tale for
in the his
just told, example, transformed into a reef.*”!
ming ocean near
home, called to
of Sir Monitor Lizard rescued
her; and by Lady
she, coming ashore, became his
Civet carries
Cat, an
uncanny suggestion It is evident that the animals that were
wife.’ Or yet again, from others we have
of the great Near Eastern, Bronze
it that Tomo’s wife the dove.
Age used by the Andamanese as food—the
was Mita, of Attis, and
cycles Adonis, Tammuz, and in
Tomo invented bows, arrows, and can- pig, dugong, sea-turtle—occupy
Osiris—those killed, castrated, and res-
the legends a different from
oes; Mita, nets and baskets. And it was
urrected
very place
she who discovered the ritual uses of
fertility gods, who in many of those such as the civet cat, monitor lizard,
the not
white and red it is
legends were only killed or cas-
and dove, to whom the active roles are
clay paint.’ By some
trated
by a boar
(Attis was even on
said that after his
hung assigned. The latter had no value as food
Tomo, death, went to a but also restored to the world
tree), by or in other were the little
live in the sky, where it is
always daylight the of
any way. They
power a
goddess whose animal in
and the weather fine. neighbors the forest, whereas the ani-
always When peo-
counterpart or vehicle was the lion. In the mals to be killed and eaten were felt to be
ple die, according to this version of the
Andamans, the civet cat was the
their only pos- transformed men.
Moreover, there was
world, spirits go up to the sky and
sible animal candidate for the role of this
live with Tomo.
!!

leonine The
an
deeper, a mythic association
even
by
goddess. association, fur- which their that of the
There were some who
thought of Tomo
of female
flesh—particularly
thermore, magic with these An-
as the Creator, connecting him with
damanese
pig—was rendered dangerous, “hot,” of-
legends of the pig hunt also is
kimil; for the moon could turn into a
the Sun, whose wife was the Moon;!” of myths of the
pig
suggestive age of the and appear in this form in the
whereas, for others, the Moon was a
Great Goddess of
jungle.
Many Names—as, for
male, and the Sun, his wife. When this
instance, in the of
Moon Man is the his
following adventure, a A hunter, deep in the jungle one
day, hap-
crossing sky, time when Bilika, dwelling on earth, was the moon in the form of a pig
out pened upon
tongue hangs (sometimes more, married to the pig hunter, Porokul. and, it for a shot it with an
sometimes which is all that
mistaking pig,
less), we ever
arrow. Sir Moon then cut off that hunter’s
see of him.!° Or the Creator be the
might Having gone into the
jungle to hunt, Po- head and, leaving it in the
jungle, carried the
northeast monsoon—Biliku, Bilika, Bilik, rokul killed his and started
pig home. But, body aloft and consumed it.?”

122
 An association of the with the tor lizard, much smaller tree lizard, and Sir Prawn fell his flame and Sir
pig a
asleep by
and the moon with a severed the civet cat. Fish of the sea, wild Kingfisher, making off with it, built a fire with
moon, pigs,
which to cook fish and then himself fell
head, is a combination familiar through sea-turtles, and were of a differ-
dugongs Sir Dove then stole that fire and
much of the of the swine- ent class since they were used as food. asleep. gave
range early it to the
cultures of Asia and The the crab and the for some people.?”
herding Europe. (Yet shrimp,
Irish W. B. Yeats, in his A Full were found for
poet, play reason, acceptable mythic Sir Prawn was so that he could into
the full of The tall
big go
Moon in March (that is, moon
roles.) dipterocarpus tree was
the water without a canoe. One day,
deepest
Easter and the Resurrection), has pre- given the place of a sort of axis mund1; and when the Ancestors him, he
provoked flung
sented an of this complex in all of the islands there were
interpretation parts spe- his fire at them and they turned into birds and
derived from traditional Irish sources. cific sites
pointed out
by the tribes as the fishes. Sir Prawn himself then turned into a

the moon dies into the sun, to where Biliku had lived when on
Monthly, place prawn.”
be reborn nights later. The last
three cres- earth. Ananda
Coomaraswamy has K.
cent of its vanishing and first of its noted the process of adaptation which There are a number of other, com-
reap- by
are
compared in Melanesia (ac- are different versions of the origin
pearance imported mythologies generally pletely of
to the two and condi- fire, for example:
cording to John Layard)’ adapted to local landscapes
tusks on either side of the black tions. a term derived from the Ice-
curving Using
face of a sacrificed boar—the skull of landic (where a from the Dim-dori [a kind of fish] fetched fire from
people European
which is be In the Anda- the Place of it
to
preserved. mainland, on
entering an uninhabited is- Departed Spirits and, throwing
to made it their he has called at the people, burned and thus marked them.
mans
(according Radcliffe-Brown),*™ land, own),
into the vari-
the natives “were formerly in the habit of this mythologizing process, land-nam They plunged sea, becoming
colored fish, and Dim-dori himself then turned
preserving as
trophies the skulls of pigs (“land taking’’).2° Native landscapes, into a dim-dori.”""
and turtles that killed in the
were chase,” plants, and animals are
assigned arche-
even so far, in some tribes, as to roles, and the whole
going typal mythological There was a Hill of Fire, at which
encase skull in a local with its and animal life is somebody
every carefully wrapping scene
plant had which Sir
The evidence
shot an arrow, Kingfisher then
of basketwork (Figure 220). transmuted, thus, into metaphor. found burning. He would not share his fire
thus seems to indicate that when the do-
with the others, and so, that night they all
mesticated arrived in the Andamans,
pig came and stole it.?”
c. 3000 B.c., there likewise arrived an
The Fire Theft
associated of death and
mythology
resurrection. Some versions of the Fire
twenty-odd
Theft were recorded from the various The Catastrophe
tribes, and they conform generally to the There is a kind of cicada in the islands that
usual pattern of the tale, as
comprising the of hours
“sings” during twilight
four components: (1) the Fire Hoarder and also when it is
morning evening;
(some miserly deity, personage, people, picked up. And there were
prohibitions

fy
or animal species); (2) the Clever Thief
AD
both against killing it and against making
SS ;
(human or animal trickster); (3)
(frequently a relay race); and (4) an epo-
the Flight any loud noise during its morning or eve-

———— —_=_==_
nt
ayy HN
rs

egaZEEE
eeGeo Zs
chal transformation
results:
with negative as well
ning song. (One thinks
scarab, symbolic of the rising sun.) Other
of the Egyptian
as
usually the end of the
if
if; aeeee
Zs positive offensive to Biliku the melting
as
acts were
Co
eS Exes
Sees
say
oe
Akh
Zz rq

Mythological Age. of beeswax and the eating of certain

And as in Genesis 3, so here: It
At first the Ancestors lacked fire.
plants.
Bilika, the breaking of one of the tabus
220. Pig’s skull encased in basketwork as a hunt-
had shell and red
was
god’s
tribe, South Andaman. however, a
pearl stone,
ing trophy and relic. Jarawa that terminated the Mythological Age.
associated in the Anda- which she could strike together to make
The pig and pig hunt were
mans with legends of female magic. There were
sparks. day One when she had fallen asleep In the it was until Sir
rules, furthermore, for the slaughtering of pigs and Beginning always day,
by her flame, she woke to see Sir Kingfisher Monitor Lizard found cicada in the
preservation of their skulls. These traditions brought a jungle.
stealing it and flung at him the pear! shell, watched he rubbed it be-
together with the pigs from the mainland (c. 3000 The Ancestors as
which cut off his wings and tail. Diving into
B.C.), not only regressed in the islands to a hunting- and when it he
tween his palms; cried,
level of folk but also became in the water, he carried the fire to Bet-ra-kuku,
and-gathering belief, darkness and
crushed it. Immediately, fell,
part applied to the other two animals of the local where he it to someone who it on
gave passed the Ancestors tried to back.
hunt, the sea turtle and dugong. to the who distributed get day They
Bronze-winged Dove,
made torches, danced, and sang. First a Ko-
it to the rest. Sir Kingfisher, however, had
tare-bird then a Bumu-beetle, the Bul-
been turned into a man.” sang;
We cannot, therefore, assume
(as did bul, and the Koio-bird But did not
sang. day
Radcliffe-Brown) that these Andamanese return. Sir Ant then sent up
a
song, and lo!
A second version had it that when Bi-
stories of the pig hunt and of the and have been alter-
pigs truly are
morning! Day night
liku woke, Sir
Kingfisher swallowed the
native to the islanders and nating ever since.”
primitive as
as

their culture. are the

fire, the flung pearl shell cut off his head,
They fragments, and the fire came out of his neck. The At first there were no birds or fish. But at
rather, of a mainland which
mythology Ancestors
has is, run wild like the got the fire and Sir Kingfisher play one
evening, the Ancestors made a noise
regressed—that was turned into a bird.” Or while the cicadas and a turned
like the associated again: sang cyclone
pigs themselves, and,
them all into birds, fish, turtles, and
has
jungle
pottery, deteriorated, breaking up, as
Bilik beasts.*"
[now a
male], when he woke, threw a
it were, into shards. But there is a creative
lighted brand that struck Sir Kingfisher on the
work here evident, also, in that the im-
neck where the bird now has a
patch of red Other tell of a
deluge.
legends
ported material has been imaginatively feathers. And Bilik was so this
enraged by
adapted to the life and features of the theft that he left the earth for the sky.”® When the Ancestors refused to a
give por-
islands. The local animals available to as-
tion of their to the it
honey Kipoterawat-bird,
sume the
imported mythic roles were few: Sir Prawn, to other accounts, became so that it made a
according angry intentionally
besides a number of birds and insects and was the one who first had fire. Some noise when the cicadas and immediately
dry sang,
a few kinds of bat and rat, the moni- leaves had broken into flame. such a rain fell that the sea swelled over the
only

123
land. Dove saved the fire in
Lady cooking a he had finished
making the bow, he lifted it their huts and
the
them, destroying possessions.
pot as Ancestors climbed a
and
dipterocarpus its
top struck the sky, which rose to its So told him to to out of
tree. And when the waters they disappear, get
subsided, Lady present position, where it remained.”!” this world. “We do not want you here. You are
Charami-lebek [a bird that lives in the tallest
always angry,” they told him. So he left and
treetops] let down a vine on which all
they moved to the northeast.”
descended.” away,
A related theme is of the and
departure
separation of the Creator from his crea-
There was also a which
great drought, tion. This appears in another
legend from The most elaborate of the collected tales
in the recorded version is rendered
only the same tribe as the last. Here the Crea- is in that two of the
as a comical animal tale. altogether exceptional
tor, Bilika, is a male and his wife is Mita, chief food animals, the dugong and the
the Dove.
It
Bronze-winged They are living crab, play leading roles.
began when a
woodpecker found a ho-
in the hollow of tree while
at a
place called Poron-et-cho and have a
neycomb a
and, child. Sir Dugong had invited to a
enjoying it, noticed a toad below
wistfully everybody
he invited dance, and Lady Civet Cat warned Sir Tree
watching. Lowering a
vine, the
The Ancestors had been Bilika’s
toad to attach a basket in which to sit, and, eating spe- Lizard that there would be a bird at the party
cialplants and he was now furious. To learn who with
this hauled him But when
was
going to
pick a
quarrel him.
done, up. the bas-
who the culprits were, he went about I don’t Sir
ket reached the he let and smelling “Oh, care,” Tree Lizard replied. “I
honeycomb, go,
and when he found
down the toad—who people’s mouths, some- can handle
anybody.” So when the quarrel
dropped was so
enraged one who had eaten of the forbidden
by this trick that he drank up all the rivers on vegeta- started,everybody was afraid. To halt it, Sir
bles, he cut that person’s throat. This
the islands, to the whole world’s great dis- perform- Dugong stepped in and caught Sir Tree Lizard
ance incensed the Ancestors and, all
tress. The revenge so
delighted him that he coming by the arm, but was thrown aside with such
together, they killed both Bilika and Mita. force that he fell into the sea and became a
to dance for and he the
began joy, as
danced,
Maia-burto
water out of him and the
[a kind of fish] then carried away dugong. A monster called Kochurag-boa was
poured drought their child to the northeast, and it is that child the Sir
ended.*”° flung into jungle. Tree Lizard tossed
who now lives in that and sends after the
quarter everybody, one
another, into
jungle
storms.?®
The Separation of Heaven and Earth is
an
elementary theme of world
mythol- In a related from another
In the little
legend tribe,
ogy. cycle of tales of Bilika and
where the name of the is
Porokul, when at Purum-
deity Pulugu,
they were living the sex is masculine and the
the
again temper-
at-chafe, Separation seems to have oc-
ament
curred
outrageous.
shortly before the adventure of the

crossing of the stream.

The Ancestors were the eastern
living along
coast of Lawrence 221. Photograph, 1883, from the collection of the
Henry Island, with
Porokul made bow
Pulugu Institute of Great
long a with which to Royal Anthropological Britain and
dwelling apart on little island offshore.
shoot in the a They Ireland. Within this communal
dwelling each family
pigs jungle. The sky at that time had been digging up his
yams and other spe- had its portion,
was near the earth, just above the trees. When
as
(among other tribes) around the
cial and, ina he down
plants passion, came on
village dance ground each family its hut (see 217).
or the sea, where they became birds, beasts,
and fishes. Then he went home and covered
himself with red in observation of a cus-
paint
tom to be followed man who had killed
by any
another.

When told what had occurred, Sir Crab

went to Sir Tree
pretending Lizard,sick to be
and to need some to
put on
protective paint
his upper lip, where, when breathing, he
would inhale its healing strength. His host,
who had no more, suggested, ‘“You’d best
take some off me.” But when Sir Crab
brought
his nose to the he bit into the
painted arm,
shoulder and could not be shaken off. Sir Tree
Lizard died. Then the Ancestors attacked Sir
Crab, but his skin was so hard were una-
they
ble to kill him. So threw him into the
they sea,
where he became a crab. And Sir Tree Lizard’s
mother, seeing her son
on
dead, became so

that cut she

down one of
angry deliberately
Puluga’s special plants, who, in wrath, sent a

storm that wiped out

everybody in that

place.”

The LandscapeMythologized and

the Origin of Death
One function of is to
mythology open
through the forms of the known world a

sense of the mystery informing things all

(page 8); and within suchtight little

worlds as those of the simplest hunting-
and-gathering this tribes, end is served

through a
mythologization of the local
see
landscapes(land-nam, page 123). Every
possible detail has attached to it the

legend of some
imagined event, which,
though “past,” is thus simultane-
kept
ously “present.”

The Ancestors brought a turtle into camp

and, since Biliku was asked
sitting there, they
if she would have some. Shedeclined, but
when they left their catch unattended, she ate
it all and fell realized
asleep. Returning, they
what had happened and set out to find an-

other turtle. Biliku woke and, them

seeing
paddling at sea, called to be taken aboard.
“No, indeed!” called back. ‘You ate our she then said. ‘Get
they now
dead,” out of here!’’ 222. G.E. Dobson, who photographed this group
turtle.” This made her and she She carried him into the where she in 1872, calls attention to the woman in the center
angry, began jungle,
her shells at them. Two missed with a round object on her left shoulder. This is her
throwing pearl buried him and returned home.
late husband’s skull, decorated with red paint and
and returned to her feet, but the next hit the But returned.
he, too, ‘“Mother,” he said, of wood to be carried about until she
fringes fiber,
boat, transforming it and in it into “T wasn’t dead. did
everybody Why you bury me?” She obtains another husband. The man
standing upper
a
rocky reef that is still there. Biliku then set a was sure that he was dead and buried him left (nicknamed Jumbo by Europeans) had recently
stone on the water and it, onto to he the heart a sailor “taking liberties” with
stepped again. Again returned. A third time she shotthrough
float across the inlet. both an Andamanese young woman.
Halfway, however, buried him and third time he returned. Fi-
a
she and her stone went down, and she
they are nally, took him to a dumla-tree in which
now two rocks, still to be seen.””! there was a kicked the and
big hole, tree, said,
“Now go in there!” In he went. “Are
At first, there was one island. An
you you
only big all the in?” she called. he
made turtle in it way “Yes,” an-
ant, however, a net, caught swered. ‘Then tell me how the talk.”
an immense fish and attached a line to its tail; spirits
“To kit,”” he for that is how
the fish, to break free,
replied; they talk.
whereupon plunging Then she knew that he was the spirits.
struck the island and broke it to among
repeatedly “Oh she
my child,” said, ‘you are now fin-
pieces.” ished. You will never come back.”
again
Originally, people did not die. However, But as a he did come back to his
spirit see

when young Yaramurud went to hunt

pig for brother, who was and when
building a
hut;
his mother and returned from the jungle with he saw his brother, he killed him. ‘““You see

she
none, brought out some
pork she already what has
happened!” the mother said then to
had, and he, preparing to carve, cut himself, the “We shall all these two
people. now
die, as

and his mother watched him die. ‘You are have died.”

125
MYTHOLOGIES
OF THE

GREAT HUNT
128
 The earth does not
belong to

man, man
belongs to
the earth.
All things
are connected, like
the blood which unites us all.

CHIEF SEATTLE, 1855

That a fundamental transformation of 54-56) the moral moti-

pages supplied
human consciousness, as well as of weap- vation of this art. The animals were will-
and took and
ons
tools, place during the ing victims the paintings an essential

period of the Riss-Wiirm glaciation is evi- constituent of the system of rites ofgrati-
dent in the sudden in south- tude and increase by which the
appearances mythol-
western at that time of the two of the covenant was not realized
Europe ogy only
symbolic arts of rock painting and stone (see pages 73-79), but also maintained

sculpture; in the tem- and taught a

respectively, great through generations—for
ple caves of the men’s hunting rites and season of some 20,000 years, which is a

in the and reliefs

“Venus”
figurines asso-
longer period than has elapsed since the
ciated both with sites and with end of the Magdalenian c. 10,000 B.c.
dwelling era,
sanctuaries in veneration of the female A fourth determinant was the local land-

(see pages 66-72). and especially the of

power scape experiences
Evidence of the skulls suggests that an
religious awe
inspired by its deep cav-
224. Elaborately-decorated atlatls were common

advance, at
just that time, from “archaic” erns—of which there were
hundreds, and in the New World: (above) the carved handle of a

to “modern” Homo sapiens must have within the greatest of which the ‘creative Mixtec model from Puebla, Mexico; (below) a detail
of the carved and gilt design on an Aztec version.
been an essential determinant in the explosion” itself occurred,
pro- immortalizing
duction of this sudden beginning of.the the animals as
messengers of occult pow-
history of the visual arts, which has been ers, as well as
required food. And finally,
termed fifth essential of the Great Hunt on the
by John E. Pfeiffer, the “creative a factor was the contribu- open plains.
there tion of shamanic trance-sei- That of the on the other hand—
explosion.””! Simultaneously was an
visionary figurines,
Pfeiffer in out of which the otherwise if it as Frobenius
increase, as
points ut, popu- zures, actually represents,
of
lation density, with an associated social unconscious
psychological realities of the believed and
argued, the translation an

of conflict control, to which for- condition humaine were art of wood into stone—must have origi-
problem contemporary
midable institutions and occasions had to to consciousness and delivered nated in a where wood was avail-
brought region
be affective to the tribes and able, as it was in West
addressed, incorporating through .
healing rites surely equatorial
which the Africa. The arts of and paint-
symbolic figurations through initiations. engraving
of a of con- The of the female ing, Frobenius points out, are analytical,
regulations corpus socially inspiration figurines
structive rituals became of another in that their secret lies in the reduction of
pictorially encoded was context, namely, the rec-

for and transmission of the of the lunar and three-dimensional forms to illusions on a
storage through ognition identity
female two-dimensional surface; their
generations. A third factor (and this, the cycles and their relevance to the purpose,
from which the forms of life. The noted is atonement with the
one
symbolic generation possibility moreover, magical:
the inspiration of the abun- Frobenius animals slain and increase of their num-
derived) was
by (see page 82) of a prehisto-
dant herds of a happy ric extension of the three-dimensional art ber. in wood, however, is syn-
hunting ground, Sculpture
of thetic and in in that it
which were
being unremittingly slaugh- sculpture northward into
Europe from a sense
mystical,
identifies the visualized with the
tered for the nourishment of the two-
equatorial West Africa, where a character- object
istic three-dimensional of material: the female form, for
legged tribes. The necessity to kill the art woodcarv- example,
beasts and the inevitable contrast to the two-dimensional with the wood and the tree, or in stone
magnificent ing (in
conflicts of and with the stone.” In the
Oedipal engendered by this arts
painting engraving) has been sculpture, living
the Woman with the Horn the
requirement, with the compensatory practiced for as long as
anyone knows, image of
then, of a bonding covenant that the two con- identification is fourfold: the woman, the
mythology, suggests mythological
between the animal and human commu- texts in the two orders of art stone, the horn, and the moon. Contrast
implied may
nities—such had the in the of Lascaux of the
as
already been recog- have, originally, been of two distinct and scene
crypt
nized in the earlier cave-bear-skull The tranced-out shaman and eviscerated mas-
geographically separate populations.
sanctuaries of ‘‘archaic’’ Homo interest of Paleolithic whether. ter bison! The two distinct arts are, in
sapiens (see sculpture, any
in the round or in relief, is almost exclu- case, of very different styles. They
two distinct tradi-
sively in the human form (and that, obviously represent
whereas the and tions. A sixth determinant of the consti-
female), paintings
223. Spear-thrower, length 13 inches, from Bruni- are of animals here and tution of the Paleolithic “‘creative
engravings (with
quel (Tarn-et-Garonne), France. Dated Middle well have there-
there a
dancing or tranced-out shaman). explosion’””’ may been,
Magdalenian, c. 13,000B.c. Regarded by André and
Leroi-Gourhan as “one of the greatest Stone Age
The animal art was
unquestionably a fore, the coming together amalgama-
tion of two
masterpieces.” product of the experiences and intentions mythologies.
129
 THE GREAT
WEST-TO-EAST
DISPERSAL

As the retreated and forests from the south as late as the sixteenth century the Pyg-
glaciers
overgrew in Europe what had formerly been tundra, The Migration of mies were the principal if not the only
then grassland, the great herds moved gradually inhabitants of the forest between Lakes
northward
lithic hunters.
and eastward,
The way of this dispersal
by their
is marked
Paleo-
by
followed
X-Ray Style Art Albert and Edward.’
four unmistakable trace-elements: (1) ceremonials The of Min-
forest-dwelling Tasaday
associated with worship of the bear; (2) shamanic We have traced the course of the danao thein also are refu-
with shaman- already Philippines
practices; (3) an art style, associated
of rock and John Nance has suggested that they
ism, in which skeletal and other internal features appearance paintings engrav- gees.
if and (4) the Great Hunt with the however) be the descendants of town-dwellers
appear, as
by x-ray; ings (without figurines, may
and spear-thrower (the atlatl). All four of these
spear and across what once was from the coast who in the sixteenth cen-
items can be followed into America: atlat/ is an Aztec
through Spain
south to the of fled into the from a raid
noun; x-ray features are conspicuous in native North
a
populated Sahara, Cape tury deep jungle
terminates and
American art; and the elegant, redstone pipe bowl of Good Hope, where the course
pursuit by slave-collecting pirates,

gee
oe
“of Aleut-Eskimo Domain

aaa Australian

Eurasian
Aborigines

Shamanic Domain
a
North Pacific Coast Indians

BQ
f |
| |
Tierra del Fuegans

the Sioux that shows a bear instructing a shaman in the rock and associated Map 30. The and rituals of the Great
paintings mythologies
(226) speaks for the safe arrival of these two trace- Hunt treated in this
myths of the Bushmen (see chapter are chiefly of: (1) the
elements from across In Aus- pages 90-101).
the Bering landbridge. Aleut-Eskimo Domain, (2) the Australian Aborigines,
Between the
tralia, as illustrated in the bark painting opposite life-ways of these little hunt-
(3) the Eurasian Shamanic Domain, and (4) the
(225), x-ray art and the atlatl are recognized features ers on the open plain and the ways of the Tierra del Fuegans. Particular note is taken of the
of the culture. There are no bears, of course, in of bear shamanic
forest-dwelling, West-African dispersal ceremonials, practices,
Australia; but there are shamans.
Pygmies
x-ray-style art, and the atlatl, as suggesting and
(see pages 102-112) there is today, as we marking ways by which early and later mythological
have seen, a radical contrast. Both groups traditions were diffused.
are but however, of
vestigial, earlier,
greater days: refugees who through the
centuries were
pressed by the stronger
peoples of later cultures into ever remoter

retreats, the into the

Pygmies deepest
jungle and the Bushmen into a desert. there to remain, both lost and afraid.5
As Carleton Coon has remarked of the Likewise, the culture of the Andamanese
Pygmies (see page 108, to Figures 190-194), (who are
extinct) was now
vestigial of
“we know
nothing about these little peo- more
developed systems (see pages
ple except that they have lived in the 118-119).
equatorial forests of Africa for as
long a None of the cultures considered thus
time as is covered the records of his- far, therefore, can be
by regarded properly as

“There is historical evi- what

tory.” some
representing Highwater has Jamake
dence,” he states further, “that the western should be termed the “primal
225. Kangaroo hunt with spear and atlatl. Bark suggested
in x-ray Alligator River region, North- once extended the entire mind.’’”° The
painting style. Pygmies along Congoid Pygmies have the
ern
Territory, Australia. coast of Africa as far as
Liberia, and that best claim and may actually represent,
131
 229. Elks Rock engraving in x-ray style,
mating.
showing “‘life-line”
(from mouth to stomach or
lung)
and vertebrae. Length of figures, 28 inches. Klotefoss,
Buskerud, Norway, c. 5000 to 2000 B.c.

\\ 230. Seal. Contemporary Eskimo drawing in x-ray

style, showing “‘life-line” and ribs. Alaska.

227.
Paleolithic
antiquus),
Earliest

from
art.
corridor-cave
f known
Mammoth
intimation

(or
of

elephant,
E!
x-ray

Pindal,
style in
Elephas
Oviedo,
c. 15,000 B.c.
Spain. Early Magdalenian,

231. Reindeer. Rock engraving in x-ray

228. Fish (sole) in x-ray style (eyes on opposite style,
ribs. Sakachi, Amur-Ussuri region, Maritime
side). Bone; length, 13 inches. Lespugne (Haute- showing
Garrone), France. Late Magdalenian, c. 10,000 B.c.
Territory, U.S.S.R.

in condition,
though regressed practicing
no arts but of music and dance, the type ARCTIC OCEAN

of forest-nurtured out of which the

living
Paleolithic ‘Venus’ figurines derived.
One thinks of the Pygmy dance observed

by Colin Turnbull in which an old woman

tied up and immobilized all the men and

then released them to their duties (see ATLANTIC
OCEAN

page 111). The Bushmen, however, are.

Tropic of Cancer

clearly on the two-dimensional, painting

and engraving side of the contrast recog- PACIFIC OCEAN

nized by Frobenius. ATLANTIC

The Bushmen are the last inheritors of OCEAN
°

the extension of the crea- yy Tropic of Capricorn

southerly great
tive of c. 30,000 B.c. There were
explosion
‘also extensions northward and eastward Rock Art And The X-Ray Style 9 yy
(after A. Lommel)
that passed Siberia and not
across only @ugs; Occurrences of x-ray style ornamentation

into but also

America, through India and 4 Areas with x-ray style rock pictures
—» Probable routes the
into Australia, together probably with the for diffusion stylerockart|
of x-ray Antaretie Circle
LE
dingo (see page 33). Map 31 (adapted seas .

Arwerrrer
er Oy

from Andreas Lommel) traces the course

of this west-to-east as
Map 31. West-to-East of x-ray
great dispersal, dispersal (sha-
marked manic) art style. “It is curious,” states Andreas Lom-
by the occurrences of the Late
mel, “that the x-ray style does not seem to have
Paleolithic, shamanic, so-called x-ray style spread from its place of origin to any other part of
of art, where the skeletal structure and Spain or to northern Africa.”
interior organs of the animal are
repre-
sented, with special accent, occasionally,
on the “‘lifeline’’ leading from the animal’s
mouth or neck to its heart,
stomach, or

lung. This motif is a

prominent feature in
233. Wallaby in x-ray style from Marind-anim,
the decorative arts of the North American
Western New Guinea. Paint on
palm leaf,
Pueblos and Plains tribes but does not
contemporary.
appear in South America below Vene-
234. Fish in x-ray style. Bark painting by Mijaumi-
zuela. Another feature characteristic of
people, Western Arnhem Land.
jau, Gunwinggu
the culture wave that rolled northward 232. cow in x-ray style from India.
Pregnant Painted in 1965.
and eastward out of Sibe-
Europe across
ria, was the atlatl, or
spear-thrower, the
earliest examples of which are from Mag-
dalenian sites in France
(Figure 223). The
word atlatl itself is a noun from the lan-

guage (Nahuatl) of the Aztecs. Figure 224

shows an Aztec atlatl, and in
Figure 225 is
one
represented in a recent bark painting
from Australia.
The earliest west-to-east movement out

of Europe into Siberia took place during

the last of the four c. 70,000
glacial ages,

132
to 40,000 B.c., when Neanderthal Man
through Beringland to the Americas dur- ter blood
relationship. As used
by
(“archaic’” Homo sapiens) was
fashioning ing and the it may denote one or
immediately following long anthropologists, any
Mousterian flints. the Ural Moun- of the Riss-Wirm all of number of related
Beyond course
glaciation: the a
concepts and
tains at that time, on the West Siberian first, a Mousteroid tradition, and the sec- associated customs from the
stemming
Plain, animals
proliferating, were ond, With the first there nuclear idea of a blood covenant between
game Aurignacoid.
and in the farthest beyond the northeast, must have traveled of the the human and the animal Pri-
knowledge species.
Central Siberian Plateau, Neanderthal cult of the Master for it the term denotes
they were cross- Bear, marily, anthropological
ing Beringland into America, possibly fol- has left its unmistakable traces the entire a
mythological identification of the ances-

lowed of the And with the second, tor of a human clan, or tribe
by straggling hunting-and-gathering length way. given family,
bands. For as Chester S. Chard has we must there traveled not with the ancestor of some local animal
assume, only
observed: ‘The
possibility cannot be dis- an interest in the x-ray style of animal art, species; but it has also been used to
sig-
missed of a move
during early Zyrianka but also knowledge (or at least some
por- nify either (1) the identification of some
times [i.e. during the early Riss-Wtrm] tion of knowledge) of the shamanistic particular animal or
plant (or animal or

from the general North China area to the

myths and rites of the French and plant species) with the or
great guardianship
New World. Another caves out of which that art heraldic sign of some social or class
...

possibility Spanish style group

toward the very end of Zyrianka times,” took its rise. For like the bear cult, sha- or
(2) the recognition of some particular
he adds, “is the movement of plains- manism is an essential constituent of the animal (or animal as the
species) guard-
adapted hunters across Siberia from the lore of the Hyperboreans—those Dwell- ian, servant, or alter ego of an individual—
South Russian Plain into Alaska.’”’” ers the North Wind who remained which is more
properly known as
nagual-
beyond
Actually, there is little evidence from ism, from the Nahuatl noun nahualli
those times of early man in any part of (‘sorcerer’).
Siberia. In the
ranges, among Altai the In 1851, Lewis
Henry Morgan pub-
headwaters and
tributaries of the lished
upper an
important study of the Iroquois
long, northward-flowing Ob and Yenisey The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or
People
rivers, a few scattered sites have been dis- the in which it shown
of Longhouse,*® was

covered in the of Rubts- that the clans of all the Iroquois

neighborhoods tribes, or
vosk, Gorno Altaysk, and Irkutsk. Farther nations, not
only bore animal names, but
east, on the Amur River (which flows into also were with the
paired, requirement
the Sea of Japan), possible artifacts have that
marriages should be contracted only
been found in basic at Filomoshki. between
gravels couples of matched totems. In

Mongolia, just to the south, was

appar- 1910, Sir James George Frazer (author of

ently uninhabited during those years; but The Golden Bough) published To-

Japan, with mixed forests in the north and temism and Exogamy,° in which a worldwide

subtropical in the south, linked by land- is of totemic

survey presented systems
in the north and
bridges to Siberia Korea and the related social
requirement of mar-
in the south, entered from both
was
being riage outside the clan (exogamy). In 1912,
Sites in northern Konto have
regions. Emile Durkheim, founder of the French

yielded implements of Mousterian type, school of Les Formes

sociology, published
235. Polychrome ceramic vessel. Zuni, western
and from a
couple of caves in
Kyushu élémentaires de la vie wherein
New Mexico. Animals in x-ray style, showing ‘“‘ife- religieuse,'”
have come
choppers and the like. the totemism of the tribes of cen-
line.” Contemporary. reported
During the relatively warmer season of tral Australia (which he mistook for the
the so-called Aurignacian Oscillations, earliest form of the is inter-
religious life)
from c. 40,000 to 30,000 B.c. (see Map 9, preted in the
as of
grounded experience
page 34), the rising waters of the Pacific social
solidarity. And in 1913, Sigmund
the and both in Totem und Tabu,"
submerged landbridges, Freud, attributing the
America and Australia, as well as
Japan, settled the Arctic from same and social to a
along way Lap- symbolic phenomena
were for a time cut off. However, with the land, and Finland to Kamchatka
Norway, psychological guilt reaction, explained
return of the cold, c. 30,000 to 20,000 B.c. and Alaska. this as a
consequence of the actual group
the levels of the Paleolithic murder
(see Map 10, page 34), ocean
Thus, two traditions, by his sons, in some
primeval era,

dropped again and the landbridges that of the bear cult was the older of the father of a horde of
reap- by many domineering
peared. The oldest known site in north- centuries, in Neander- hominids.
having originated
eastern Siberia, Ust’Nil’ (59°45' N, 133°00’ thal Man’s veneration of the cave bear as But the
killing can have been, rather, of
E), in central Yakutia, is radiocarbon- the Animal Master; whereas shamanism, the animals of the hunt, and the
guilt,
dated to this to far such
period (c. 33,400 28,000 as as we know, developed as a tradi- something as that reported of the
And it then that tools of Mous- in the Bushmen
B.c.). was tion
only period of the temple caves slayers of the eland. The social
teroid were carried to America. But and the creative of symbolic have been that
type explosion solidarity can hypothe-
at the maximum of this freeze, forms. eastward Siberia sized Pfeiffer
increasing Passing across
by (see page 129) as deliber-
the into well ately enforced in the
c. 18,000 B.c.
(Map 11, page 35), America, as as
southeasterly to
period of the temple
American
glaciers closed the corridor Australia, shamanism traveled as but one caves for the control of conflict. And the
from Alaska to the Plains; and it was
only element of a that rites, while indeed of
compound living symptomatic guilt,
with the mounting of the included— besidesof ani- the are in the Austra-
temperatures x-ray style universally—whether
terminal Pleistocene, c. 11,000 to 8,000 mal and the atlatl, lian desert or in one of the
painting engraving, any landscapes
B.c.
(Map 12, page 35), that the and the bull roarer—an elaborate in the Americas—in their
passage complex anywhere
opened again and an advanced of social ceremonials, and intention and in their
Aurigna- regulations, representative,
coid industry was
brought in, presently to associated ideas, which enactments of a
mythological revelatory, life-validating
be followed the of rock
by creators en- scholars have designated by the very identity of the merely temporal individual
in the broad term totemism. The word is from the with the
gravings x-ray style. everlasting ground, of being
Thus there were two distinct tool tradi- ototama; otote- made known in the
Algonkian (Cree, Ojibway, through participation
tions carried northern Asia and
across
man) and signified originally a brother-sis- mysteries of the tribe.

133
 the and the men move off in silence and this that the
plain through very opening
towards the on whose Ulamba ancestor first burst into life. Still
steep peak slopes
Myths of the the cave is situated. There is only one higher up another rock represents the
track which be bird-totem who used
correct
by it may ap- body of a ancestor
Australian proached, a track which to hide there, afraid lest the Ulamba chief
through long
the
“Dream Time” disuse has become almost invisible; hence should kill him. A little further on,
the oldest and most
experienced man of party comes
upon a confused heap of
A company of and older men of the totemic leads the while rocks which marks one of the night camps
youths group way,
the North Aranda tribe of Central Aus- the remainder follow in file. All are of the Ulamba ancestor: the fallen rocks
single
tralia is about to set off on a silent; for the cave must be are the bodies of his human victims whom
day’s pilgrim- approached
to their totemic center: a cave in the with awe and reverence. he had killed with his spears in order to
age
Ulamba several miles northeast of “From time to time the leader halts, make a meal of their ‘sweet’ flesh. A mag-
region,
be from here of
the highest peaks of the Western Mac-
points out rocks and trees which figure in nificent view can
gained
H. Ulamba and Mount whose blue dominates
Donnell range. As described by T. G. the legend of the ancestor, Hay, mass

Strehlow he of their means the dark sea of in the east; of Mount

(who, as tells, ‘by reason neatly explains significance by mulga
his birth and is able to think of sign language. No be Sonder and Mount Zeil, the two
highest
upbringing, questions may
in Aranda well as as the asked, the men must be content in Central Australia, which raise
English’), my- young peaks
adventure follows: with such remarks as the their blue summits on the western
thological proceeds as explanatory pale
If these and of the line of massed’
“Spears and all other chattels are left leader is
prepared to
give them. horizon; long
behind at small soak the of insufficient for a complete of the to the south which consti-
a near
edge are
grasp parallel ranges

a a
A

236. Ancestral figure crowned with the sun, ema-

wait the
nating apparently from a swung bull-roarer. He car- myth, the young men must
respect- tute Western MacDonnelils. The leader

ries, besides two boomerangs, harpoona and a fully until another of these rare
opportun- explains that, in the
beginning, the Ulamba
throwing-stick, inventions from the
period of the Eu- ities itself. ancestor often used to stand here on cold
presents
ropean Paleolithic caves. This rock painting is of an
“After half an hour’s steep climbing the mornings, and scan the horizon around
earlier tradition than that of today’s aborigines. Kim-
leader He towards a
huge with his keen for human victims.
berly, Northwestern Australia. stops. points eyes
round boulder which is resting on a
Finally he had set out over the low pass in
237. Following in the footsteps of their forefather in
smooth of rock above them. The the first to the south towards
his
ledge range
wanderings when spearing Emu, aborigines from
boulder has ‘in and the the
the Guambone the Reed
an
opening it; territory now held by the Western
Station, near
Macquarie
New South leader signals that it was from this rock Aranda; but before down to the
Beds, Wales. plunging

135
 238. The MacDonnell Ranges, west-southwest of
Alice Springs, rise from a
plateau 2000 feet above
sea level to a maximum of 4955 feet. The “footsteps
of the Ancestors” here lead through marvelous rock
that change in coloration with changing po-
gorges
sitions of the sun.

“The leader raises himself to the level

of the cave on three little
by climbing up
stone
steps in the lower of the two
great
boulders. He removes the stones with
which the narrow has been skill-
opening
blocked to out rain-storms
fully up keep
from the south, and also to
prevent ani-
mals from the cave. These stones,
entering
it should be added, also serve the purpose
of the cave from the of
hiding eyes
strangers and robbers. He takes out sev-

eral bundles of tjurunga, closely wrapped

them
around with hair-string, and hands
to the who
men
waiting below, place
on bed of grass and leaves so that
them a
they shall not touch the ground.
“Then the leader steps down, takes up
each bundle in turn, unwinds the string,
and chants the song which relates the

wanderings of the Ulamba ancestor.

Gradually party takes up the verses

the of
the chant; and in low, hushed voices their

239. tribal elder maintains a silent and solitary

A
basin of the Ormiston on the other dark bottom mass is the of the before the sacred soak from which both the sun
Upper body vigil
and the Ancestor once arose
(see 241).
side, he had paused on the saddle of the Ulamba ancestor himself: thus had he
mountain for a brief moment and looked stretched himself out for his final sleep
his native Ulamba.
back regretfully towards when he returned home from his last ven-

the of his he
Finally, the leader directs gaze ture.
Mortally wounded by his victim,
followers to a conical hill just had back to his own home; no- 240. At Guri-Guri, a cluster of elders contemplates
prominent struggled
a of the Emu ancestor. The tracks
below the narrow
pass: this represents where else would he close his death-dim. ground painting
are of the mythological Emu himself.
the of the ancestor when he re- His father had awaited him here and
body eyes.
turned to his home from his last trail. had‘cast himself down in over the
grief
“The is now close to the cave. At of his son. had
party prostrate body They
a from the leader man
stoops into rocks, filled with the
signal every changed great
down and a handful of sticks, seeds of life.
picks up
around
stones, or
pine needles. They turn “The party halts. In the narrow cleft
a the cave
suddenly bursts between the two boulders rest the sacred
sharp corner;
into view; stones and sticks and pine At a from the leader, the
tjurunga. signal
needles are
flung towards it: the spirits of party sits down in
a half-circle on a con-

the ancestors must be warned of the venient of rock at the base of the
ap- ledge
of human visitors, for to disturb cave. Two hundred feet below them, at
proach
them means to court their dis- the bottom of a ravine, several slen-
rudely steep
result in sudden
pleasure, and this may a der white-barked gums are to be seen

death in the near future. towards the cave:

pointing upwards they
“The cave itself consists of two represent spears which the Ulamba
huge
boulders each other. The ancestor had once hurled at his victims.
piled high upon

136
 241. Three Northern Aranda tribesmen, ceremon-

ially attired, sit before a sacred ground-painting rep-

resenting the Ilbalintja Soak, on the Burt Plain, some

thirty miles northeast of Alice Springs.

The ground of this painting has been hardened with
men’s blood. The white circles are of down. The
kneeling celebrants have just performed in three
separate ceremonies. The central figure is Karora,
with the decorated pole above his head. The other
two, from two different sun ceremonies, are
wearing
the headgear of those rites. For libalintja is revered
as the soak out of which the sun, as well as the
Bandicoot forefather, first arose.

There, in the beginning, when all was darkness, the

Ancestor of the Bandicoot totem, Karora, lay asleep
below ground. Above him the earth was red with
flowers, overgrown with many grasses, and from the
midst of a
patch of purple flowers just above his head
there rose as to the sky a decorated sacred pole that

swayed to and fro and was creature. Its skin

a living
was smooth, like
that of a man. Though asleep, the
Ancestor thinking. As desires
was flashed through
his mind, Bandicoots began coming out of his navel
and from his armpits. They burst through the sod
above, and at that instant the first dawn appeared.
The sun rose, flooding all with light, whereupon Ka-
rora himself burst through the crust that had been
covering him, and the great gaping hole that he left
behind became Ilbalintja Soak, filled with the sweet
juice of honeysuckle buds.

Having waked, Karora felt hungry, for the magic had

gone out of him. Fluttering his eyelids and groping
about in a dazed state, he felt a moving mass of
Bandicoots all around him and, seizing two, roasted
them in the white, hot sand.

Evening approached. The sun hid its face behind a

veil of
hair-string pendants, and Karora, with his

song bursts upon the silence that has en- tion unasked from their teacher. This thoughts turning toward a
helpmate, again fell
asleep, stretching his arms out to both sides. Then
folded the cave to this moment. The chance is afforded to them
up usually during there from beneath one
armpit something
emerged
tjurunga have now been unwrapped. the elaborate decorations which follow in the shape of a bull-roarer. It assumed human form

They are spread out side by side; each that evening, decorations for the sacred and increased in one night to the stature of a young

the ancestor at a different ceremonies in honour of the Ulamba man.

Feeling something heavy on his arm, Karora
represents stage woke and saw at his side his first-born son, whose
of his and hence has verse ancestor.
career,
aspecial hand was
resting on his shoulder.
of the chant to it. The leader “But the afternoon is
assigned waning rapidly.
takes each in turn, chants the The last has been rubbed clean of Again dawn broke. Karora rose; and when he
up tjurunga tjurunga sounded a loud, vibrating call, his son stirred with
words to it, and hands it dust, and the last verse has been chanted.
appropriate life, got up, and danced a ceremonial dance around
around for inspection. Each man No man must be here at The
presses nightfall. him. Karora was
sitting adorned with ceremonial de-
the tjurunga affectionately to his body, leader the sacred with signs worked in blood and white feather-down. His
wraps up objects
and then it on to his them in the son, only half awake, stumbled. Karora’s body quiv-
passes neighbour. hair-string, replaces cave,
ered violently. His son placed his hands upon him,
“All the while the traditional re- blocks up the opening with stones as be-
song and when this had been done, the first ceremony of
echoes from the mountain wall. It fore; and the party returns to the camp the Bandicoot clan came to an end.?
steep
much It contains a near the soak below.
requires explanation.
number of obsolete and obscure “The shadows of Ulamba lengthen out
great
words, which, furthermore, have been across the
mulga plain, be- the sun sinks
dismembered and had their hind the western
peaks. Fires begin to
component
in the chant-verses for and the men of the party
parts re-grouped gleam brightly;
metrical This of share at a meal the meat which
purposes. re-grouping leisurely
the dismembered they had obtained by hunting earlier in
parts effectively pre-
from the day. Then they gather around the old
vents the uninitiated being able to
the leader and to decorate
portion whatever of once
understand any more, begin
when themselves under his guidance for a cere-
chant it is
being sung. Yet it is upon
this old traditional chant, the words of mony in remembrance of the Ulamba
which are the old ancestor, whose life story they have heard
jealously guarded by
men of the that the whole of the that afternoon. The ceremony which is
group,
the enacted is
intimately connected with
myth is based.
Ulamba now
Accordingly,
leader, while the men the chant and the
myth: it is, in short, the
teaching younger
the sacred chant in its traditional form, dramatic representation of one of the
has to much time in memorable events in the myth cen-
spend explaining many
each verse of the after it has been tering around the person of the ancestor.
song
memorized. be The actors traditional ceremonial
questions must
no wear a
Again,
in with the of
asked. The leader explains the general pattern conformity scene 242. Stone tjurunga of the Central Australian Ar-

the dramatized for the Ulamba anda tribe, showing footprints of the Emu ancestor
meaning of each verse, mainly by means incident;
as he walked around the soak out of which he
of sign language. If remains un- chief is stated to have worn a different
anything had emerged. Tjurungas may be of stone or of
clear, the leaders have to wait for another decorative pattern at each of the many 8
wood, oval, circular (as here), or as
long as some

for further informa- which he visited on his travels.’’* to 10

feet.
opportunity getting places

137
 oe
Po LP. -
ey Coo S
Map 32.
. ’ ad ty
.
.

or?GEO 1. Southeast: early Negritic-Tasmanian tribal sur-

vivals; All-Father (High God) mythologies; oldest

aS
se

2 ~ CapeYork
4,
rock arts in Australia; also, dendroglyphs (designs
aS 2 4
a
,Gunwinggu
7S
208
carved into living tree trunks) and cyclons (conical
a
Darwin e & ©. stones ritually scarred).
M
aRNHeEM om oo”
°
2. North: Indonesian and West Papuan influences;
LAND Gulf of Coral
Carpentaria Sea
World Mother mythologies; bisexual gods and pow-
2
2

4
Mga
"

ers; in Kimberley: Wondjina and “Bradshaw’”’ rock

INDIAN
Wunambe ©
“8
paintings (named for Joseph Bradshaw, their discov-
OCEAN NORTH e
° “
erer, 1840); in Arnhem Land: “stick” and “Mimi”
" “
vo
IMBERLEY
KM wy

f
M Muipua
Cardwell
figures; rock and bark paintings in x-ray styles.
3. Northeast: area of entry of East Papuan influ-
ences, which then passed to areas 4, 5, and 6.
os ad
4. Central: vast desert with rock art in isolated cult
gamarda 4 ae e

CENTRAL
°

.
sites, such Ayers Rock and Alice Springs; em-
as

phatically patrilineal “tribal ancestor”

s aS
iu
0
5

Wanamara ° mythologies.
5. Southern Central: arid, no caves or rock masses;
/

Ulamba art restricted to ornamentation of portable objects

‘Le. s
a NorthAMacranda
2
DONNELL
ghilice Springs/
RockhamP ton and the body (for ceremonies).
Fey Ray eS
East Aranda
“tton Central Aranda—_
nie u
Ayers Rock
6. West: isolated rock galleries; no extended cult
« :

<——-South Aranda f sites.°

‘
.

Pitjandjara
aval
»

Ag Also delineated are the territorial of the

Se 6 Brisbane? ranges major
or
wre
Ne?
WEST aboriginal tribes.

Whadjuk
Perth

Narrinyeri

Australian Provinces of Aboriginal Myth and Art 0

{after D,Stubbs) e
g
@ @
°

Petroglyphs X-ray painting 4 Cyclons

@ Bark @
TASMANIA
painting Bradshaws _{

M@ Cave A Stick and mimi Mara tribes

painting Aboriginal
@® 4 ®
Wandjinas Dendroglyphs Contemporary cities and towns

+ + *

Myths of the ancestral Dream Time are

known to all of Australia. The

aboriginal
powers therein recognized are not the
same, however, in the southeast and in
the north as
among the Aranda in the
central For the of these
region. aborigines
three areas are of three distinct orders of
culture.'* Those of the southeast, all
today
but extinct, an
represent early Negritic-
Tasmanian race for whom the chief mythic
power was
unique, a creative All-Father,
not other of the
recognized by peoples
Australian continent. In the north and
northwest, where a
later, West
Papuan
strain covered and back the Ne-
pressed
gritic, the dominant not in
presence, only
the but also in the rock of
myths paintings
the area, is a
dreamlike,
power, truly
which may appear as one or as as
many;
male or as
female; in human form or as

the rainbow. While for the Central Aus-

tralian Aranda and their who
neighbors,
an East influence, the
represent Papuan
dominant powers are the ancestors of 243. A hunter with and spear-thrower on the that
spear he once lived on earth and the
their western desert.
taught
patrilineal totemic clans. Kurnai know.
everything they
According to A. W. Howitt, whose re-

ports on the southeastern tribes caused a whom

being above, they refer to as Mun-
and his wife
considerable stir in the first of this Mungan-ngaua’s son, Tundun,
years gan-ngaua (Our Father); but it is in
only were the first parents of the Kurnai. Tundun
not but the most
century, only among ethnologists secret
part of the male initiation
conducted the ceremonies instituted his
also in and by
theological literary circles, the ceremonies that the novices are intro-
father; but when someone revealed their se-
older women of the very primitive Kurnai duced to the
strictly hidden teachings crets to the women, Mungan-ngaua became
tribe of Victoria of a this
speak supernatural concerning figure. They are then told furious and sent a fire [the Aurora Australis]

138
that filled the space between sky and earth.
Men then went mad with fear and speared
one another, fathers killing their children,
brothers their brothers, husbands their wives.
The sea rushed over the land and most of the

people drowned. Those surviving became the

Ancestors of the legends, many as birds, ani-

mals, and fish. Tundun and his wife became

porpoises. And it was then that Mungan-

ngaua left the earth, ascending to the sky,
where he remains.”

Many other peoples of the southeast

1

told of such an
All-Father, now in
living
the sky. The Narrinyeri, the Coo-
along
rong coast, believed that before departing
with his he the
family, gave people weap-
ons and instituted their rites. The nearby
Wiimbaio declared that he had two wives,
carried two spears, and ascended from a

site on Lake Victoria to which they could

point.’ His name in southwest Victoria

was
Bunjil, and there his two wives were

said to have been sisters with a

single
name, Black Swan. His son was the rain-

bow, Binbeal, whose wife was the second

rainbow that is sometimes seen. And all
were now
living beyond the sky ina
place
that the medicine men described as a

mountain. When the medicine men ar-

rived there, were

by an met entrance
they
guardian named Gargomitch, who took
their questions to
Bunjil and returned
with the answers.’

the animal element.’”” Other characters-of 244. The making of string figures, one of the oldest
of art forms, flourishes at Yirrkala, an
Aboriginal
the as the kangaroo,
legends appear
township in northeastern Arnhem Land. The figure
crane, anteater, and so on, but Bun-
spiny here displayed is a stylized, almost abstract, canoe.

Howitt “‘is in all cases (Compare 181 on page 101 and 313 on page 187.)
jil (to quote again)
the old blackfellow, and not the eagle-
hawk, which his name denotes.”” More-
he is the to be Bushmen, Southeast Asian and
over, only mythic figure Negritos,
referred to as Our Father.’® “Bunjil was Ona of Tierra del Fuego. Andrew Lang
the maker of the earth, trees and man,” crossed swords with Herbert Spencer,
states Howitt, ‘“and his name exists in the Frazer, and Howitt himself,
Tylor, argu-
as a term for wisdom and ing for such a Ali-Father as “the
language primitive
knowledge.” His names
among other germ of, or
rough draft of, thehighest of
tribes are Baiame, Maamba, Birral, Thar- religious conceptions”’;” namely, the High
amulun, and Kohin. The domain of his God of his own and Father Schmidt's Ju-
cult can be defined on the map bya line deo-Christian belief. Whether either Bun-
drawn from the mouth of the Murray jil of the Kurnai or the Yahweh
specifically
the of Genesis 2 and
River to Cardwell on Queensland actually equivalent to
3 is
coast.” the “idea of God” of any respectable me-

Now the resemblance of this taphysician today is a nice

question for
general
figure’s on earth to what we have theologians; but in case, the
days any recog-
learned of the African “‘creators’’ nized sharing of such mythic themes by
Pygmy
surely is obvious. Also evident is a certain the simplest known religions with some

resemblance to the Bible stories of that of those we think of as the most advanced
other “dream time’”” when Yahweh, too, would seem, at least, to
something
say
walked on the earth “in the cool of the about the constancy of
mythological ar-

in the
day” garden that he had planted chetypes. Whether interpreted theologi-
While on earth, Bunjil one
day held his (Genesis 3:8). In fact, it was this latter cally as supernatural revelations, or natu-
hand out toward the The then be- resemblance that caused the when of the
sun. sun stir
rally as effects mind, they exist,
came hot and warmed the earth, which Howitt’s Father and undergo
publications appeared. endure, significant transfor-
opened and emitted the aborigines, who Wilhelm in his trea- mations little
Schmidt, ethnological on a
plane affected,-appar-
danced the ceremonial known as
Gayip. der
tise Der Gottesidee,”'
Ursprung argued ently, by any readily identifiable sociolog-
for ‘‘original monotheism,”
an evident in ical or influences. And
philosophical yet
“It is a in the legends the lore not only of the Kurnai, but also of
they have as the
striking phase undergone changes,
about him,” Howitt states of Bunjil, ‘that all the most
primitive peoples known; myths from other parts of Australia clearly
the human element over others, the African Pygmies and show.
preponderates among

139
 In contrast with the All-
mythological
Father of the south, the of
Gunwinngu
Arnhem Land, in the north, tell of a crea-

tor known as the Old Woman, who came

to Australia underground from a

region
called Macassar, somewhere to the north-
east. to a version of the
According legend
given to Ronald and Catherine Berndt by
a woman of the tribe, this All-Mother ar-

rived in the form of the Rainbow

Serpent,
Ngalijod, with children inside
her—peo-
ple, who later made more
people. “She
made us talk like the woman
people,”
said; “she us She
gave understanding.
made our
feet, cut fingers for us, made
for
our
eyes seeing, made our
heads,
made anger and peace for us, made our

belly and intestines, gave us

energy to
move about—made us
people.’”’> Another
female figure, Ngalgulerg, then gave to
their
women
digging stick and the basket

they hang from their foreheads and carry

on their backs. the men
to
Kangaroo gave
their spear thrower. And all would have
died of thirst had the Rainbow
Serpent
not made water for them by urinating.
“She showed us how to for food and
dig
how to eat it,” the woman
said.

245. All-Mother, the “Old Woman” of the Northern

Australian myths, who in the form of a ar-
serpent
rived in Arnhem Land from the sea and gave birth
to the Ancestors. Rock painting of the birth scene,
Arnhem Land (Map 32, Province 2).

246. Where the Wondjina sank into the ground,

leaving his image behind, “child germs,” by which
women conceive, as a row of ances-
appear
tral heads. Rock painting, Kimberly (Map 32,
Province 2).

Th
a

140
“Those First she scraped them
People,
with a mussel shell when they were born,
until she saw that their skins were
lighter,
and she licked them all over. And now,

when we are inside our mothers she gives

us breath, and our bodies.”
shapes
Andreas Lommel has a
published spec-
imen Serpent lore from the Un-
of Great
umbal of northern in which
Kimberley,
the All-Mother appears, not
simply as an-
cestress, but also in a
cosmogonic role.

In the Beginning only Sky and

there were

Earth: dwelling in the Ungud, in the

earth was

form of a
great snake; and in the sky, Wallan-
ganda, the Milky Way. Wallanganda threw
water on the earth; Ungud made it
deep. And
in the night, as and Wallanganda
Ungud
dreamed, life arose from the watered earth in

the forms of their dreams.

From a
Wallanganda’s dreaming spiritual 247. the “First Woman” of the 248. Wuragog, Waramurungundi’s husband, with
force forth Waramurungundi,
went as
images that he projected Gunwinggu people of northern Arnhem Land. Feath- his spear, a feather in his hair, and a hair belt. He
onto rocks and into caves, where they can still found the bottle that is on his head while wandering
ered ornaments hang from her head, a net bag is on
be seen, red and white and black. about left him. When she later
painted [Or, her back, a dillybag dangles from her elbow, and she after Waramurungundi
holds stick. Her heart is shown above the went in search of him, she found that he had turned
according to
version,another it was the bird a
digging
from into the cliff now known as Tor Rock. She and her
Kujon who did the painting, as he grasped the
center of her body. She came underground
continued on their way, but when they
“Macassar,” bringing children inside her, and for a daughter
images of Wallanganda’s dream in his own
time wandered with her husband, Wuragog, and his reached the caves at Banewilngugngug, they too

dreaming.] And when these had been painted, relatives. But when he once rebuked her for being became rocks.*

Wallanganda multiplied their forms in the shameless, she and her daughter left him.

shape of living beings, which he sent forth

the
Wondjina whose
over the land. anthropomorphic beings without mouths belongs to
specific
that rain (Figure 231). They are left was the neighborhood in and
Thepaintings are the spiritual centers of personify image
called Wondjina. They are said to have who dwells beneath the in the
those beings. They are the Fathers; and the painting
been first discovered by Ungud at the bot- waters under the earth, child-
living beings of each kind are Brothers. The creating
Fathers were
painted without mouths or
eyes: tom of the waters.
germs, each of which is a
particle of the
these were the of
given by great serpent Ungud, Wondjina, andalso, therefore, Ungud.
who is both female and male, dwelling and Immediately upon coming into being, the In dream, a father will find one of these
in the earth. is Wondjina went forth over the earth, fashion-
dreaming Wallanganda, too, and in second
child-germs, a
dream, pro-
dreaming, sending spiritual germs to the ing hills and plains. Wherever they went they his whom
the rocks still ject it into wife, in it assumes
earth, and he will not let his creatures die.” brought rain, and while were
a human form. And this is that
germ
wet, they lay down upon them here and there
portion of the soul which at death
goes
and sank into the earth, leaving impressions
On the rocks and cave walls of northern back to the waterhole, there to await
behind that remain today as rock paintings.
reincarnation.
Kimberley there are
painted forms, not

but also of All those descended in this from

only of plants and animals, Every lake, river, and natural spring way
the same
Wondjina source are the rightful
owners the of
region, the oldest among
them as the incarnate
being recognized
Wondjina itself. When telling of the
Wondjina, this one will speak in the first

person: “‘As I came

along in the Dream
Time,” he will say, “I left my impression
on this rock.” It is his
duty to repaint the
image before each rainy season, and
when about to
begin, he will say aloud:
“Tam now
going to refresh and invigorate

myself.” When finished, he fills his mouth

with water, which he blows on the paint-

ing, and when the rain comes, it is re-

ceived as at once his, the Wondjina’s, and

Ungud’s gift.”
We have here broken into a
mythologi-
cal space where all things perceived are
but the reflexes of an order instituted in
the Dream Time. The logic is not of day-
light but of dream, where things melt into
one another and their apparent separate-
ness no
longer holds. ‘The name
Ungud,”’
states A. P Elkin, of the rock
writing
paintings of this region, “is sometimes
used as
though it referred to a
person,
sometimes as it referred to a far-
though

141
 ARCTIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Tropic of Cancer

Ons
PACIFIC JOCEAN

Equator

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

ricorn-

INDIAN OCEAN

The Diffusion of Bisexual and Powers

(after H.
Mythic Beings
Baumann)

of diffusion
Cc) Principal regions
©- Suggested regions of diffusion

Estimated comprehensive of diffusion

CE regions 31° ‘Tribes

Antarctic Circle

Map 33. The appearance in North Australia of such and other

cluding Orphism, Gnosticism, cults]; (15) Baumann writes of this culture field: “We have here
a bisexual creator (see page 141) links the
as
Ungud Europe [area roughly indicated: Kabbalah, Talmud, to do with great number
a of manifoldly independent
heritage of that region to a mythological context that Alchemy, Mysticism; survivals of bisexual themes in centers of development, which, however, have been
did not originate among hunters, but among planters. European folklore]; (16) Ancient Egypt. Africa: (17) so bound together through innumerable folk and cul-
There are three major centers out of which West Sudan
early [Dogon-Bambara], Upper Volta [Sen- ture movements that
something like a single culture
planting traditions arose: Middle America, Southeast uto? Bobo], Ghana [Akan], Dahomey, Nigeria [Yo- province has become
defined, which we can best
Asia, and the Near East (see Volume 2). Mythologies ruba, Ibo, Etik, Jukun], Saharan Moors; (18) Nubia; appreciate as such, not by comparing only the spe-
of a bisexual generation either of the universe or of
(19) Eastern Suden [Kunama]; (20) Northeast Zaire cific elements and complexes of the multitude of
humankind are found only within the zones of influ- [Hunde]; (21) Lower Congo [Vili-Kongo]; (22) South- aboriginal cultures involved, but by
including also
ence of these matrices. Hermann Baumann enu- west Angola, Southwest Zaire [Luba, Lulua, Chokwe]; those of our modern occidental culture province.
merates the regions so influenced as follows: (23) Rhodesia [Tonga-Lala?]. Australia: (24) Kimber- Parts of this complex have long since disappeared.
ley [Wunambal, Ungarinyin]. Oceania: (25) North Other members of the ancient came
complex
...

Indonesia: (1) Borneo (2) Nias; (2a) Bali; [Dayak]; New Guinea and Bismarck Archipelago [Widaro, under its spell only after long delay and with strong
(3) Islands from Sumba to Aru; (4) Ambon [and Ce- Mbowamb, Yatmul, and so on], New Ireland, Admir- resistance. There are
primitive groups that, centuries
ram?]. South Asia: (5) Central Malaysia [Ple-Sakai]; alties, and other islands; (26) New Zealand [Maori]; ago, adopted certain more or less essential ele-
(6) North Burma [Kochin] and Assam [Naga, Abor, (27) West and Central Polynesia [Tongens, Tahi- ments of the context and have held onto them with
Khasi]; (7) India [Bedic Aryan, Hindu, Buddhist, Tan- tians, Raiateans]; (28) Hawaii. North America: (29) rare often in contrast to other
fidelity, grotesque as-
tric, and Shakti elements; Bondo, Musahar, and Sauk and Fox; (30) Dakotas [= Sioux] and Omaha; pects of their life ways. Indeed, we know how late by
other native tribes]. Antiquity and the West: (8) Indus (31) Cherokee; (32) Zuni and Navaho; (33) Aztecs; many millenia it was that our own
European forefath-
Valley Civilization; (9) Ancient Iran; (10) Old Ger- (34) Maya (Quiche, Tlapanec]. South America: (35) ers submitted to the
spell of urban civilization. Simi-
manic Zone [and the Balts]; (11) Sumer-Babylonia; Aymaras; (36) Araucanians; (37) Lenguas. Far East: larly, it has been only within the last two thousand
(12) Western Semitic Zone [Phoenicians and oth- China [Yang-Yin philosophies]. years that city life has developed in the Sudan.®
ers]; (13) Asia Minor; (14) Greek-Aegean Zone [in-

off time, and sometimes, too, for the rain- either

formerly of the civiliza- have been the
early high pre-Macassan or
Baijini,
bow-serpent water It is also
spirit. given tions or affected
by influences from those while later
(possibly in the sixteenth cen-
as the ultimate of such
explanation signif- centers
(Map 33). We have
already re-
tury) came the
Malay and Macassans,
icant as an artificial
things obviously ar- marked that in northwestern Australia who have left evidence of their occupa-
rangement of stones. To the there
question, was a West Papuan culture strain tion in the way of numerous old camp
‘What is that?’ the answer is that
given simply, covered and
pressed back the Negri- sites, archeological remains, old graves,
‘Ungud’.”” 7” tic, and that the
Gunwinngu, indeed, tamarind trees, and so on.””?
Ungud and
now claim that their All-Mother came to the Old Woman are thus reflections, on

them from somewhere known as Macas- the northern of the of

margin continent, a

sar. “The of north-eastern that

aborigines mythology came
originally from
Hermann Baumann has shown in a Arnhem states Ronald
Land,” Berndt, southeast Eurasia. Whereas in other parts
comprehensive work that the “have for several
mythologi- centuries been in almost of Australia the Rainbow
Serpent is mas-
cal of such a bisexual
archetype primor- consistent contact with Indonesian voy- culine, here it has become identified with
dial
being is not common to all mankind,
agers to the mainland of Australia. The a mother goddess who arrived
by way of
but confined in its distribution to areas first of this alien contact to Indonesia and
phase seems Western New Guinea.

142
 + + +

The influences from eastward of New

Guinea that penetrated through Queens-
land to the center of the Australian conti-
nent must have lacked such agriculturally
related mother-goddess features as reached
Arnhem Land from the northwest, for the

myths and rites of the Aranda and their

neighbors are of an
emphatically patrili-
neal heritage. And yet, here too, in the
final stages of initiation, symbolic forms
are revealed that in a silent way point
beyond the enacted myths to
mysteries
such as those that, in the southeast, seem

to have been rendered through All-Father

figures, and in Arnhem Land, through

the great serpent Ungud.
When a
boy is about ten or twelve, he
and the other members of his age group
are told that from now on
they will not

camp with the women, but with the men.

They will not

go with the women to
grub
for roots, but with the men will hunt the

kangaroo. They are tossed into the air

while the women, around them,
dancing
wave and shout, and each is then painted
on chest and back by a man of the social

group from which his wife is to come. As

they paint, the men

sing: “May he reach
to the stomach of the sky!” Each is
boy
told that he now has upon him the mark
of the ancestor of whom he is the living
counterpart, who lived in the Dream
Time—here known
altjurunga.*° as the
The second of initiation
stage begins in
the men’s one after three
camp evening,
strong fellows have pounced upon the lad
and borne him, and
struggling fright-
ened, to the ceremonial ground. There
the whole camp greets him, women as

well as men, the

singing men while the
women dance. They are now the people
of the When the boy has
altjurunga.
watched and listened for some time, fur to eat, after which his season of 249. In New South Wales
(Map 32, Province 1), at
begins
wound around his head to instruction in the Guambone Station
(see 237, page 135), four
strings are the mythic lore of his tribe.
novices are
being conducted along a symbolic way
make a and a
girdle of Blindfolded, he is led from his brake at
tightly fitting cap, to the ceremonial high master waiting to receive
twisted hair is tied around his waist. and made to lie face down at the them. Like the engravings
midnight on bull-roarers, the figures
Three then lead him the on the ground are abstractions condensing ancestral
men
through edge of the men’s danceground. When
to brake of told to sit and he be- legends.
dancing women a
bushes, up look, sees
lying
where he is
painted and warned that he fore him a decorated man who repre-
must never disclose to woman or
boy sents, he is told, a wild Another is
any dog. Six days and nights of such visionary
of what he is about to learn. And
anything standing, legs apart, at the other end of mimes culminate in the ceremony of his
he must remain where he is until called. the danceground, of eu-
holding up twigs circumcision. He is
again seated behind
The next his mother
day, comes, to-
calyptus in each hand. He utters the call his brake with a
design in white pipe clay
gether with his father’s sisters and the of the kangaroo and moves his head as
painted on his back. On the dance-
mother of the girl who has been for The
assigned though watching something. dog ground, a
performance is
taking place in
to be his wife. All his mother has
night barks, gets up, and runs on all fours be- which the women are Sud-
participating.
kept a fire burning, and she now
brings tween the other’s When he turns
legs. denly, the sound of the approaching bull-
two sticks from that fire. While the men and comes from behind, he is
through roarers is heard. The women flee, and the
sing a fire she hands one stick to the shaken, dashed to the
song, caught, ground, boy is made to lie on his back while the
future mother-in-law, who, it to and lies still, pretending to be dead; but
passing men
pile poles on
top of him, lifting and
the boy, ties fur around his neck then, on all fours, he comes
strings suddenly, slamming them down to the rhythm of a
and tells him to hold fast his
to own fire; running at the boy and lies on top of him. song they sing:
that is, never to interfere with the women The kangaroo and lies on both.
hops over
assigned to other men. The boy returns to The boy has to bear their weight for about
Night, twilight, a great clear light;
his brake, and the women with the two minutes, after which he is told that
depart A cluster
of trees, skylike,
second fire stick. what he has witnessed is event of
just an
rising red as the sun
The is next the
youngster brought into the altjurunga, when a
wild-dog—man at-
forest sit alone for three At
to
days with little tacked a
kangaroo-man and was killed. the western end of the ground, in

143
 250. The dreadful seriousness of some of the or-

deals of these rites is grimly illustrated in these his-

toric photographs from Arnhem Land (Map 32, Prov-
ince 2). Having been exposed both to a
broiling sun
and to a torment of stinging insects sprinkled over
them, those with short white sticks at their heads
have expired.

the the two men who are well, did not out.” He is returned and holds his for
firelight, appear you cry boy, grasps penis ready
to the With their to the where the brake once stood. the knife, at which moment, a fourth,
perform operation. place
beards thrust into their mouths It is now and the men who are there slits the of it
(signify- gone, suddenly appearing, length
and with their arms stretched him. The blood from his from below.
ing wrath), congratulate
shield. Bull-roar-
forward, they perfectly still, the ac-
stand wound is let flow onto a In the women’s camp, meanwhile, at

the wound and he

tual operator in front, holding the small ers are
pressed against the sound of the men’s shout, the initi-
that made the
flint knife in his extended
right hand, and is told that it was
they ate’s female relatives are
being slashed
behind. The from the Dream
the assistant pressing close sound: they are
tjurunga, across
belly and shoulders by his mother.
instant the future Time. over a fire whose smoke He is lifted from the altar, and while he
they appear, boy’s Standing
father-in-law down the is be the he shield which the blood
comes line,
carry- supposed to healing wound, squats over a into

ing a shield on his head and snapping the is introduced to the functionaries by their flows, one or two of the younger men,

fingers of both hands. Dropping to one ceremonial names and given a

packet of who have been subincised before, stand
knee before the he elevates the the oldest. As a child is and second
operator, tjurungas by up voluntarily undergo a op-
shield above his head. The sound of the smoked at birth, to be so now is eration to increase the of their in-
purified, length
bull-roarers can be heard in the of this boy, who has just attained his second cisions. close to the sacred pole,
camp Standing
the who are to think it is the voice birth. hands behind their backs and legs wide
women, >
of the who has the weeks of the of the ‘Come and slit mine to
great spirit Twanyirika, During healing apart, they shout,
come to take the boy away. He, on his wound, another series of mythic mimes is the root!’”” They are pinioned from behind,
back beneath the slamming and rising shown, culminating in the planting of a and the work is done.”
sacred pole, banded with alternate has been considerable discussion
poles, can hear it too. rings There
and white bird down and the best
Abruptly, the poles are removed. He is of red topped of the sense of this operation,
lifted and carried feet foremost to the with a tuft of feathers. The testified and most obvious
eagle-hawk suggestion
shield, upon which he is
placed. The as-
boy is told to embrace the pole, it will being in the likening of the subincision to

sistant circumciser immediately grasps keep the next

operation from hurting. the vulva and the blood from the wound
the foreskin, it out as far as One of the men has lain face downward to menstrual blood.* certain
pulls possible, During pe-
the of him.
and the operator cuts it off. on
ground; a second on
top riods of their long ordeal, the boys have
dream The from the
Instantly, like the images of a initiate, conducted pole, is been given nothing to eat or drink but the
one’s all the functionaries placed face upward on this living altar, men’s blood—in bowls, either in
liquid
upon waking,
of the disappear, and the boy is and while the sets
up a form or to be carved like cake.
ceremony company great coagulated,
did third astride the
told by the two who carried him; “You shout, a man, mounting Blood has also been poured over them, so

144
 SOREL
Or Oe OO
inside and
a

that they have been soaked, ‘at *

:
.

ees
-
4S
he ee *
ns we a

out, in the men’s blood. And the men

have been obtaining it in

great quantities Ftd
and
by jabbing their subincision wounds

slashing the insides of their arms, the

blood being then used, not
only to initiate
the
boys, but also as paint for the cere-
monials and as
glue to fix bird down to

their bodies when assume the forms

they
of the Ancestors. The blood is thus the
natal blood of the boys’ “second birth”
from the father into life in the myths, as

that of the vulva had been of their first

birth from the mother into life in the
world. And virtue of their own subin-
by
cision wounds, the initiates have now be-
come to ceremonial birth to
eligible give
spiritual sons.
The of this whole
terminating ceremony
sensational season is a celebration, sym-
bolically of the mystery of the two sexes.

Known as the it is solemnized

Engwura,
only by number a of tribes together, with
eighteen or
twenty initiates, its central
event
being the elevation of a double
tju-
to have been fashioned
runga, supposed eee
:

’ "

ene 9, Feat as Me

by a supernatural being called Numbak- tribe of Central Aus-

251. Fathers of the Aranda
ulla, the Eternal. The name an
suggests tralia Province blood for cere-
(Map 32, 4) donating
esoteric reference to some such tran- monials. As menstrual blood is the medium of natural
scendent as was in birth, so this blood from the men’s arms and re-
power represented
opened subincision wounds will be the ceremonial
Bunjil of the southeastern tribes; while in
medium of their sons’ second, tribal or social, birth to
the double of this ,

tjurunga supernatural’s manhood.

creation—obviously symbolizing the

principle of duality that is manifest

through 252. The three
high celebrants of the Engwura, the
all things, and most in the most solemn
transparently mystery of the Aranda of Central Aus-
sexes—a is indicated to the tralia (Map 32, Province 4). All night the leading
relationship master of this
tradition of a bisexual culminating ceremonial of the season
ground of creation, of initiations hasbeen silently elevating and lowering
as in of the northwest.
Ungud Again, in the double tjurunga, the ambilyerikirra, symbolic of
the sacred pole, the of the universe, Numbakulla, the Eternal.
pivot
the feathers fastened to the are of the
top
eagle-hawk, and, as we have heard, the
name
Bunjil means ‘“‘eagle-hawk.” Fur-
ther, the bands of the
alternating pole,
red and white like the double
tjurunga,a
duality. The first song sung to the young

initiate—‘‘May he reach to the stomach of

the in the context of this
sky!”—suggests,
symbolic order of the second birth, not
the stomach but the womb of the
exactly,
power on
high; while the advice, finally,
to embrace the bicolored pole before sub-
to the the re-
mitting operation, points to
quirement aof identification
spiritual
with the
androgynous ground as prereq-
uisite to its realization in the flesh.

Throughout the four months of the cer-

emonials, the men’s camp has been di-

vided from the women’s the bed of
by dry
a stream.
During the first day of the cul-

minating double tjurungaceremony, the

young men are sent

away on various dis-
tant
assignments, so that the camp should
be empty; and while they are
gone, the
leader of the festival prepares in secret
two
large wooden tjurungas, each about 3
feet long, which he binds care-
together
fully with a
string made of human hair,
hiding them completely. The upper three-

quarters of the combined symbol is encir-

145
cled with of white down. The is either is The formation
rings top elbow, an assistant,
supporting approaches slowly in si-
owl-feather tuft. When And the lifting and low-is and within five
given an finished, his arms. man
lence; then, yards of the
and taken his
itis known as the ambilyerikirra, ering the sacred object slowly before women’s front rank, the men
bearing the
with his
to be buried in the dry bed of the separat- face. All night the old man, two
ambilyerikirra throw themselves to the

ing stream.” assistants supporting his arms, slowly ground hiding the double tjurunga from
The young men return at the end of the lifts and lowers the symbol. view. The initiates throw themselves on

and are made to lie on their backs ina Ata certain night moment of the all the so that all that can be seen of the three
day top,
their The
row.
Night falls, and an old man, older men
begin chanting. boys re- are their heads projecting from the pile;
the line, walks back and main as with the si- and when all have remained so for about
guardian, along they are, guardian
forth. There is silence. The youths until dawn, when they are two minutes, the men
get up and,
perfect lently pacing, young
are
lying still. And the leader of the festi- roused and the old leader stops lifting and turning their backs on the women, recon-

the
val, who has now
secretly retrieved
lowering the ambilyerikirra, gets up, with struct the square. The leaders, quickly
ambilyerikirra from its symbolic place be- his two aides still at his elbows, and pro- coming to their feet, also turn their backs,
tween the is seated, ceeds to the northern end of the ceremon- and are hustled through the They
separated camps, square.
his face by its directed to back the
holding it upright before ial ground. The candidates are lead the group to
Engwura
undecorated lower end. Beside him, at a line of sacred bushes, where they take and the ceremonial ends.*
ground,
and form a solid behind The will now be delivered as
boughs square youths
the three with the The for- men to their women. The ritual
ambilyerikirra. assigned
from the ceremonial of their the marked
mation moves out
being tossed in air
to the stream bed, across it their as
ground goes carriage away boys—taken by
and the bank the
up opposite to camp Twanyirika, the spirit of the bull-roarer;
where the women are
standing, grouped the rites of circumcision and subincision
Each, with her arms bent at the were of their transformation; and the rit-
together.
her hands and ual, then, of the double
253. Celebrants of the Aranda
Engwura cere- elbow, is
moving open up tjurunga, to the
initiated about invit-
mony—fathers and sons—gathered down at the wrist, palms upward, “Kutta, kutta, kutta!l’’ of the women of the
the symbolic pole of Numbakulla, the Eternal. Hang-
ing, while calling out, “Kutta, kutta, kutta!”, camp announced their
eligibility to return
its top is the bull-roarer, source of the voice
ing near the
of the initiating spirit, Twanyirika. On the initiates’ keeping one
leg stiff while bending to them from the altjurunga as authorized,
backs their special body paintings in white clay. other to a of the body. fully fledged Aranda.
are
gentle sway

146
 Circumpolar Cults of
Tronic of Cancer

the Master Bear

Equator _

Of the Paleolithic traditions that spread ..

2
of Capricorn
alrooic

west-to-east, the bear cult is almost cer-

the oldest, dating, as it does, from

tainly
Neanderthal Man’s veneration of the cave

bear. The little black bears of the Ainu

bear cult of Hokkaido,
Japan, might seem

to the skeptical observer

hardly adequate
to match, as
counterparts, the gigantic
cave bears of Neanderthal Man’s
experi-
ence, to whom they owe the origins of
their worship. Yet they are apparently ful-
filling the inherited role quite well; for size
and
ferocity are not the only, nor indeed
does allow earth
the most qualifications of a di- not the mention of his earliest evidence
even 34. The on
important, Map anywhere
we have learned from the name. Hence he is called of the veneration of a divine being is in the Alpine
vinity—as by screening bear-skull sanctuaries of Neanderthal Man (see
Bushmen’s the Mantis (see nicknames, such as Crooked Tail, the
god Kaggen, pages 54—56). A second period and stage is repre-
pages 90-93). Chief’s Son, or the Old Man in the Fur sented in the figures of bears deliberately stabbed in
the Magdalenian temple caves of Montespan (94 on
When the bear has come forth from his Coat, and on the hunt one
employs a se-
winter he is seen cret The are some of page 62) and Les Trois Fréres (133 on page 76), and
long sleep, frequently language.” following a third in the Epipaleolithic finds of Norway and Den-
on his hind like aman. What the names that have been recorded.
walking legs pet mark (254 below).
sustained him those months of his Among the Abnaki of Quebec: Cousin,
during
hibernation? rationalized the observation that a Across the Eurasian period from 6000 to
North, the
by 2500 era of climaticwarmer
sB.c. was an optimum,
There is a belief, documented from Fin- skinned bear, in its proportions, looks north of
than today, with vegetation zones extending
land eastward across
circumpolar Eurasia much like a man. “These tracks,” the Ab- their present limits. Tihe bear cult spread northeast-

and America to Nova Scotia and Labra- naki will “are our cousin’s.” The re- ward with the advancing populations and is repre-
say,
sented in myths and customs from Finland to
dor, that bears in hibernation nourish lated Penobscot, on the Penobscot River
Labrador.
themselves on
juice drawn
a from their in Maine,
speak of the bear as Grand-
-

paws. The eighteenth-century Danish father; he is grandfather of all the animals.

Knud Leems, in his Account of the And the of Labra-
voyager Montagnais-Nascapi
Laplanders of Finnmark (1767), accepted the dor, who likewise call the bear Grand-
belief as an established fact. ‘It is a matter father, speak of him after his death, re-

well known and ascertained through the spectfully, as Short Tail, Food of the Fire, Food, as well as Crooked Tail, Old Porcu-
regions of the north,” he reported, ‘’that Black Food, and the One Who Owns the the Creature, Wrangler,
pine, Lynxlike
the winter, lies concealed Chin. South
bear, of Hudson the Eastern and Angry One, while for the Plains Cree
a
during Bay,
in his den and is sustained no other Cree call him both Short Tail and Black of Saskatchewan, he is the
by Four-Legged
aliment than a certain milky juice which Human, Chief’s Son, Crooked, and Tired.
he sucks from his forepaws with a growl- The Sauk and the Menomenee of Wiscon-
earlier traveler in that refer him Elder Brother and
ing.”’°° Another, pe- sin to as as

riod of the Enlightenment, Baron La Hou- Old Man; the Blackfeet, north of the up-
ton, in his New
Voyages to North America per Missouri, as the Unmentionable One,
had
(1703), already accepted the belief. That Big Hairy One, and Sticky Mouth.
he wrote, “will All of these tribes are but to
“Many people,” hardly Algonquian,
believe that these animals can live three the Tsimshian of the Northwest Coast the
months in such Prisons without other bear is he is also to
any again Grandfather, as

food but the of their Paws which and the Yakuts

Juice the Yukaghir, the Tungus,
they suck continually: and yet the matter of Siberia.
of fact is
undeniably true.”*” And a third Yukaghir, a people of Paleo-Sibe-
The
witness, P. E X. Charlevoix, in his Journal rian
speech (together with the Chukchi,
ay: d’un Voyage fait par ordre du roi dans Giliaks, Koryaks, and Kamchadals, all

l’Amérique Septentrionale (1744), states of classified racially as Americanoid, and in-

TR the bear in hibernation: “‘I] tire alors de ses
habiting the northeastern extreme of the
Pattes, en les léchant, une substance, qui le Asian continent) have such names for the
nourrit.’’8 bear as Owner of the Earth and the Great
The bear hears at Man. The
everything, even
Mongolian Tungus (related to
254. Amber bear, length 2% inches, from the Ro-
distances. He also remembers and the Manchu, and
great sen
Bog, Denmark. Maglemosian Culture (from the
widely spread over east-
will avenge himself for every hurt. One Danish
ern
Siberia) call him the Old Man. To the
magle mose, “great bog”), c. 9000 to 5000
not talk about him when he B.c. Reproduced actual size. Turkic Yakuts, he is known as the
may hunting; Worthy

147
 in
Old Man, Beloved Uncle, Good Father, at
bear-eating festival
a Kamchatka, re-

first startled
the various
ported that he was at
and Our while on
Lord, among
the
Finn-Ugric peoples of western Siberia and seeing the body laid out on
ground,
of the uncertain to whether the Kamchatkans
Europe, the
eastern names are same as

kind. For example, the Ostyak know him

might be on the point of making a meal of
the Beautiful One, Old Father, one of the members of his expedition.
as
Furry
and Old Man with the Claws; the Emil Bachler has remarked that in the val-
Vogul,
the Venerable the as Un- of the around Turu-
as One; Votyak, ley upper Yenisey
and the Estonians of the that
cle of the Woods; khansk, Tungus believe a man

northeastern call him Broad Foot. will turn into a bear if, in the forest, he
Europe
Pride of the
The Finns speak of the bear as will but crawl three times around a tree

Forest and all the

Woodland, Apple, Light Foot, stump, growling way.”
Friend of Forest and the The bear
Golden Fen; killing of is
generally re- a

of the Woods and Old Man be

Lapps, as
King garded as a ritual act, to
performed in
the Fur while the Ainu of and clubs, primitive
with Garment, a
special way. Knives
Hokkaido, refer to him as That Di-
Japan, weapons, are
commonly preferred even
where for they com-
vine Reigning in the Mountains.”
One guns are available,
with the of the cult. The
The likening of this animal to a man, port antiquity
Ainu hunter, for example, having drawn
which is
already suggested by his pos-
and his knife, rushes into the animal’s em-
ture—frequently upright, standing
even
walking on his two hind legs—ap- brace, hugs him closely, and thrusts the
to be confirmed the resemblance knife to his heart. The Gilyak of the
pears by
that has often been remarked between the lower Amur, so as not to excite the ani-

human and the of the bear mal’s posthumous revenge, do not sur-
body body
when its fur coat is removed. Karl Meuli, prise him, but engage him in a fair stand-
funeral of the In America, the Thompson
in an article on the customs up fight.**
Greeks, out that River, Shasta, and Carrier tribes of the
points among primitive
both men and animals northwest, as well as the Montagnais-
hunting peoples,
to in the one
Abnaki, and Male-
are
thought appear now
Naskapi, Penobscot,
255. The Bear Kill. Eskimo sculpture of soapstone, in the other; and that the cite of the northeast, first invite the bear
of ivory. Winnipeg, Mani-
form, now
the knife and bear's teeth
white, soft of a
strippedbear, of its to come out of his den and then inform
toba, Canada. Contemporary. body
its back, with of their
hide and lying outstretched on him, apologies, challenge.*
would be a
sight particularly suggestive When the bear has been slain, itis usual
of such a notion. Indeed, one
European to disclaim responsibility In for his death.
observer, of his own attendance northern Siberia the Vo-
writing today, Ostyaks,
tyaks, Koryaks, Kamchadals, Gilyaks,
Yakuts, Yukaghir, and Tungus will say:
“Grandfather, it wasn’t I, it was the Rus-

sians, who made use of me, who killed

I am Don’t be an-
you. sorry! Very sorry!
gry with me!’’ On the other hand, the gen-
eral in North America was to
practice
the bear and to the occa-
praise explain
sion. For the Abnaki would tell
example,
the animal “I have killed be-
frankly: you
cause I need your skin
my for coat and

your flesh for my food. I have nothing

else to live on.”” The Ottawa, north of
Lake Huron, would flatter him and plead:
“Do not leave with an evil thought against
us because we have killed you. You have
and can see for yourself that
intelligence
our children are
starving. They love you.
They wish you to enter into their bodies.
And is it not a to be eaten
glorious thing
by the children of chiefs?’
The Ainu of Hokkaido have the follow-

ing legend of the bear’s humanity:

256. with bears, seals, and walruses.

ivory pipe
4% inches. Made by the Maritime Koryak,
Length,
Kamchatka. Contemporary.

148
 There was, once
upon a time, young a where offered it food and wine
they along
woman whose custom it was to go daily to the with sacred sticks, sending back its soul with
mountains with her baby on her back to gather and to the other world.*”
praise blessings
lily roots and other edibles. At the end of each

day she would take her roots to a stream to

wash them, lift the baby from her back, wrap The Lillooet Indians of southern British
it in her clothes, and, it on the
snugly leaving Columbia
specialhad
Song that
a Bear
bank to
sleep, go into the water nude. One to be chanted
was
solemnly and with gen-
day, when thus washing her roots, she began uine emotion over the body of the bear,
to
sing a beautiful song, of which the melody
so enchanted her that she lost all sense of her naming the boons of power they expected
to derive from slaying him:
surroundings. Coming out of the stream, con-

the
tinuing to sing, she set down roots and,
the
lost in herself, was
dancing naked on
You were the first to die, greatest of beasts.
shore, when suddenly the loud crack of a stick
We respect and shall treat you accordingly;
and in
stopped her. She looked, saw a bear,
No woman will eat your flesh,
panic fled, leaving the child. No
dog insult you.
The bear, discovering the infant and think-
May the lesser animals all follow you
it a that such a
helpless little thing
ing pity And die by our traps and arrows.
should have been left alone, said to itself rue-
May we now kill plenty of game.
‘“Icame here attracted by the lovely song
fully,
of that woman, approaching quietly lest she May the
goods of those
gamble with we
hear me and be afraid. But her singing was so
Follow us as we leave the
play,
beautiful that I became elated and inadvert-
And come into our possession.
ently made a sound.” The child began to cry
May the goods of those we play lehol with
for its mother’s breast, and the bear, in
pity, Become
completely ours,
put his tongue into its mouth. Nursing thus, Even as a beast that we have slain.*®
the child was
kept alive for several days, dur-
which time the bear never left its side. But
ing
then, one
day, a
company of hunters from the
the 257. Bear mask, Haida, Queen Charlotte Islands,
village came to the mountain, frightening British Columbia. The preeminence of the bear
bear, which fled and left the child where it
lay. among the animal powers both revered and feared
When the villagers,
discovering it, realized by northern hunting peoples—from Finland, across
that the bear had been
tending it, they were Siberia and America, to Labrador—has provided in-
for of the
impressed. “That bear is good,” they said to spiration many most impressive works of
has kept this lost baby alive. art of the masterful wood carvers of the American
each other. “He
Northwest Coast. The dancer in this ceremonial
Surely that bear is a deity deserving of our
mask might have impersonated in dance and mime
worship.”” So they hunted out and shot the the bear-husband of a favorite mystery play and
bear, returning with its body to their village, legend.

258. Heraldic grizzly bear, possibly a house guard-

ian or totem. North Pacific Coast, Bella Coola tribe,
British Columbia, Canada.

149
 ~

Bef SD.
is
f gtk

SS
INOTS s
4 iS

ry
ate
The bear hunt and sacrifice across Eurasia

259. In Lapland, bear hunters on skis with

RAG
spears and crossbows close in for the sacrifice.

The chant the offal of this is

nearby Shuswap a similar or even beast, so
greatly ‘Otso, Apple of the Forest,
of comfort, and it The meat was boiled simulta- O thou lazy honey-pawed one:
dirge praise, petition: prized.””
the of If thou hearest me
approaching,
neously in two vessels, contents
O thou the Hearest me, the hero, coming,
greatest of animals, which were consumed separately,
Man among beasts, first by the men and older women to-
In
thy hair thy claws conceal thou,
Now my friend, after which the women
In
thy gums thy teeth conceal thou,
gether, finishing That thou never more shouldst move them,
Thou art dead!
left; the second was then emptied by the
That motionless remain there.’
men alone. This latter feast was the more
they
May thy mystery make all the other animals
ceremonious, characterized by a special
Be like women when I hunt them! And when the bear has been slain, he
“eat all’ feature; namely, a
requirement
May they follow thee, again sings out, disclaiming responsibility:
And that every morsel of the meat should be
fall to me
consumed, with every person required to ‘O my Otso, O my darling,
Easy prey!*
eat the entire served him. ‘They
portion Fair one with the paws of honey,
will to one man,” wrote Father Le Be not with causeless
give filled anger,
It is that when a Jeune, “what I would not undertake to eat I
myself have not o’erthrown thee,
reported good singer
chants such from the with three dinners. would Thou thyself hast left the forest,
a
song earnestly, good They
those become moved rather to than leave Wandered from thy pine-tree covert,
heart, present so burst, so
speak, a

Not word is Thou hast torn away thy clothing,

that they weep with rolling down
tears
thing.
.. .
a said; they only
cloak in the thicket.”
their cheeks. of the sing, and sometimes the shaman Ripped thy grey
Singers Thompson
drums. Itis of devotion.’
chanting, paint their
River before a
tribes, . . .

banquet
faces with alternate black and red vertical This custom is followed not
only by the As he then the village with
approaches
And the Western Carriers of the of Labrador, but his he out, to let the
stripes. Montagnais-Nascapi prize, again sings
Mackenzie River declare that so also by the Téte-de-Boule and Eastern know of the arrival of a
great
they sing people
that the he him- Cree south of Hudson well as
say to
as
bear, as dies, may Bay, by guest:
self: “T like that The hunters will the Asiatic
Eskimo, the Lamut around the
song.””
then be able to kill many bears.” Sea of Okhotsk, and the Ainu of Japan.
‘What bring is not an otter,
I

Finally, when the body of the slain bear No doubt the best-known example of Not lynx and not an otter,
a

the ceremonious of bear is that One more famous is approaching,

isbrought into the village, the manner of killing a
Comes the pride of all the forest,
his flesh is a sa- recounted in Elias LOnnrot’s reconstruc-
devouring everywhere
cred with tion of the Finnish folk The
Comes an old man wandering hither,
feast very special rules. In a
(1835) epic With his overcoat he cometh.
letter in 1634 ‘‘The Land of Heroes,’’
written
by the Jesuit mis- Kalevala, which,
sionary Le Jeune, such an event
among by the way, provided the inspiration for
‘Where’s to be conducted,
of
my guest
the Montagnais-Nascapi is in de- Longfellow’s invention an
Algonquian-
reported Whither shall I lead my gold one?
tail. The moment the bear had been Iroquois epic, ‘““The Song of Hiawatha,” To the barn shall I conduct him,
into one all even to the detail of the archaic trochaic
brought camp, early evening, On a bed of straw to
lay him?’
the with- tetrameter The hero of the Finnish
young girls and married women verse.

out children retired to shelter of their is the old Vainamdinen, And the him
a
episode magician people gave answer,

own distance The who, as he the bear’s den, Shouted all the handsome people:
making, some
away. approaches
from the in out, some of the ‘Better lead our
guest illustrious,
dogs were ejected wigwam sings using flattering pet
which the feast was to be held “lest names, to let the animal know of his com- And conduct our
golden beauty
they
Underneath these famous rafters;
lick the blood,” we read, “or eat the bones ing:

150
 260. A bear festival of the Gilyaks of the lower
Amur river region (East Siberia); the bear is about
to be sacrificed.

261. Conclusion of the Gilyak festival, when the

sacrificed bear, as a revered guest, is served a

ritual meal of its own flesh.

Underneath this
roof so handsome.
There is
food arranged for eating,
There is drink poured out
for drinking,
All the floors have here been dusted,
And the
floors been swept most cleanly,
All the women
finely dressed them,
In their
very finest garments,
Donned their headdresses the finest,
In their robes
finest arrayed them.’53

And when the inert has been car-

guest
ried into the fine house for him,
prepared
VainamOinen
reassuringly sings:

‘Otso, Apple of the Forest,

Fair and bulkyforest dweller,
Be not at the maidens,
frightened
Fear not the unbraided maidens,
Be not
fearful of the women,
They the wearers of the stockings.
All the women
of the household
Quickly round the stove will gather
When they see the hero enter
And behold the
youth advancing.’

And the peoplespoke in answer:

‘Be not
grieved of this, O Otso,
Neither let it make thee angry,
That we take hide an
hour,
thy
And thy hair to gaze on
always.
For
thy hide
will not be
injured, daughter Tellervo, son
Nyyrikki, and all ket the hair upon the sea. The wind tossed
And thy hair
will not be draggled, the feast
the rest of his people, to come to it, rocked it. The waves carried it to shore
Like the rags
of evil people, where the One was to be at the edge of a wooded headland. And
Or the
Honey-Pawed
clothing of the beggars.’>4 eaten. there it was that Mielikki, Mistress of the
And when the then asked for Forest, took the soft fur from the water’s
people
the legend of the bear’s honorable birth, edge, put it in her basket, and this
hung
Then the aged Vainamdéinen Vaindmdinen to the beautiful cradle where the forest branches
stripped sang accompaniment
the bearskin from the laid it on the of his the Kantele of a maiden clad in thickest and the forest leaves most
body, harp were

storehouse floor, and put the flesh into with colored shoes abundant. She rocked the
“stockings blue,” gaily charming ob-
copper kettles, adding salt to the stew. and with a hair-filled basket on her arm.
ject where it
hung on the limb of a
broadly
The meat was
placed in dishes on the long She walked, one
night, through clouds
spreading fir tree. And it was thus that
table, beer was
poured, and the near the on the shoulders of the the beast nourished to life in
Tapio, moon, furry was a

God of the Forests, was invoked; also his Great Bear, whence she cast from her bas- forest all with
dripping honey.*°

151
 and to have seated rank around the
they are
supposed a
good°°
according to long,
happy time of communion
together.” central hearth, music
rectangular play
The bear is a visiting mountain the and entertain them. The bear
god, sing to is
The Bear Sacrifice owla village god, the dolphin a god of the
slaughtered the next
day, cooked, and ea-

sea. The visible however, ten. made of his meat

greatest power, Offerings are own

is that which lives in the the to his pelt, which has been with
sun, spirit by placed,
That the to to a is whose influence that body or ‘*ball’ (num) head attached, in the seat of honor. Words
way pay homage deity
notion is made to shine and to And the of thanks and addressed
by sacrificing and eating it is a
jus- move.
praise are to

tified, the Ainu of Hokkaido, chief here below is fire, whose him, presents bestowed, and with
among by power finally,
their idea of the animal as a visitor from spirit is feminine and known as Ances- the most cordial the
expressions possible,
the to which are return- tress or Grandmother (Fuji); also as Iresu- visitor is dismissed to his
spirit-world, they ceremonially
“to send is the Kamui, “that divine who mountain home.®
ing it. Iyomande, away,” spirit [kamui]
°
spiritual
Ainu word for “‘sacrifice.” For the deities sustains and rears us
[iresu].”” Plants are When a
very young black bear cub has
like to visit this earth, and to do so divinities, and of especial importance are been alive into the he is
they brought village,
assume but are then the food
plants. Even things made by man
adopted by one of the families and treated
disguises; they
animal forms until have spirits of their for of the suckled
locked into their re- own—swords, ex- as one children, by the
lieved of them the sacrifice. They ample, to wear one of which confers mother, and
through affectionately pampered.
their willingly, in the whole environment When it becomes hurt the
consign pelts and meat
strength. Indeed, big enough to

those who have released is enspirited and with others when it is

gratitude, to recognized grati- playing, however, put
them.* tude as alive. into a
strong wooden cage, fed on fish

Further, as
J. Batchelor points out in his But, of all the visiting presences, the Three paintings from a
Japanese scroll of 1840 de-

fine on the Ainus in bear is the most When one has picting the bear sacrifice of the Ainu:
piece Hasting’s Ency- important.
clopedia of Religion and Ethnics: ‘“The been killed in the mountains, the cub, is raised ina
very body 262. Ablack bear, captured as a

essence of Ainu consists in com- is carried to the cage.

religion ceremoniously village
munion with the and the and into the hunter’s house, not
greater powers, brought 263. Taken from its cage, the bear is held by two

that the most the but cords, led about before its worshippers, and shot at
people imagine complete by door, by special opening a
with blunt little bamboo arrows so as
bring to it toa
communion can hold with known as the window.” To peer
they possibly “god’s heat of temper, at which time it will be suddenly slain.
some of their and birds, to into a home through this opening is an
gods—animals
insult and a sacrilege to be atoned for by a 264. At the ritual meal that follows, the pelt of the
wit—is
by a visible and carnal partaking
bear, revered as a divine is served a stew of
which guest,
of their very flesh and substance in sacri- fine, is interpreted as a
gift and an its own meat.
fice. At the time of the apology to the
god. The bear’s arrival by
offering, living
victim is said to be sent to his ancestors in this portal is known as a
“god’s arrival”;
another place.”*” Therefore, as this ob- and when he appears, he is welcomed by
server ‘the bear festival is a the fire-goddess, whose
recognized, long, rectangular
kind of mutual feast—a feast of hearth occupies the center of the one
friendship
and which Bruin himself also room. The god and will now con-
kinship—in goddess
participates. Indeed, the bear is offered to verse
together through the night, while
himself and his in the fire burns and while the
worshippers common, people,

152
 x

BOONE
RAD

Ne

SSCS
TS
LS

Oo

Daka et Ab
he
,

ae:
Ko Ribei
EARNe
DAR
4

MK
ST
A

wee
AAR

we
Re
Re
ROPE
VEREKE
RN Ne
DNase
3S

RR
HideS
a
t
~
KS CDRA,
Oe

SEEN
TE

ee. Smeaton
©

me
SU
OU
RR

DST
153
 harm. Since Iam now
grown up, I have
returned. And I have these
brought
prayer sticks, cakes, and dried fish. Please

rejoice!’ If you say this to them, Little Cub,

they will be very happy.”
The feast is celebrated, and there is

dancing, while the woman who suckled

the bear and
alternately weeps laughs,
along with some of the older women who
have themselves suckled young bears and
know of the mixed of
something feelings
saying good-bye. More prayer sticks are

made and placed upon the cub’s head;

another bowl of his own stew is
placed
before him, and when time has been al-
lowed for him to finish, the man
presiding
at the feast calls ‘The little
out, god is
finished; come, let us
worship!”’ He takes
the bowl, salutes it, and divides the con-

tents the guests, each a

among receiving
small portion. The other of the beast
parts
are then eaten also, while some of the
men drink the blood for and
strength
smear a
portion upon their clothes. The
head of the bear is then from
separated
the rest of the set
pelt and, being upon a

pole called ke-omande-ni, ‘the for

pole
265. A photograph taken by Edward S. Curtis of a we have been. Please come to us
again sending away,”itis placed among a num-
Kwakiutl canoe with an
upright bear effigy arriving and we shall do the honor of a ber of other skulls
for a festival in 1910. The Kwakiutl are a
again you remaining from earlier
prominent
sacrifice.”” feasts. And for the next few the fes-
canooing and fishing people of the totem-pole cul- days
ture of British Columbia, Northwest Pacific Coast. The bear, secured with then is tival until bit of the little
ropes, continues, every
taken from the cage and made to walk has been consumed.”
god
around in the circle of the
people. Blunt Continuations and transformations of
little bamboo a black and the cult of the bear
arrows, bearing in
Europe are evident
and millet and for about white
porridge, kept geometrical design and a
compact in
many contexts. In classical times the
two until the time is to
clump of at the
years, thought shavings tip (called hepere- goddess Artemis was identified with the
have arrived for it to be released from its ai, ‘cub let
arrows’’), are
fly at the animal bear. There was a Celtic
bear-goddess,
body and returned to its parents in their and he is teased until he becomes furious. of whom
Artio, an
image (see Figure 267)
mountain. Then he is tied to a decorated stake; two was found at Berne (Bear City), which still
The man who is to host the ceremony strong fellows take hold of him and a third a trace of the ancient Celtic cult
preserves
calls out to the of his invit- thrusts a kind of wooden bit between
people village, long in its famous den of bears. And as the last
ing them to the sacrifice of their dear little his jaws; two more take hold of his back secular echo of the bear sacrifice from pa-
divine visitor from the hills. A number of legs, two others of his front; one of the there the
gan times, were
popular bear-
sticks are
fashioned, whittled in poles for is held under his
prayer strangling baiting arenas in the form of theaters,
such a as to leave a head of throat, the other above the of his which
way shavings nape in Elizabethan England competed
attached and clustered at one end. These neck, a marksman sends with
perfect an arrow
Shakespeare’s stage for the patron-
sticks are stuck in the around the into his heart in such that blood
ground a
way no
age of a cultivated public. At a
spectacle
hearth of the house in which the bear has spills to the earth; the are attended in
poles squeezed 1575
by Queen Elizabeth, thir-
been raised, then out to the and the little
brought place together, guest is gone. teen bears were
provided; of which event
where he is to be killed, and stuck The bear’s head is removed with the Robert
again Laneham wrote:
in the them laid whole hide attached, carried into the
ground. Alongside are “It was a
pleasant to see, to see
sport very
two
long, thick poles, known as ok-numba- house, and
arranged among prayer sticks the bear, with
pink eyes, tearing afterhis
ni, “the for The and valuable
poles strangling.” men
gifts by the east window, his enemies’
approach, the nimbleness
approach the bear cage; the women and where the guest is to share the feast. A and wait of the to take his
dog advantage
children follow, dancing and singing, and succulent morsel of its own flesh is and the force and of the bear
placed experience
when the whole has seated it- beneath the snout, with a
company along hearty again to avoid his assaults; if he were bit-
self in a circle before the bear, one of its of dried fish, millet
helping some
dump- ten in one
place how he would pinch in
number comes
very close to the and lings, a cup of sake or
beer, and a bowl of another to that if he
cage get free; were taken
lets the little god know what is about to its own stew. Then the bear is honored once, then what shift with with
by biting,
happen. with another
speech. clawing, with
roaring, with
tossing and
“O Divine One, sent into this “O Little Cub, you these
were we
you give prayer tumbling he would work and wind him-
world for us to hunt. Precious little divin- sticks, and dried fish; take self from
dumplings, them; and when he was loose to
ity, we adore hear our We them to Go to shake his
you; prayer. your parents. straight your ears twice or thrice with the
have nourished and with without about the blood
brought you up parents hanging on and the slaver
hanging about his
care and trouble, because we love you so.
way, or some devils will snatch the ®
away physiognomy.”
And now that you have grown up, we are souvenirs. And when arrive, to The survived until when
you say sport 1835,
about to send you back to
your father and your parents, ‘I have been nourished for act of Parliament—the
prohibited by same
mother. When you come to them, a time an Ainu father and mother
please long by Parliament which in that year forbade hu-
speak well of us and tell them how kind and have been from all trouble and sacrifice in
kept man India.

154
 266/267. The Celtic Artio is the Celtic counterpart of the great Greek
bear-goddess, Artio, who was

the Helvetians in the goddess Artemis, at whose temple at Brauron, a few

worshipped by neighborhood of
feeds her miles southeast of Athens, dances were
performed
Bern, attendant animal, a she-bear. (The
City of Bern shows a bear in its coat of The by little girls between the ages of five and ten who
arms.) were called (“bears”) and wore
apxtou dresses that
inscription, in translation, states that “Licinia Sabi-
nella the goddess
were
saffron-dyed.* Iphigenia must have been one,
[dedicated this] to Artio.” There is
slit in the for in Aulis, as she was being carried to be sacrificed
a box pedestal through which coin offerings
at the goddess’s shrine, her saffron-dyed dress
can be 7% inches
dropped. high and 11% inches
wide, this bronze artifact dates from c. a.p. 200. slipped from her, and her bosom lay bare to the
knife.”She was translated by Artemis to the Crimea
(the “Tauric Peninsula”) where, as the goddess’s
priestess among the barbarians, she supervised
rites of human sacrifice. There is thus a
long history
of sacrifice of one kind or another associated with
the bear. And somethingsurely be rec- similar must

ognized in the bizarre Old Testament episode of II

Kings 2:23-25: when some small boys jeered at the
prophet Elisha (immediately after his companion-
prophet Elijah had ascended in a fiery chariot into
heaven) by shouting at him—‘Go up, you bald-
head!”—he cursed them in the name of the Lord,
and two she-bears came out of the woods and tore
forty-two of the small boys to pieces.

The name “Arthur” of King Arthur (from the Celtic

verbal root art, “bear’) was earlier the name of a

Celtic god of about the sixth century B.c.: Ardehe, or

Arthe (Latinizing as
‘“Artio’), to whom there is in-
scribed an altar in the town of St. Pé-d’Ardet (Chris-
tianization of Saint Pére Ardehe, “OurHoly Father
Ardehe’”), which is situated in the Pyrenees, in the
Vallée de |’Ourse “Valley of the Bear’), not far from
the miraculous waters of Lourdes.®

The name of the earliest hero of

legendary England’s
Anglo-Saxon literature also means ‘Bear’: Beowulf
(“Bee-Wolf,” so named because of the bear’s pas-
sion for wild honey). And we have—have we not?—
those two celestial bears, the Great Bear and the
Little Bear, revolving forever as constellations around
the Pole Star, axis mundi of the heavenly vault.

Moreover, the names, not only of the city of Bern, but

also of Verona and
Bayern (Bavaria) derive from the
268. Bear-baiting scene on the lid of a bronze rite
religious or
already degenerated to such a pas- German noun Bar. of the medieval hero
Etruscan vessel, c. sixth century B.c. Collection of time as remained in England until
Legends
popular Shake-
Dietrich von Berne date from the reign in Italy of the
the Villa Giulia, Rome. Whether the scene is of a time is unknown.
speare’s
Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great of Verona (a.p.
493-526).° Dietrich =
Theodoric =
Theodore =

Teddy Teddy-Bear: the favorite doll of little girls

B® between the ages of five and ten.

7 _)

155
 Gabillou, at least six (and possibly nine) that time were carried across the
being
essential features of the shamanic art are inhabited Arctic to Alaska. (See maps,
illustrated: pages 34-35.) In Central Asia, subse-

quently, there were

Shamanic Lore of important develop-
dance ments that never crossed the
1. The shaman’s ritual (at Les Trois Bering
Fréres and Le Strait; likewise, in the Americas, local de-
Gabillou)
Siberia and the velopments occurred that were never car-
2. His of an animal costume (at
wearing ried back to that
and Asia; so there has been,
Les Trois Fréres, Le Gabillou,
Americas through time and space, a
history of sha-
Lascaux)
manic forms. Yet, in all essentials, the
3. His identification with a bird
thereby remains constant from
a Trois
complex Norway
The shaman is a of medi- (Lascaux), stag (Les Fréres), or a
particular type
bull (Les
to Alaska and south to Tierra del Fuego.
Trois Fréres and Le Gabillou)
cine man, whose both to cause
Mircea Eliade
powers has:described shamanism
4. His passage into an ecstatic trance
illness and to heal the sick, to communi- as “one of the archaic of ec-
(Lascaux) techniques
cate with the world to foresee the
beyond, stasy.”’© And since in
ecstasy it is the rap-
5. His service as master of game animals
future, and to influence both the weather the inward that
ture, psychological flight
(Les Trois Fréres)
and the movements of game animals are is of the essence, and since, furthermore,
believed be derived 6. His role as master of initiations (Les
to from his inter- the central nervous of our
Trois system species
course with envisioned this inter- Fréres)
spirits; has
hardly changed in the mere 12,000 to
course
having been established,
usually Also indicated are:
15,000 years following the period of the
in possibly
early adolescence, by way of a severe shamans of the caves, there is an invaria-
oy
psychological breakdown of the greatest
7. His possession of a wand or staff (the
ble, generally human strain that runs

stress and even to life. The ex-

danger bird-on-a-staff at Lascaux and several through all the historical modifications.
in
traordinary uniformity far-separated actual batons de commandement that have The
differing social systems within the
of the earth of the
parts images and stages been found at other Upper Paleolithic bounds of which shamans have func-
of this “shamanic crisis’ suggests that sites in tioned have little affected the character of
France)
they may represent the archetypes of a 8. their the vari-
His control of magical animal-familiar
a
experiences—as, indeed,
psychological exaltation, related on one who him in his eties of the historical have little
supports conjurations religions
hand to and on the other to
schizophrenia (possibly the rhinoceros at
Lascaux) affected the realizations of the mystics,
the ecstasies of the yogis, saints, and der- 9. The association of an animal sacrifice the voices of whose rise from the
raptures
vishes of the high religions. Moreover, with his labors disemboweled bison battlefields of world in
“
(the history one
poly-
the typical way of
functioning of the sha- at
Lascaux) phonic chorus of accord. “We have termed
is
man
everywhere by passing into a state the ecstatic
experience a
‘primary phe-
either of trance or of semitrance, and thus Like the cult of the master that of
bear, nomenon,’” states Eliade, “because we

abstracted, performing his mysterious the master shaman at the close of whatever for
passed, see no reason
regarding it as

work. the last from northern the result of

glacial age, Europe a
particular historical mo-
In the Paleolithic cave sanctu- Siberia to the
Upper through Americas, along ment, that is, as
produced bya certain
aries of Lascayx, Les Trois Fréres, and Le with the industries that at form of civilization.
Aurignacoid

In southern France, four prefigurements from the

Magdalenian phase of the Paleolithic “creative ex-

plosion” (see page 129), showing shamans in cos-

tumes and roles that have remained classic through
millenia:
269. The initiating Sorcerer of Les Trois Freres

(see 132, page 76).

270. The Animal Charmer of Les Trois Fréres (see
131, page 74-75).
271. The Masked Shaman in Trance of Lascaux

(see 105, page 65).

272. The Dancer of Le Gabillou (see 135, page
78).

156
Rather, we would consider it fundamen- Three transformations, west to east, of the antlered

tal in the human shamanic mask of Les Trois Freres:

condition, and hence
known to the whole of archaic 273. Tungus shaman of sub-Arctic northeastern
humanity; Siberia. Note the
what and was modified with the Eighteenth-century engraving. tipi-
changed like dwellings.
different forms of culture and was
religion 274. Antlered mask from the Okla-
the and evaluation of the Spiro Mound,
interpretation homa (see 3, page 11).
ecstatic
experience.’ 275. Deer and Buffalo Dancers (faces painted
Through the centuries—indeed, the
black) at San Ildefonson Pueblo, New Mexico, 1940.
millennia—that have elapsed since the
first passage of the bear and shaman com-

plexes through Siberia to evident interactions eastern

Beringland, throughout
most of the later influences Asia between Buddhist and shamanic
important
that have touched and transformed the forms and
practices. However, another,
Paleolithic in Siberia and
original heritage likely, etymology has been pro-
more

have entered the field from the south-

posed: of Saman simply as a noun derived
west. first the of the from the verb
Affecting peoples Tunguso-Manchurian Sa,
Uralo-Altaic ranges, they diffused north- “to know,” “he who knows.” In
meaning
ward
along the valleys of the great rivers the strictest use of the term, “shaman” is
Ob, Yenisey, Lena, and Amur. The last to those
applied by anthropologists only
peoples to be touched, of course, were classic Neo-Siberian masters of the nine--
those of the extreme northeast, teenth and twentieth centuries who,
beyond early
the mountains, costumed in a certain of
Verkhoyanskiy namely type gown, per-
the Paleo-Siberian (Americanoid) Chuk- formed to their own of a sacred
beating
chi, Koryak, and Kamchadals. drum, and functioned fi-
Yukaghir, single-headed
These stand, therefore, at the into trances, either when
opposite nally by going
historic pole to the Neo-Siberian Uralo- their souls on
departed visionary jour-
Altaics: the Finnic Vo- when
Ugrian Ostyaks, neys or
spirits took possession of

guls, Turkic
Yakuts, Samoyedic tribes of their bodies and them as
spoke through
the Arctic West, Tungusic peoples of the oracles. A broader use of the term, how-
Siberian Far East, and the shamanic crisis and
Mongolic Buriats, ever, recognizes
Khalkas, and Kalmucs. its aftermath as the essential component
Among the historical forces that in the of an immemorial tradition, to which a

course of the long centuries the number of characteristic and related fea-
shaped
cultures of these Neo-Siberians were the tures are
attached, of which some
may be

mythologies of the great Near Eastern accented in one others in another,

region,
Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and the but in relation to the unmistakable
always
Indo-European of the horse and its rider, crisis of vocation. It is in this more
larger,
Zoroastrian dualism, Indian yoga, and inclusive sense that the term is under-
the Tantric Buddhism of Tibet. Indeed, stood in this
chapter.
the word “‘shaman”’ itself, from the Tun- begin with a classic
But to Neo-Siberian

guso-Manchurian saman, is thought

by example (Figure 276): The horse shown

many (but not all) authorities to have tied to a sacrificial stake in this sketch of
come
ultimately, by of China, from an Altaic shaman’s is
way visionary journey
the Sanskrit §ramana (Pali, samana), mean- evidence of an Indo-Eu-
already-existing
ing ‘Buddhist monk.”” An influence. The horse sacri-
apparent justi- ropean great
fication of this is seen in the fice (aSva-medha) of the Vedic war-
etymology Aryan

157
rior kings, through which they hoped to the of his drum, to break the
beating
achieve world rule, has here become, in of the and then will
power magic, apply
reduced form, the of a his the affected and suck
offering primitive lips to part un-

shaman for to the His

access
god Ulgen. til—eureka!—he will spit from his mouth
tent with a fire before it is seen at the start some or even worm or roach that
pebble
of the journey. Like the World Tree, the will the affliction. If it is found,
represent
sacrificial post to which the horse is teth- that the for the
however, reason
indispo-
ered is
symbolic of the pivot of the storied sition is that the soul has been
patient’s
universe. The branches of the tree are
abducted the either of
by Messengers
nine in number, as are the of the above of Arlik the sha-
stages Ulgen or below,
heavens, importance the
of this number 9 man will have to undertake a
visionary
and the notion of heavenly stages being in trance to retrieve it. The
voyage voy-
of Mesopotamian origin. The slanting line on will be about as de-
age high just
across the head of the tree
represents a
that and
scribed; below, more
dangerous
pole on which the hide of the sacrificed awesome.

horse has been hung, while the two little dark forests and
“Passing through
forms to the left and one to the right of the mountain
crossing prodigious ranges,
tree
offerings to the deities
are to be met:
where, time and again, he sees strewn the
Bogdygan and Bobyrgan at polestar the bones of shamans and their mounts who
gate, Kékysh along the way, finally, and
ral
have met death in these terrible wastes,
the radiant himself.
Ulgen Incongru- the shaman arrives at last at an
opening in

ously, the three regions beyond Kékysh the earth. Here the most difficult of
wa stages
are of water, sand, and cloud, represent- his faced are as he descends into
journey
ing perhaps some earlier, more
primitive of his abysmal underworld depths with their
276. An Altaic shaman’s map visionary jour-
notion of the dangers of the visionary ney. Having sacrificed a horse, he proceeded from myriads of uncanny apparitions—all of
journey. his tent and fire to the World Tree, hung the horse’s in the of his performance,
which, course

When an Altaic shaman has been sum- pelt on a pole by the tree, and set down three offer- the shaman illustrates in word and ges-
moned to his first task is to ings: to Bogdygan, K6kysh, and Ulgen. Then,
a
sickbed, ture, with especial emphasis on those
mounting the nine branches (actually climbing, in the
determine by divination the cause of the shamanic the central of where
performance, pole of the yurt), awesome scenes
punishment
illness. If he finds that an obiect of some he came to Bogdygan and his attendant, Bobygan, the souls of sinners are tortured and
at the heavenly gate; next, he traversed nine fluc-
sort has been projected patient’s into the tormented. And when he has mollified
tuating thresholds, to be welcomed by Kékysh; and
body by the magic of another shaman, the the of these and es-
finally, after three more trials—of water, sands, and guardians regions
healer will first perform a series of rites, to cloud—he attained the radiant presence of Ulgen.'° their he comes face to face
caped perils,

277. A Chukchi map of the heavenly ways. Two

paths cross at the Pole Star's House: one, the sun’s

course from Dawn Man’s House (lower left) to Eve-

ning Man’s House (upper right); the other, the path

of shamanic flight from the House of Darkness (be-
low) to heaven. The Milky Way (double lines left of

center) leads from the earth to the Pole Star’s House.

In the lower left portion of the map: Dawn Man, with
rays around his head, holds high in his left hand a

tray on which a sacrifice has offered; in his right

been
hand he holds fox that he is giving in exchange; on
a
one side of him sits the soul of the dog that was

offered; a second fox comes on his other side; and

two more sacrificial trays lie on
ground. In the
the
upper right portion of the map: the family of Evening
Man pays sacrifice to the gods of the sea. The mem-

bers of his family are costumed in the guise of those 278. The soul of a Koryak shaman’s 279. Apreliminary sacrifice drummer facing
(right,
gods: their faces are black; they wear ceremonial sacrificed dog is intercepted in its flight to west) isperformed to appease the obstructing de-
headbands; they are clothed
and in loose white gar- heaven a demon. Above is the Heav- mon, who then allows the dogs of the main sacrifice
by
ments with walrus-gut tassles. The tall wand in their the shaman drums to (on left, drummer now
facing east) to to their
enly Family; below, pass
midst is symbolic of the axial pole." heal a patient.'? destination.

158
 280. Shamans of the Huichol
Indian tribe of Nayarit
in western Mexico are
today fashioning “yarn paint-
ings” of their visionary flights: colorful pictures, about
2 feet square, made of vividly dyed wool yarns
pressed onto beeswax-coated plywood. This “paint-
ing” by Ramén Medina is of a journey inspired by a
supernatural summons to bring back to earth, in the
form of a rock crystal, the soul of an ancestral sha-
man
wishing to return. The star is the rock crystal to
be found. The four wavy lines hanging to the left are
the fiery curtain of solar rays through which the sha-
man had to pass. The path of his ascent is indicated
by the footsteps; the beauty of the vision is beto-
kened by the flowering plants; and the whole is
framed by the mountains of the quarters: three in
each direction, the ascent having begun from the
central mountain (not depicted) of the West.'? This
visionary journey of a shaman from Mexico ob-
viously resembles that of the shaman from Central
Asia (276), even to the detail of the tree, which ap-
pears in the Altaic map at the start of the shaman’s
flight into space, and here in the Huichol at
painting
the center of the composition. this tree with
Compare
the Ladder and the World Tree up which the South
American shaman climbs (281), thence to pass in
trance to celestial heights.

with Arlik himself, Prince of the Land ney of a Zoroastrian seer. Moreover, the
of the Dead, who threatens terribly, vio- bull-like
bellowing of Arlik‘calls to mind

lently until the shaman the bull-headed figure of Yama, the

bellowing, (if Judge
clever with him of the Dead, as in Tibetan
enough) pacifies prom- represented
ises of rich The cli- tankas; while shamanic on a wild
offerings. ceremony flight
maxes in this
dialogue with Arlik when gander suggests, on one hand, the flying
the shaman
collapses in ecstasy. In many gander figurines of the Late Paleolithic
it is believed that, returning from Mal’ta site at Lake Baikal
regions (see page 72),
the Land of the Dead, the shaman rides a and on the other, the Vedic Indian medi-
wild gander, as when from his tation on the wild (hamsa), as sym-
returning gander
to heaven. With him is the bolic of the and of
voyages pa- spirit spiritual flight.
tient’s soul; and as he in this To escape these influences
approaches high-culture
flight, the prostrate shaman’s and uncover a shamanism more
agitation primi-
gradually subsides, until his eyes open at tive, one must leave the Eurasian main-

last, as
though waking from sleep, and land, where such themes and images
those present ask for an account of all that have been (even with
dispersed though
on his the farthest reaches.
happened perilous journey.’ diminishing force) to
“Although the descriptions of the Land In
many parts of the other continents also,
of the Dead associated with these cere- influences are evident, as
higher-culture
monies are of late and alien in the drum of the shaman
undoubtedly Mapuche (Fig-
origin,’” comments the Finnish ethnolo- ure
281) and the ladder on which she

gist Uno Harva, from whose work this stands, which has been clearly identified

TT passage has been quoted, “the belief that with the World Tree and, moreover, is
a shaman can himself to the a head that is not of
go transport topped by sculptured
other world release souls is authen-
to an a
primitive type. The Mapuche are an
ag-
CTE tic feature of Siberian shamanism.”’® It is ricultural people, as are the Huichol of
a
feature, also, of the medieval theme of western Mexico, to whom we owe the
Jesus’s Harrowing of his colorful of the shamanic vi-
Hell—following yarn painting
apparent death on the cross and before here
sionary journey (Figure 280), repro-
his resurrection—to release from Limbo duced as a New World to that
counterpart
the souls of the Old Testament of the Central Asian Altaic shaman.
patriarchs
and prophets. ‘“He descended into In Tierra del the uttermost
Fuego, part
hell... He ascended into Heaven’’® of the earth, the Alacaloof and
. Yahgans,
Dante also descended and ascended, with the Ona, and the Aush were as innocent

especial attention (as in the shaman’s of agriculture and the virtues of civiliza- 281. A female shaman of the tribe of
Mapuche
journey) to the of the damned. tion as the whales, central Chile stands atop her carved ladder,
sufferings penguins, dolphins, sym-
bolic of both the World Tree and her own of
There is an Iranian visit to the scenes of and guanacos of their environment, when, power
ascent.
followed
spiritual Beating her drum, she will presently
hell, by a flight to heaven, de- on
January 14, 1869, the Rev. Whait H.
pass into trance; her spirit will rise with her people's
scribed in the Vision left alone the
seventh-century of Sterling was standing on prayers to the “Mother-Father” of all things, and her
Arda Viraf, which is an account of the jour- north shore of Beagle Channel, to inhabit body, falling, will be caught in a blanket."

159
 They were inspired and motivated, rather,
W

Cape Virgenes by the practitioner’s own familiars, ac-

Posession
quired through visionary experiences of
B ay . :

Point Catalina

such profound, affective impact that the

and whole man-
subject’s personality
of life were the root”
ner
radically—“‘to
—transformed.

ATLANTIC
Among the Yahgan (or Yamana), as
OCEAN
Father Gusinde learned: ““A man could be

strolling alone along the seashore, lost in

dreamland, without thought purpose, or

when he would suddenly find himself in

the midst of
Cape San Diego
°
a
visionary spectacle of what
&
PACIFIC known
&
Sy
are as asikaku, ‘apparitions.’ Around
rw
OCEAN
We
My. SS Estados
Island
him crowds an immeasurable company of
<e
(Staten |.) herrings, whales, swordfish, vultures,
Tierra del CLAIMED BY
cormorants, gulls, and other creatures.
Fuego ARGENTINA & CHILE
All are him in
Elevations in meters addressing flattering terms,
in the most
over 2000 4 Mountain peak
a
e Wollaston respectfully, friendly way;
1000-2000 e
Contemporary town
Aueoe Islands and he is beside himself, has no idea what
200-1000 Contemporary international boundaries
SE is
0-200 tes Glaciers
Cape Horn
happening. His whole body numb, he
drops to the ground and lies there with-
Map 35. out
moving. His soul (his kespix), that is to
say, is
consorting with the spirits, and
a little wooden house, 20 feet and 10 were the
(known Ona also as the while them, inordinate
long feeling, among an

wide, that had been set there as his Selk’nam), a

tall, well-built and hand- Then are
up joy. suddenly, they gone.
mission. Three to
previous attempts bring some, mountain-dwelling people living “Waking from this heavy sleep, the
the the Yahgans had ended in
Gospel to
chiefly by the hunt. The Catholic Father man stumbles home. He hardly knows
disasters. The first had been of a Martin Gusinde has two where he is. He falls onto his bed; is back
young published mag-
clergyman who arrived on the Beagle with nificent based on his field in his dream; and there the
monographs again appears
Charles Darwin. He had been so threat- studies of these two from 1919 to animal swarm. All the beasts
peoples are ex-

ened, mauled, and even stoned those 1923,” and of the interest and his
by greatest tremely friendly. They are
inviting
meant to have been his that to the student of soul to them. And it does follow-
parishioners importance primitive re- join so,
he was removed. The sec- his the out the
immediately ligions are chapters on
myths, ing them, presently, onto
high
ond, in the winter of 1850-1851, was a
rites, and shamanism of these seas.
Moreover, there is one that is
utterly pri- being
mission of seven, who had flee for their
to mitive, marginal, hunting, fishing, and especially amiable, in the most extrava-
lives into the where tribes.
wilderness, they per- gathering Among both he found
gantly attentive way, and this will become
ished. A third in the traditions of
attempt, 1859, year a
High God of the kind that
of Darwin’s
Origin of Species, got as far as Andrew Lang and Father Schmidt had
to the before
building of a chapel; but on Sunday credited to the Kurnai of Australia.” (See 282. Yahgan mother and child a typical tem-

porary hut. Although inhabiting a

region hardly 1300
morning, November 6, in the middle of pages 138-139.) In neither context, how-
miles from the Antarctic Circle, these coastal, canoe
the first verse of the first of their did the of the shamans
hymn ever, practices and fishing people were
practically naked, indifferent

opening service, the little of four have to do with this to the cold.
group anything divinity.”
was set
upon, clubbed, speared, and
stoned to extinction. The Reverend Ster-

ling’s mission, on the other hand, sur-

and the first

vived; when, on
day of Oc-
tober 1871, the Rev. Thomas Bridges
disembarked there, with his wife and in-
fant daughter, to inherit the mission and
take
charge, there were
awaiting them on

the shore a five-room and sur-

bungalow
rounding scatter of brush wigwams
smelling of rotting whale blubber and
smoke. Canoes were drawn up, and a

naked congregation, and stand-

squatting
ing, watched them they landed.”
as

The Yahgan (or Yamana), whose huts

and canoes these were, were a short and

sturdy canoe
people, inhabiting the coasts
of the southern
archipelago from Beagle
Channel to the Horn, living largely on
mussels, seals, fish, occasional whales

harpooned or washed ashore, porpoises,

gulls, and birds’ eggs. North of the Chan-
nel and eastward to the Atlantic coast

160
his familiar; the others, too, will tucky where she lived. It was a warm
though
be at his call as friends and summer
day, and she was aware of buzz-
helpers.””
insects in the But behind the
Orsimilarly, strolling, musing, in
when ing foliage.
the forest, one
may suddenly find oneself drone she became aware of music, faint
in the midst of a large company of spirits, and distant at first, but
gradually getting
little like and louder and closer. Finally she could dis-
people, very men; passing
tinguish a chorus of voices and
into a
deep sleep, one then will see them very light
sitting about a fire, keeping warm, talking high, but not children’s voices. She
In a will invite stopped to listen, entranced, became
quietly. friendly way they
that the path ahead
one’s soul to
join them, and again, there aware
someplace on

will be one of the company there was an aura of light—not bright, but
especially cor-
dial. Forest of this kind are called soft and luminous: it blotted out the land-
spirits
It seemed her
hestaka-shamans. They like to live in the scape beyond. to
pull on-

dead of trees, and will sometimes ward, and, as the singing louder,
boughs grew
such to bend she to move in its direction. Al-
cause
boughs deeply down, began
turn on their axes, or
quiver. Old rotten though she walked towards it, she could
are favorite resorts.” not
get closer. It was
always the same
stumps
In the Andaman Islands, it is recalled, distance from her. It did not fade for some

the who func- time. She was enchanted and then

oko-jumu (‘dreamers’), grieved
tioned as medicine men, came into pos- by herexperience.
session of their have had such
spiritual powers by con- “Many people experi-
the of this
sorting with spirits in the jungle, by ences,” comments
physician
“Their another
dreaming, or
by dying and returning to
report. presence suggests
life hidden within us.”” And in the
life. Similarly, in the
early Celtic epics of indeed,
the British Isles, those heroes who, when instance of the interesting case of this ag-
forest, allow themselves ing widow: ‘‘There was in her an under-
riding through a
of intense times
to be led pursuit of some
into the vision- lying current sadness, at

ary beast, find themselves in- approaching a She felt...

presently tragic grief.
side the fairy hills, engaged in adventures that she had not lived her life.”
of a timeless, dreamlike For Among the Yahgan, as Gusinde found,
surreality.
the forest to centers than when an
apparitional has attached
speaks deeper spirit
do city streets. And for those who have itself to a
person, it never lets go. The 285. A family of the Ona tribe, skillful hunters of the
never been convinced of the person is forced to become a shaman.
quite high guanaco, are
wrapped in the robes of guanaco fur,
Should he refuse, the takes re- which, in spite
importance of the deeds and gossip of the apparition of the sub-arctic cold, were their only
the ex- and the person dies. Gusinde cites garments.
marketplace or village compound, venge
citement of the imagination that a forest the example of a Christian convert, Nelly
fastness or wild seacoast can awaken Lawrence, who was
walking one
day with
may
become an irresistible fascination, her little daughter in the forest when she ders and
leading was
killing her because she had
in the end to a transformed life. The an- heard break from the trunk of a tree a loud not to shamanize. “It that
begun was

nals of as “Pah!” “TI looked around,” she told him, the afflicted
psychiatry
provide examples, cloak,” woman told Gusinde,
“and little in that
for instance, the following report from the saw
a cute spirit rotten
“that had been so
greatly oppressing and
case of a sixty-eight-year-old widow: trunk who beckoned to me in a
friendly me that I fell down.”
exhausting frequently
“When she was between the of way. I did not realize that it was an
appar- The shaman
ages sent for her and, in a violent
and she ition (asikaku), but took it for an
seven nine, was
walking along a
ordinary scene, tore from her throat and back those
woodland in the backwoods hill soul (kespix). But an
uncanny fear un-
invisible
path things, the gifts, even the song,
near the town in Ken- strung my limbs, and as
though in a
and
country mining so saved her life.”
I Overcome
coma, dragged myself on. Among the Ona it is understood that a

then by that
a was irresistible, |
fatigue child who
frequently sings sleep, in its or

flung myself onto my bed, where I in half-abstracted

a state
by day, will be-
dreamed; and again there was that spirit come a
shaman; likewise, the young man
before me, smiling in the friendliest way. ina circle of
or woman
who, companions,
It loaded me with presents: furs, baskets, breaks into The
unconsciously song.”
necklaces and so on; even
gave me a
spe- Tierra del Fuegians do not have drums;
cial song. And when, later, I woke with their medicine dull
songs are
drones; and
heavy senses, that song continued to in those
yet, strangely compelling songs
sound for
long a time within me.””” there is heard a voice that is not of this
For many days the woman was faint practical life, but of a state of mind or-

and ill, feeling weak and but dered to And it is his

helpless; rapture. through
then she was visited a female shaman that the shaman invokes
by personal song
who, when served a
cup of tea, started his familiar, as it was that
through song,
back in horror. “Why,” she asked, “do when it first came to him, that he was

hand me this beast?” Ter- drawn from the normal world and of
you disgusting way
rified, Nellie Lawrence ‘But I life of the The sounds at
283. Shaman ofthe Ona tribe. replied, ungifted. song
gave you a
cup of tea!’” The shaman left, the interface of the mind and
284. Shaman ofthe
waking
Yahgan. troubled for her but in dream.
greatly friend, a
“Through it,” in Gusinde’s words,
dream then realized what had “a state of is induced,
happened autosuggestion a

to her. The had thrown kind of of which the med-

apparition a
self-hypnosis, out
leather noose around the woman’s neck icine man functions. Most
. . .

often,”
and a cloak was her shoul- Gusinde “it is after
heavy upon continues, midnight

161
 in the earliest
or
morning hours that he cion, in an
ambiguous way, on some rival
be heard For the
can
intoning his song.’’® necromancer.
Frequently the chief object
time for is of darkness and of a raiding in the clan
shamanizing party, perpetual
the night mind of which the shaman is the warfare of the Ona, was to kill the medi-
incarnation. cine man of an No, I
opposing group.
Those to whom a
song has come turn would not become a to be blamed,
joén,
to a
practicing shaman for induction into for a fatal heart attack a hundred
maybe,
the mystery out of which their song miles away.’’*
arose, and the instruction then effects in “Some of these
he wrote,
humbugs,”
them a total transformation, not of the their
‘““were ex-
describing shamanizing,
mind alone, but of the as well. As
body cellent actors.
Standing or
kneeling be-
Gusinde learned among the Ona: “The side the patient, gazing intently at the
whole external of the medi-
appearance spot where the pain was situated, the doc-
cine man is but an illusion. He is not tor would allow a look of horror to come

made, as we are, of skin, bone, flesh, and over his face. he could see
Evidently
blood, but of a
thin, skinlike outer cover- invisible to the rest of His
something us.

ing, beneath which his whole interior is

approach might be slow or he might
filled with a
soft, light substance that most as afraid that the evil
pounce, though
closely resembles—according to an that had caused the
image thing trouble would
of the Indians themselves—the most del- With his hands he would
escape. try to
icate feather-down . . .
of which sub- the into
gather malign presence one
part
stance, when at work healing, he may on of the the
patient’s body—generally
occasion forth a And it
bring particle®!. . .

chest—where he would then apply his

is thanks to this strange condition that mouth and suck Sometimes this
violently.
medicine men
possess the power of un- went on for an to be
struggle hour, re-

hindered motion. Upon them there are no later. At other times the
peated joén
limitations, either of solid bodies or of would draw from his with
away patient
great distances. Their power of sight can the pretence of
holding something in his
penetrate any object and traverse mouth with his hands. fac-
any Then, always
reach of space.’ from the he
ing away encampment,
When the moved would take his hands
young aspirant, by from his mouth,
the that has come to him, to an
song goes gripping them tightly together, and, with 286. The male initiation rites of the Ona were con-

elder for instruction, the ducted in a

special lodge of the men’s society, the
accomplished a
guttural shout difficult to describe and
from which women and
master his own kloketen, were excluded;
begins by singing song, impossible to spell, fling this invisible ob- associated with the mystifications of this institution
kneading and squeezing his own
body ject to the ground and stamp fiercely were a number of such Hallowe’en spooks as we see

until, in a state of the half-con- it. here. These would from time to
highest upon Occasionally a little mud, some apparitions appear
scious he brings forth a time, ranging through the bush of areas about the
agitation, parcel flint, or even
tiny, a
very young mouse
men’s house, and any woman or child
seeing one or
of his own substance about the size of the
might be produced of the as the cause more of them was to suppose that they were the
head of a
child—soft, white, and like the I inhabitants of the k/i6keten with whom the held
patient’s indisposition. myself have men

down—which he then transfers converse in their meetings. An important moment in

lightest never seen a mouse
figure in one of these
the initiations of a
boy took place when he was com-
to the other’s body by pressing and rub-
performances, but they were
quite com- pelled to get up and wrestle with one of these char-
it in. There it to
bing begins immediately mon.
Perhaps when I was there the doc- acters, who would let the youngster put him down,
take effect, and in the course of the next tor had failed to find a mouse’s nest.’’® after which the masquerade was uncovered, and the
boy turned into a man. There was a
legend of the
four or so it works a trans- An
years complete occasion to observe a
considerably kidketen having been originally of the women, but
formation. in the it
Commencing belly, more
mysterious exhibition of the sha- taken and kept from them by the men.

fills the the

the breast, head, legs, and manic arts occurred when a celebrated
finally the arms. Meanwhile, the power of
jo6n named Houshken, who had never When he
brought them away, they were

is and exercises
sight increasing are un- seen a white man
before, was induced to
palms downward and some inches apart.
dertaken to enhance it. And toward the on a Here follows We saw that of
put performance. a
strip guanaco hide,
end of the time, the novice
training gives Bridge’s account: about the thickness of a leather bootlace,
himself more and more to his dreams, “Our conversation—as was the was now held in his hands. It
always loosely
until the comes him of in such
experience upon case
meetings—was slow, with
passed over
his thumbs, under the palms
being taken by over the the between
waiyuwen, long pauses sentences, as
though of his half-closed hands, and was
looped
soul- or
spirit-substance of some earlier for deep I told Houshken that I his
thought. over little
fingers so that about three
medicine man; with that the initiate’s own had heard of his and would inches of end
down from
great powers hung each
personality is wiped out; so that hence- like to see some of his He did not hand. The strip appeared to be not
magic. more

forth, it will not be he who acts, but the refuse but answered mod-
my request, than eighteen inches long.
waiyuwen of that earlier shaman acting estly that he was
disinclined, the Ona “Without pulling the strip tight,
through him.” way of saying that he might try to do it
by Houshken now
began to shake his hands
E. Lucas the second son of the and
Bridges, by. violently, gradually bringing them farther
couple who in 1871 “After
courageous stepped allowing a
quarter of an hour to
apart, until the strip, with the two ends
ashore with their infant
daughter among elapse, Houshken said he was
thirsty and still showing, was about four feet long.
the of in-
Yahgans Beagle Channel, was went down to the
nearby a stream for He then called his brother, Chashkil, who
vited by his
Ona friends to to be- drink. It
study was a
bright moonlight night and took the end from his right hand and
come a shaman. But after an the
unpromising snow the ground
on
helped to make stepped back with it. From four feet, the
beginning, he thought better of the invi- the scene of the exhibition we were about
strip now grew out of Houshken’s left
tation, for, as he explains: “Medicine men to witness as as On his hand double that
light day. return, to
length. Then, as
ran
great dangers. When persons in their Houshken sat down and broke into a mo- Chashkil it
stepped forward, disappeared
prime died from no visible cause, the notonous chant, which went on until sud- back into Houshken’s hand, until he was

‘family doctor’ would often cast

suspi- he his hands to his mouth.
denly put able to take the other end from his

162
 4
a4

Fj

FI

brother. With the continued almost

agitation of opaque object between them. It
tiny mice, mud, sharp flints or even a

his hands, the shorter and was about an inch in diameter in the mid- into the anat-
strip got jelly-fish or
baby octopus
shorter. when his hands were dle and into his hands. It of those who had incurred its
Suddenly, tapered away omy
mas-

almost together, he them to his might have been a of ter’s I have

clapped piece semi-transpar- displeasure. seen a
strong
uttered ent elastic, but whatever
mouth, a
prolonged shriek, then dough or it was man shudder involuntarily at
thoughtthe
held out his hands to us, it seemed to be alive,
palms upward revolving at great of this horror and its evil potentialities. It
and while Houshken, from curious fact
empty. speed, apparently was a that, although every
“Even an ostrich could not have swal- muscular tension, was vio- must have known himself to be
trembling magician
lowed those feet of hide at lently. fraud and he believed
eight one
gulp a
a trickster, always
without visible effort. Where else the coil “Themoonlight was bright enough to in and feared the
greatly supernatural
could have to I do not read by as I
gazed at this abilities of other medicine men.’’*°
gone profess to strange object.
know. It could have Houshken his hands further What
not
gone up Housh- brought Lucas Bridges had been shown,
ken’s sleeve, for he had dropped his robe apart and the object grew more and more of course, was
a living particle of that soft,
when the performance began [and, like transparent, until, when some three inches
light, interior substance “‘like delicate
all male Onas without their robes, was separated his hands, I realized that it was
feather-down,” the of which
waiyuwen,
naked]. There were between and not there any more. It did not break or Father Gusinde later learned.
twenty
men but nine burst like a
bubble; it The Ona shamans undertook
thirty only eight
present, or
simply disappeared, ascen-

Houshken’s been visible to for less than five

were
people. The rest were having me sions to the Moon when she appeared red
far from seconds. Houshken made sudden
being friends of the performer no in the
sky, which was taken to be
a certain
and all had been movement, but his hands
watching intently. Had slowly opened sign of her displeasure with mankind and
and turned them for
they detected some
simple trick, the great over
my inspection. her intention to send some sort of
plague.
medicine would have lost his influ- looked clean and dry. He was stark On such the
man
They nights various waiyuwen of
ence; would no have believed naked and there was no confederate be- all the Ona shamans of Tierra del Fuego
they longer
in any of his side him. I
glanced down at the snow, would be in to her, to her.
magic. flight appease
“The demonstration not and, in of his stoicism, Houshken For the Moon is shaman her-
was
yet over. spite a
powerful
Houshken stood and resumed his could not resist a
chuckle, for was
self, and send down death life at
up nothing can or

robe. Once he broke into a chant to be seen there. will. The Sun-Man is even more
again power-
and seemed to
go into a
trance, “The others had crowded round us
ful, and when he makes known his wrath
possessed
not his and, the there
by some
spirit own.
Drawing him- as
object disappeared, was
by turning a
burning red or
by going into
self to his full he took a
frightened from them. the shamans duck into their
up height, a
step gasp among eclipse, even
towards me and let his robe, his Housken reassured them with the re- huts and wait in silence for his mood to
only gar-
ment, fall to the He his hands mark: ‘Do not let it trouble I shall call for, so is the Sun-Man
ground. put you. pass; powerful
to his mouth with it back to should
a most
impressive ges- myself again.’ that, they send up their waiyuwen,
ture and them with “The natives believed this to be an in- he would burn them out of existence.*
brought away again
his fists clenched and thumbs close to- credibly malignant spirit belonging to, or Lucas learned that not the
Bridges only
gether. He held them up to the height of possibly part of, the jodén from whom it sun and moon, but also mountains, trees,
and when less than emanated. It might take physical form, as and animals, could be shamans. There
my eyes, they were
two feet from face drew them we had just witnessed, or be totally invis- was a mountain near his father’s mission
my slowly
I saw that there was ible. It had the to introduce insects, at Ushuaia, that
apart. now a
small, power on
Beagle Channel, was

163
 thought to be a witch. To show her ill will,
she could conjure up a storm.® He also
tells of once
shot, in the
having high
mountains, a
solitary guanaco, which he
and his Indian then discov-
companions
ered had been alone in a small cave.
living
“These recluses, the
guanaco braving
winter in the mountains alone,” he
long
declares, ‘were rare. That night,
. . .

very
discussing the matter round our
camp-
fire, I suggested that the hermit might
have remained there alone in the cave to

study magic.
guanaco laugh- Instead of

ing, my companions agreed, with serious

expressions on their faces, that this was
quite likely.’’®
Thus, among the utterly primitive
hunting, fishing, and gathering tribes of
the southernmost inhabited pieces of land
on this planet Earth, some
eighteen or

of the features of shaman-

twenty typical
ism have been identified by two
qualified
observers as follows:

1. The summons received in solitude

from spirits of the wilderness

2. An association of song with this

enchantment

3. Its
compulsive character, illness and
death ensuing if it be disregarded
4. The association of a
especial spiritual
familiar with this call

5. Its healing by way of a long season of

intensive spiritual training
6. The sense
thereby of an inward

physical transubstantiation
7. The of
gaining thereby supernatural
powers

The powers thus gained are:

8. To see and to move

through barriers
and across distances

9. To mediate between man and the

supernatural
10. To advise and in the search for
guide
game
287. Colored nineteenth-century 11. To whether and
heal, by massage
engraving of a Siberian shaman
suction, or
by spiritual flights to the
clothed in a costume hung with ani-
heavenly sources of the ill will; for
mal skins, embroidered, and berib-
boned with a of magical example, the moon
miscellany
features. Compare Catlin’s painting 12. To occult means:
injure by projecting
of a
similarly festooned Mandan
stones and other objects into enemies
“Wolf Shaman” (Figure 406, page
13. To
perform magic by sleight of hand or
239).
by actual necromancy
14. To assume the forms of animals or of
mountains

In relation to this last faculty, there are:

15. The power of animals, mountains,

288. The Sorcerer, an
engraving and
in 1590 trees, such, to shamanize
published by Theodore de
Bry from a watercolor
by John White, 16. The power of shamans (whether
made in 1585,
during his visit to Wal- human, animal, vegetable, or
ter Raleigh’s
colony at Roanoke, Vir-
to influence the weather.
ginia (see pages
geological)
209-213). “They
have sorcerers or
jugglers,” states
the commentary, “who use
strange Also to be noted as
typical shamanistic
gestures and whose enchantments conditions are:
often go against the laws of nature.
. . .
A smail black bird is fastened
above one of their ears as a of
17. The vicious atmosphere of rivalry and
badge
office.” malice between practicing shamans

164
 18. Schools of shamans dedicated to the
search and fostering of talents
likely
19. Perfected shamans who undertake the
initiation of the young

Still another feature noted

important by
Gusinde is:

20. The shaman’s reliance on dreams for

information and warnings

Regarding this last point, the dreams to

which the shaman pays attention are

unexceptionally those evil. In

foreboding
such he believes that he is being shown
the hostile intentions of his enemies,
whether professional rivals or mem-
_
lay
bers of his tribe.” For, as
Bridges also rec-

ognized, the shaman’s life is beset on

every hand by danger.

When this considerable list is compared
with the above-numbered nine of the sha-
of the
mans
156), only the
caves
(see page
following of that list are here
missing: (2)
the animal costume, (7) the (possible)
wand or
staff, and (9) the (possible) ani-
mal sacrifice. The function of the ritual
dance (1) is served here the
by enspelling
song, while the passage into full trance (4)
is reduced to the state of a semitrance.
The animal transformation (3), mastery of
the game animals (5), supervision of initi-
ations (6), and the animal-familiar (8) re-
main. The additional fourteen or so fea-
tures of the Tierra del Fuegian series are

such as could not have been illus-

readily
trated in the rock art; more than a few,
nevertheless, must have been known.
The arts of
healing by massage and suc-

tion, and by spiritual flights to celestial

realms, as we have already seen, were

practiced by the Bushmen, who were also

inheritors of the cavern legacy. The voca-

tional call
by way of a summons from

spirits of the wilderness is recorded of the

Andamanese. Reasonably, these may be
assumed to have been features of a com-

mon Paleolithic inheritance, surviving

the most
widely
among separated prim-
itive alive to this
peoples remaining day. 289. One chieftain, wearing the usual cap and robe
Between the Bushman and Tierra del
of guanaco fur. As hunters of the guanaco, the Ona
Fuegian branches of this ancient
heritage, dwelt chiefly inland, on the main island of Tierra del
an
important distinction is evident in the Fuego.
contrast between the communal accent of
the African rites (the women seated in a

circle, singing, while the men dance

around them and go into trance), and the

solitary experiences and exercises of the

South American masters. The relation be-
tween the Bushman of the
experience
heating and rising of the ntum to trance

(see page 94) and the Tierra del of

Fuegian
the transubstantiation of the shaman’s

body has not, as far as I know, been stud-

ied. Nor do we know what to think of the

possible relation of the

haunting child-
hood experience of the Kentucky woman

(page 161) and the mystic summonses re-

ported generally of shamans.

165
 +NorthPole
Only a little less remote than Tierra del

Fuego from the painted

are the coasts of glaciated
caves of Europe
Greenland;
J

®
ARCTIC
OCEAN

oe a
AA %

ATLANTIC
yet twle\ GREENLAND/ a

~/
OCEAN

there again one meets shamans, called ‘

p East

and trained in much the same

way as Yuits
Lg
—

#2 Greenland

Bering
rat
FXEskimo
Sea
those of the southernmost inhabited piece
of the earth. Knud Rasmussen, in his trek f
Farewell
oj?Cape
from Greenland to Alaska across the
whole of arctic North America in the early
1920s, collected from the shamans of Labrador
Sea
those an series of ac-
parts extraordinary PACIFIC
counts of their summonses and
visionary OCEAN

ordeals. ‘When father he

=
my died,” was

told, for example, the best-known and The Aleut-Eskimo

by
most feared of the Greenland shamans of Domain

that time, Autdaruta by name, “I often "|

1
Extent of contemporary
Eskimo presence

went out for long rambles among the g Aleut presence

hills, because I felt that I had been left Approximate boundaries

of multi-tribe groups
alone. It was at the season when stone- Yuits Tribe groups

springs and I it, to International boundaries

crop up, gathered pre-
serve in blubber for the winter.
“One day, up among the rocks, I heard
someone Map 36. The earliest confirmed evidence of a true
to Ilooked, but could
begin sing; Eskimo culture is from Umnak Island in the Aleu-
see no one. ‘Now should I have
why tians, c. 1000 B.c. The occupation of the whole Amer-
heard this I to
song?’ thought myself, and ican Arctic seems to have beenaccomplished by the
went home. The next towards first centuries A.D., and a
fairly constant population of
morning, to seems then to have been main-
I went 40,000 50,000
daybreak, up again to the hills, and
tained in scattered enclaves throughout the region.
then I heard the same it
thing again; was

someone
beginning to sing. ‘Now why is
this to me?’ I
happening thought. Just
then I saw two men
coming toward me.
make a of me. We went
were inland-dwellers. ‘We great magician
They are
sorry and the
for you, because
ashore up a
fjord, close to a cave,
you are an
orphan,’ they old man took off his clothes and crept
said; and so they became my first helping
inside. And he told me to watch carefully
spirits. Then I began to be a magician, but
did not
speak to anyone about it.
what happened next. I lay hidden
a little
“The next we moved south: that way off and waited. It was not
long before
year
Isaw a bear come
swimming
was in the season when the small birds great [polar]
and the
come, and we settled down in along, crawl ashore, approach
company It itself
with old and magician. flung upon him,
an much venerated
magi- crunched him limb for limb, and ate
cian. He could not stand and up,
upright, him. Then it vomited him out and
could walk his again
only by propping up swam
away.
thighs with his arms. He could not
carry
“When I went
up to the cave, the old
his and down himself, and it
kayak up so man
lay groaning. He was very much ex-
came about that I used to him. One
help but able
he came and said to ‘Travel
hausted, was to row himself
day me, east
home. On the way, he told me that
with me, and I will teach every
you something. time he allowed himself to be devoured
You yet need father-
may help, my poor,
alive the bear he
less
boy.’ So we traveled and he by acquired greater
together, over his
told me on the that he was to power helping spirits.
way going “Some time he took
afterward, me

again on
journey a and this time it was so

that I be eaten the bear.

myself might by
290. Polar bear of walrustusk ivory. Dorset culture, This was
necessary if I wished to attain to
Melville Peninsula, Iglulik area, c. a.p. 1200. Both the
any good. We rowed off and came to the
posture and the skeleton in the x-ray style have
shamanic associations. Compare the polar bear of
cave. The old man told me to take my
the Eskimo Autdaruta’s shamanic initiation clothes
(see off, and I do not
deny that I was
text). somewhat uncomfortable at the
thought
of devoured alive. I had not been
291. Ivory bow drill from Norton Sound showing being
shamans drumming inside a house and, outside, a
lying there long before I heard the bear
magnificent catch of whales. It attacked me and crunched
coming. me

166
 limb
up, by limb, joint by joint, but
strangely enough it did not hurt at all. It
6
was
only when it bit me in the heart that it .
oy
did hurt
frightfully. From that day forth I
LO “S33

felt that I ruled my helping spirits. After

Ay
r
that I
acquired many fresh helping spirits
and no
danger could any longer threaten
me

ra w

> . .
L

”!
me, as I was vy ae “4
always protected.” Soe
The Animal Master of the .

circumpolar i Se

north has here become the initiator of a

shaman. An venerated
externally figure,
that is to
say, of the folk cultures of the

region has been

experienced inwardly by
a
hypersensitive individual in a
symbolic
role of the most
profound personal im-
port. We term such a
may displacement
from an outward to an inward space “the ny5 7 ~

Zz.
crisis of the an ? .

object,’””using expression e 2 v
¥
coined
.

by the surrealist artist Salvador

& f os
Dali in the 1920s, when a bold 2.
generation
of was re-
twentieth-century painters
covering for Western man the under-
fy
of art
standing discipline of
as a the inter-
er i
face between
waking consciousness and
a
a .
/
.

night, as is shamanic song. Such an inter- =

t\
iorization, furthermore, is an intrinsic ele-
ment of the which
‘‘mystical way,” opens
when the
generally venerated images and
clichés of a
popular cult—revered exter-

nally as
agents and formulas for the pro-
duction of health, wealth, progeny, vic- this master shaman, who now 292. Eskimo shaman in
young, flight, empowered by his
tories, and served initiator well healer and animal familiars. Eskimo drawing by Jessie Oonark,
good weather—become, as an as as
1971.
through a crisis of introjection, operative seer, had been visited by dreams that he
as
living symbols, initiating and enabling could not understand. As summarized by
a
spiritual transformation. The essential Rasmussen: him as before. He fasted now for fifteen
in all such crises is of death and
experience a
“Strange unknown beings came
days, when he was
given another drink of
and resurrection: death to the Old Adam he
spoke to him, and when he awoke, water and a
very small piece of meat,
(to use a technical Christian term) and saw all the visions of his dream so dis- which had to last him a further ten
days.
rebirth in the
image of the New, in Christ. that he could tell his fellows all At the end of this his instructor
tinctly period,
In such primitive initiation rites as
those, about them. Soon it became evident to all came for him and fetched him home. Igju-
for instance of the Aranda (see that he was destined to become an an- declared that the strain of those
pages garjuk
the is of death
142-144), sense a to
infancy gakog, and an old man named Perqanaoq thirty days of cold and fasting was so se-

and return to life as men. was his instructor. In the vere that he ‘sometimes died little.’ Dur-
Significantly, appointed depth a
the shamanic crisis of winter, when the cold most all that time he
psychological typi- was severe, ing thought only of the

cally occurs with a small Great and endeavored his

approaching puberty. Igjugarjuk was placed on
sledge, Spirit, to
keep
The affected in other under- him
child, words, just large enough for to sit on, and mind free from all memory of human
the transformation carried far from his home to the and
goes spontaneously away beings everyday things. Toward the
that in the cult is other side of On the end of the
general ritually imposed; Hikoligjuaq. reaching thirty days there came to hima
and since: it inward is and he remained seated on in the of
intimately appointed spot, helping spirit shape a woman.

the the sledge while his instructor built She came while he was
spontaneous, shamanic-mystical ex- a
tiny asleep and seemed
perience is of a more authentic snow hut, with room for him to sit to hover in the air above him. After that
deeper, barely
kind than the outward ritu- He was not allowed to set he dreamed of her, but she be-
anything cross-legged. no more

als can produce. Hence, in tribal foot on the snow, but was lifted from the came his For five months
many helping spirit.
it is the medicine
cultures, men, the sledge and carried into the hut, where a
following this period of trial, he was kept
who the for him
‘“‘dreamers,’’ are
principal piece of skin just large enough to on the strictest diet, and required to ab-
custodians and of the sit on served as a No food or drink stain from all intercourse with
expositors myths carpet. women.

on which the rites he exhorted to think The then

repose. was
given him; was
fasting was repeated; for such
In the wastes of central Canada, of the Great and of the fasts at intervals the best
just only Spirit helping frequent are

west of Hudson
Bay, Rasmussen that should so he was means of attaining to of hid-
gained spirit appear—and knowledge
the confidence of Igjugarjuk, a Caribou left to himself and his meditations.. den As a matter of fact, there is no
things.
Eskimo whose in Ras- “After five had the in- limit to the
shaman, people, days elapsed, period of study; it depends on
mussen’s the
view, were most
primitive structor
brought him a drink of lukewarm how much one is
willing to suffer and
”
encountered on the When water, and with similar exhortations, left anxious to learn.”
expedition.
The accent solitude,
upon suffering,
and silence in this
TE met tate perhaps exaggerated
eePetre te ieee

account of an older man his

remembering
youth was
matched, when Rasmussen
reached Nome, Alaska, in the life story of
another old shaman, Najagneq, who had

167
 293. The Caribou Eskimo Igjugarjuk, who de-
scribed to Knud Rasmussen the thirty-day ordeal of
solitude, silence, and fasting of his shamanic initia-
tion (see page 167).

294. Eskimo shaman’s drum and drumstick, West

Alaska. The figure serving as the handle is in the x-

ray style, cut open to exhibit ribs and inner organs.

The shamans of Tierra del had
Fuego no drums, nor

do we find any drums depicted in Paleolithic art. The

invention belongs, apparently, to a
secondary devel-
opment in the shamanic tradition.

been released from in

just a
year jail. For shore to
fortify myself in solitude by Our usual association of the spiritual
these fearless fellows were not to
®
life with in the modern of
exactly prayer Almighty God.” Each of his “virtue,” sense

saints. When the Caribou Es- solitude and the word

primitive own
familiar, one
might say. as
referring to “moral excellence
kimo in his had de-
Igjugarjuk, youth, Najagneq, the old shaman just released and practice,’” breaks down here. If ap-
cided to take to wife a certain whose from jail in Nome, had been all
girl apprehended plied at to the spirituality of the sha-
family objected to the union, he and his for
murdering seven or
eight members of man, “virtue” must be read in the earlier
brother lay in not far from the his village, where he had made fortress and
hiding a now archaic sense of the word as

young woman’s hut, and from there shot of his house and from there to “the influence
waged war on referring supernatural
down her father, mother, brothers, and the whole of his tribe. Taken exerted a divine
by stratagem or
power by being.’”’ The
sisters—seven or in all—until the of
eight only by captain a
ship, he had been fer- elementary mythology of shamanism,
the girl whom he wanted remained. Aut- ried to Nome and held in
jail until ten that is to say, is neither of truth and false-
daruta, in Greenland, had such a witnesses of his could be fetched hood of
grim killings nor
good and evil, but of
degrees
tally of murders to his credit that a Cath- from his settlement to accuse him. of achieved
Brought power: power by breaking
olic zealous to instruct him, before them, small
missionary, Najagneq’s piercing through the walls of space and barriers of
reported of their confrontations: ‘“Some- eyes met theirs. His jaw
hung in a slack time to sources unavailable to others. Sha-
times I have a
feeling that it is Satan incar-
bandage, his face having been injured by manic combat is but one manifestation of
nate that I have before me.”’ Indeed, on a man who had tried to kill him. And this interest. The use of tricks and
magical
one occasion, when about to meet his when the ten who had come to to and intimidate the
expressly deceptions impress
cluster of catechumens, the was rid of him met his look in the witness uninitiated
priest get represents another. The cru-

seized with such before

aterror facing this box, they lowered their eyes in shame, cial characteristic of this power quest is in
that he “I
man wrote: was
obliged to let the
charges were dropped, and the case its will and
disciplines toward the mastery
them wait while I went down to the sea- was dismissed. of is to of the sha-
spirits—which say,

168
 295. The Alaskan shaman Najagneq, who in Nome
revealed to Rasmussen the message to be heard in
the gentle voice of silam inua, the inhabiting soul of
the universe. His jaw was broken by a man attempt-
ing to kill him (see page 168).
ie

age

Serna

296. The Spirit of Water Bubbles, an Eskimo mask

from West Alaska before 1900. The realm into which
the shaman is transported by the sound of his drum
is of such spirits: mythic apparitions from behind and
within the appearances of things.

man’s own and of the

projected personified pests sea, through all the forces that and
suffering alone can
open the mind of
””

ur spiritual resources. And the fruits of man fears, or calm a man to all that is hidden to others.’
through sunshine,
these in the not of
conquests, way only seas, or
small, innocent, playing children When pressed concerning the mystery of
but also of what the Ice- who
self-knowledge understand nothing. When times are Sila, or silam inua, “the inhabitant or soul
landic skalds knew as “the wisdom of the Sila has of the
good, nothing to say to mankind. (nua) universe,” the old Alaskan
runes,’” were sometimes impressive He has his infinite shaman
disappeared into noth- Najagneq replied: ‘All we know
indeed.
ingness and remains away as
long as
peo- is that it has a
gentle voice like a woman,

Najagneq, for example, had frequently ple do not abuse life but have respect for a voice so fine and gentle that even chil-
employed deceptions to
protect himself their food. No one has ever seen dren cannot become afraid. What it says
daily
from his neighbors by playing on their Sila. His place of is so is: sila ‘be not afraid of
sojourn mysterious ersinarsinivdluge,
’””

superstitions, and he was not afraid to that he is with us and far the universe.’
®

infinitely away
admit that he had made an art of pulling at the same time.” To which Rasmussen
their legs. But when Rasmussen asked if comments: words sound like
““Najagneq’s
he really believed in any of all the powers an echo of the wisdom we admired in the
to which he pretended, he replied: ‘Yes, old shamans encountered and Gillen have that
we
everywhere Spencer reported
a that we call Sila, one that cannot travels—in harsh in Australia, the Aranda, those
power on our
King William’s among
be explained in so many words. A strong Land or in Aua’s festive snow hut at Hud- transformed into medicine men are
sup-
spirit, the upholder of the universe, of the son
Bay, or in the primitive Eskimo Igju- posed to have had crystals intro-
magic
weather, in fact all life on earth—so duced their bodies either
garjuk, whose pithy maxim was: ‘The into by spirits of
that his to man comes not the Dream
mighty speech only true wisdom lives far from mankind, Time or
by other medicine
through ordinary words, but through out in the and it be men. There is a cave near Alice
great loneliness, can
Springs
storms, snowfall, rain showers, the tem- that
reached
only through suffering. Privation is
supposed to be
occupied by such

169
spirits, and when a man feels that he is
stick is driven under the nail of the
of their
deeply
capable enduring transformation, middle of his
he alone
finger right hand, making a
goes to its entrance and lies hole into which
down there
a
crystal is seemingly
to
sleep. At break of one
day, pressed. Two more
scorings of his body
of the spirits, coming to the mouth of the are executed that day; he is given water to
and
cave
finding him there, hurls at him drink in which there are
crystals to be
an invisible lance that strikes and pene- swallowed as well as meat to eat in which
trates his neck from behind, goes through he is to believe there are also crystals; and
his tongue, and leaves there an actual the there
hole
next
day is more
scoring, drink-
large enough to admit the little fin- and The third
ing, eating. day, after yet
ger. A second lance goes through his head another he is told to stand with
from to
scoring,
ear ear, and, falling dead, he is his hands behind his back and his tongue
carried into the which is sup-
deep cave, out as far as it will go. The initiator then
posed to run to a
spot beneath the Edith to take a from the back of
pretends crystal
Range some 10 miles distant. There the his own neck and with this carves a hole
spirit removes his internal organs and im- in the other’s tongue. The initiate is now

plants an entirely new set, along with a

in a certain and told to re-
painted way
supply of after which the
magical stones, main in the men’s camp until his wounds
man returns to life, but in a condition of have healed, his thumb
keeping right
insanity. He is led back to his
village by pressed, all the while, against the hole in
the spirit, who is invisible to all but the his right middle finger, lest all the
most
crystals
gifted medicine men and to
dogs, now inside of him escape.” His shaman-
and after certain number of
days, the
a
izing—even after all of this—will never be
man
paints himself in a certain way and as effective as that of the men and women
the state of ends. For a he
insanity year, initiated
by spirits. He will have gained a
does not
practice, but consorts with other certain
prestige, however, and will have
medicine men and from them
acquires .

the power to
project lethal splinters of
their secrets, ‘“which consist,” state
Spen- crystal into his enemies and to cure
by
cer and Gillen, in the
“principally ability suction.
to hide about his and to
person produce The Western Aranda believe that, be-
at will small or bits of stick;
quartz pebbles sides
having a
body full of crystals, the
and, of less than this
hardly importance healer also has inside him a
particular
sleight of hand, the power of
looking pre- kind of lizard, supposedly endowed with
ternaturally solemn, as if he were the pos- suctorial
great power.” Moreover, among
of
sessor
knowledge *
quite hidden from
tribes west of the MacDonnell Ranges, the
men.” If this the
ordinary during period medicine man can assume the form of an
hole in the tongue closes, his virtues have
eagle-hawk, fly long distances at
night,
departed and he will not Other-
practice. and
bring suffering and death to the peo-
wise, so
long as the stones remain inside
ple of enemy tribes by digging into them
him, he is able to them, either to
project his sharp claws.‘
heal or to How the hole in the
injure.
297. Shaman of the Aranda tribe of Central Aus-
is
tongue really made, Spencer and Gillen of but filled
it is
tralia. body is
His not as ordinary men
remark, impossible to
say, but it is with quartz and endowed with incorruptible
crystals
always present in the medicine internal Not all the elements of what to
genuine organs. appears
man.” (See Figure 298.) have been a shared of ‘‘tech-
heritage
A second sort of a sec- of from the period of the
spirit, inspiring niques ecstasy”’
ond order of medicine man, takes Paleolithic caves have been
aspi- Upper equally
rants instead of into well retained and cultivated in all the
underground a
deep ter-
cave. Initiation by other medicine men, minal of the tradition: South
provinces
however, is a
very different affair. The Africa, in the trance dances of the Kala-
aspirant is taken to a secluded and hari Bushmen; Tierra del in the
spot Fuego,
told to stand with hands behind and visions of the Ona and
clasped songs Yahgan
his head and not to make sound. Small
magicians; arctic America and Greenland,
a

drawn from in the

quartz crystals, (apparently) mystic realizations of the rugged
the bodies of the initiators, are
placed in challengers of the polar ice; and Australia,
the hollow of a
spear thrower. The aspir- where the tradition seems to have de-
ant is from behind and, one volved into sort of sadomasochistic
clasped by a
par-
one, the crystals are taken from the of itself. Father Gusinde’s observa-
spear ody
thrower and pressed slowly and strongly tion that in Tierra del Fuego the medicine
the front of his
along legs and up his body men’s protective spirits have nothing
to his breast bone. This scoring is re- whatever to do with the High God of their
three times, it being supposed that traditions
peated contrasts
radically with Ras-

by this means the crystals are forced into mussen’s report of the role of Sila in Na-
his
body. The man is next told to lie down
jagneq’s thinking. It is
possible that Gus-
on his back and a is made of pro- inde
pretext simply failed to
penetrate as
deeply
jecting crystals into his head; after this, as Rasmussen into the secrets of shamanic
his legs,
body, and arms are
subjected to thought and experience. It is also possi-
another and a
ble, the other that the shamans
scoring, crystal placed 298. Aranda shaman the hole in his
on hand,
exhibiting
against his head is struck hard, as though tongue that was made by an invisible lance hurled by
of Rasmussen’s area
may themselves
to drive it into his skull. Next, a pointed spirits of the cave in which he received initiation. have more than did
penetrated deeply

170
those of Gusinde’s into the
report, mys-
teries of their inward life. But in any case,
from Rasmussen’s Eskimo four
findings
distinct, yet related, levels of shamanic

mythic thinking can be identified, the

profoundest being of an ‘‘ul-

unqualified
timate ground,” experienced by the sha-
man as at once immanent and transcen-

dent, not
grasped but only suggested in
images and speech: something very much
more like the ntum of the African Bush-
man and the megbe of the than
Pygmies
like the High God of any monotheism, or

the God of academic

Sky anthropology.
One has to wonder, indeed, whether
either locked the
a
missionary image of to
his own
Almighty God, or an
anthropol-
ogist professionally bound to the con-

cepts of positivistic science would be able

to
recognize and follow a
truly mystical
and statement, even if he
transtheological Pe
te cael
ye
heard As remarked
one.
by Ananda K. Pee
nd
ae

Soe
nan.
eae:
ae

Coomaraswamy: “To have lost the art of

in is to have lost
thinking images precisely
the proper
linguistic of metaphysics and
to have descended to the verbal
’’
logic of
‘philosophy.’ And as a
consequence, in
his view, our to
general inability recog-
nize the
metaphysical content of primitive
traditions “is
primarily due to our own
abysmal ignorance of metaphysics and of
17
its technical terms.”
The second level of the shamanic mythic
ambient, then, is that of those personal
guardians, helpers, and familiars who

capture and bind the imagination; and if

the first level can be termed metaphysical,
truly mystical, this second is more prop-
erly psychological, being conditioned both village to Nome,
although knowing only 299. An East Siberian Yakut shaman invoking his
familiar spirits, beating his single-headed drum,
by cultural and by intimately personal cir- earth kayaks, and sledges, he was
huts,
preparatory to passing into the trance of his
cumstance. It may finally open to trans- not
impressed at all by the large houses, shamanizing.
personal, transcultural, metaphysical re- steamers, and automobiles, but fasci-
alizations by way of a pathological “crisis nated by the
sight of a white horse haul-
of the object’’ (as defined, page 167), ing a
big lorry; and when his villagers
which then becomes racial or institu-
a
destiny, setting the then arrived to accuse and undo him, he ample—the exploitative,
well masculine-sexual accent,
affected spiritually and even announced them that the white tional,
one to man as as
physi-
from the of his had killed him ten times that but has been to such a dominant that
cally apart commonality winter, degree
There features that he had had ten else has been structured to
race. are
many mysterious as
helping spirits everything
associated with the of white horses which he had sacrificed one it.
phenomenology support
this level, occult features suggesting the by one, saving thus his life. ‘““He was no

actual acquisition of such powers as the humbug,” is Ostermann’s comment, “but

Hindu yogis claim (and may, in fact, to a
solitary man accustomed to hold his
some But there is also own and therefore had to The historical development of shaman-
measure, acquire). against many
1
ism that took in Central Asia
a
great deal of quackery involved; and it is have his little tricks.” place among
with this that we come to the We call the first of these four levels the Neo-Siberian Tungus, Vogul, Yakut,
recognition may
of level three: that of the mythological the ‘metaphysical’; the second, the ‘“psy- Ostyak, and Buriat tribes brought into

image of the shaman, created in the pop-

chological’; the third, the “social-histori- play a number of spectacular, post-Paleo-
lithic ritual and
ular mind
by mystifications, theatrical cal’; and the fourth, the “exploitative.” mythic forms, which,
and illusionism, And not only in the matter of shamanism, however, did not alter the essential sense
scenes, sleight-of-hand
the effects of which, back but of of the but, the
mythic and
turn in every on
however, department experience contrary,
the mind of the shaman himself and these four levels can it accent. ‘“When I shamanize,” said
upon religious schooling, gave
become the aids and of his be distinguished. That which is the Tungus shaman Semyonov Semyon,
generators properly
own translation to of moment for a historical atlas, of course, when interviewed in his home on the
ecstasy.
Lower in the of
The fourth level of the shamanic range is the social-historical, treating of the var-
Tunguska River spring
is, of those and iations in time and of the forms 1925, “the spirit of deceased brother
finally, spooks powers space my
invented intimidate and and mouth.
psychological and
to which meta- comes
deliberately through Ilya speaks through my
hold at the H. Oster- realizations are and ex-
My shaman forefathers, too have forced
bay philistines. physical inspired
Rasmussen’s But the other three be me to walk the of shamanism. Before
mann, posthumous editor, pressed. cannot path
tells of the old shaman that dismissed. And in traditions—the I commenced to shamanize, I
lay sick for
Najagneq, some

when he was from his distant biblical, for a whole I became a shaman at the
brought Judeo-Christian-Muslim, ex- year:

171
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tribe or
ethnic gkoup
Americanoid family PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF MONGOLIA

Map 37. The peoples named above are classified

“Up above there is a certain tree,” this
according to linguistic affiliations. Of those named, same shaman continued to his inter-
the Finno-Urgic, Turkic, Tunguso-Manchurian, and
Mongolian are of the Uralo-Altaic viewer, G. V. Ksenofontov, a Russianized
family, while the
Paleo-Siberians and Aleut-Eskimo are Americanoid. full-blooded “a tree where the
Yakut,
Until Russian colonization in the mid-seventeenth souls of the shamans are reared before
century, there were three distinct domains of rein-
deer-herders (in the Arctic), as well as one of horse they attain their powers. And on the
and cattle breeders (in the south): (1) Northwest of boughs of this tree are nests in which the
the Ob:
Finn-Urgic Lapps and Komi, Voguls and souls lie and are attended. The name of
Ostyaks; (2) From the Ob to the Sea of Okhotsk:
the tree is Tuuru. The the
Turkic Samoyeds and Yakuts, Tunguso-Manchurian higher nest in
Tungus and Lamuts, this tree, the will the shaman be
Mongolian Buriats and Mon- stronger
gols, Paleo-Siberian Kets and Gilyak; (3) Northeast who is raised in it, the more will he know,
of the Lena: Paleo-Siberian Chukchi,
Yakaghir, and the farther will he see.
Koryak, and Kamchatadal, with a few Aleut and
Eskimo. “The rim of a shaman’s drum is cut
from larch. The larch is left alive
a living
and in recollection and honor of
standing
age of fifteen. The sickness that forced me the tree where the soul of the
Tuuru, sha-
to this
path showed itself in a
swelling of man was raised. Furthermore, in
memory
my body and frequent spells of fainting. of the great tree Tuuru, at each seance the
When I
began to sing, however, the sick- shaman a tree with
plants one or more
ness
usually disappeared. cross-sticks in the tent where the cere-
“After that, my ancestors began to sha- mony takes place, and this tree too is
manize with me.
They stood me up like a called Tuuru. This is done both among us

block of wood and shot at me with their here on the Lower

Tunguska and among
bows until I lost consciousness. cut the
They Angara Tungus. The Tungus who are

up my flesh, separated my bones, counted connected with the Yakuts call this
planted
them, and ate flesh raw. When
my they tree
Sarga. It is made of a
long pole of
counted the bones found one too larch.
they White cloths are
hung on the cross-

had there been too few, I could not sticks.

many; Among the they Angara Tungus
have become a shaman. And while the
they hang pelt of a sacrificed animal on the
were
performing this rite, | ate and drank tree. The of the Middle
Tungus Tunguska
nothing for the whole summer. But at the make a Tuuru that is just like ours.
end the shaman drank the blood of
spirits “According to our belief, the shaman
a reindeer and gave me some to drink, climbs this tree to God when he sha-
up
300. The axial World Tree on a
Tungus (Gold tribe)
too. After these events, the shaman has manizes. For the tree the
grows during shamanic garment.
less blood and looks rite and
pale. invisibly reaches the summit of
“The thing happens to every Tun-
same heaven.
gus shaman. Only after his shaman “God created the two trees when he
ancestors have cut up his
body in this
way created the earth and man: a the
male,
and separated his bones can he begin to larch; and a
female, the fir.””
1

}©°
shamanize.”’ The drum and the World Tree are
post-
172
 Crown from sixth to
301. a
Scythian royal tomb,
fourth century B.c., southern Russia, that illustrates
the range of Scythian contacts. Head of goddess:
Greek. World Tree with browsing reindeer: compare
the Old Germanic World Tree, Yggdrasil, with four

browsing deer consuming its leaves. Crowned king

beneath the World Tree: Indo-Aryan idea of the
World Ruler (Cakravartin) or World Savior (Buddha)
enthroned at the axis mundi. The engraved boss on

the animals’ haunches also appears on

ivory carv-

ings at Ipiutak, Alaska (see pages 38-39).

Paleolithic innovations here; the feature

of the two trees introduces a male-female

polarity theme that is also new to the tra-

dition and derived, as Hermann Bau-

mann has shown, from the Near Eastern ; 7
* Co ad .
7
*

Neolithic and high-culture matrices.’ A Ea? Lak re

eee
yp
commonly recognized corollary of the
male-female polarity theme is repre-
sented in the image of a
single, androgyn-
ous, higher source or
power out of which
the opposites have sprung, as, for exam-
.

ay ard
ple, in Genesis 1:27, where we read, ““God eo)
eb
Ag gyda
doy ue Gd)
‘

created man in his own

image.
.

male
rn) oe 1h ig 46
.

aac
(See, also, the image of
'
and female. . .
.” ey

Shiva the Great Lord, Figure 5, page 13.)

Transvestite priests who castrated them-
selves in the service of Artemis at
Ephe-
sus, or of Attis and at
Cybele Hierapolis
on the Euphrates, were to re-
supposed
flect, and so to approach, the condition of
the Primal Bisexual We have
Divinity.
seen
something of the kind in the subin-
cision rites of the Aranda. Herodotus

(1.105 and IV.67) in the fifth century B.c.,

wrote of what was known as the “female
sickness” of the Scythian priests and

soothsayers, the Enaries or Anandrieis

(“non-men’’), whose condition was

sup-
posed to have been inflicted upon them

by the gods. W.
Bogoras and Waldemar

Jochelson discovered among the Paleo-Si-

berian tribes of the Chukchi Peninsula
both male and female shamans who had

ritually, psychologically, and to some ex-

tent even
physically, ‘“changed sex.”” We
have already recognized a art
Scythian
motif in Alaskan ivories of the first centu-

ries after Christ (see pages 38-39).

It is not
unlikely that some of the practices
of the Scythian Anandrieis also crossed
the Strait at that time. ‘“Transfor-
Bering
mation takes place,” states Bogoras of the
Chukchi, “by command of the ke’let [the
spirit], usually at the age of early youth

302. Lappish shaman in trance, his drum on his

back, with a female associate watching, brush in
hand, to keep flies away; for it is believed that at this
delicate time evenof a fly might break
the touch the

power of the shaman’s

departed spirit to return to the
vacated body. Seventeenth-century engraving.

The figure in a reindeer-drawn sleigh may have been

added to remind us flightthat the idea of the annual
of Santa Claus in his
sleigh (midnight reindeer-drawn
of the winter solstice) was originally inspired by tales
of the flights of the Lappish shamans. It was also
once believed that the Old Germanic god Otlin (Odin,
Wodin, or Wotan) flew through the air with his Howl-
ing Host on that night of the birth of the new year,
delivering gifts to those who were his worshippers
and punishments to those who were not.

173
 ARCTIC OCEAN

‘CS «a,
we
cae...

ATLANTIC
OCEAN

Tropic of Cancer

PACIFIC OCEAN

Equator

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

Tropic of Capricorn

INDIAN OCEAN

The Ritualistic Permanent Sex

H.
Change
hd
(after Baumann)

of this ritualistic tradition

ao Regions

15 ~~‘Tribes

Antarctic Circle

Map 38. Generally main- motifs

hunters-and-gatherers (pages 38-39). Since, in all high-culture the reach of its distribu-
tain a
scrupulous distinction between the sexes: areas, ritual transvestism and sex have been
truly astonishing
change
such a bisexual “Mother- as the their former tion, not
only throughout the Old World,
Mapuche
power abolished, prevalence in the Americas is
Father” of
things all no would
place in their find known but also into the and its relation-
only from historical accounts of their extirpa- New;
mythologies. North Australian hunting mythologies tion by the Spaniards and from notices
ethnological the
are
grounded, however, in a bisexual creator, of their continuation into modern
ship, on one hand, mythology, and
to
Ungud times in the zones
the
(pages 140-142; and Baumann has shown this con- indicated above.
on other, to
biology and psychology.’®
cept to have been imported and proper rather to Among the Araucanians of Chile, of
planters than to hunters (Map 33, page 142). Map 38 whom the are an
is of a related Mapuche important
topic: for, where a bisexual creator is Baumann’s tribal
catalog is as follows: Northeast
tribe, the male shamans of earlier times
recognized, the contingent notion may follow of bi- Asia: (1) Chukchi; (2) Koryak; (3) Yukaghir; (4) Itel- 1
were transvestites; and ina
sexuality as a condition spiritually superior to that of men, (5) Yakut; (6) Asiatic Eskimo. America: (7) commonly
the untransformed male or
female—hence, charac- Aleut; (8) Ojibwa; (9) Sauk-Fox; of North
(10) Illinois; (11) large part America, transvestite
teristic of shamans supremely endowed. Dakota; (12) Mandan-Minitari; (13) Crow; (14) Ponca, shamans have continued to be
Omaha, Kansas, Oto, Osage; (15) Choktaw and important
to the to
other Muskogee; (16) Seminole; (17) Pueblo [Zuni, up present. According Bogoras,
Mythologies based on the idea of a creative bisexual Acoma, Laguna], Navaho; (18) Yuma, Mohave; (19) among the shamans of the Chukchi, var-

power that split into male and female and generated Juanefo; (20) Yakut, Yuki, Yurok; (21) Shahaptan- ious degrees of transformation are
recog-
the universe first in documents from ancient Flathead;
appear (22) Ute-Shoshone; (23) Puelshe; (24) Ar- nized. In the the shaman
Mesopotamia; and it was in areas
proximal to that aucanian; (25) earlier Guaycuru tribes of the Chaco;
first, changes
cultural matrix that ritualized transvestism, castra- (26) Caduveo; (27) Titicaca villagers. South Seas: only the manner of
braiding and arrang-
tion, and similar practices first became identified with (28) Tahiti, Marquesas; (29) Palau. Indonesia:
the rites of a Universal Goddess. The extension of Subanum
(30) ing his hair; in the second, he adopts fe-
[Mindanas]; (31) Celebes [Bugis, Makas, male in the he leaves off all
these southeastward to Indonesia, and and dress; third,
practices such]; (32) Borneo. (33) Malaysia. (34) Mada-
thence eastward
Polynesia to and westward to East Burma: the pursuits and manners of his own sex
gascar. (35) Lushai, the Arakan Coast. In-
Africa, accompanied the diffusion of an archaic me- dia: (36) Vallabhacharyas and such. Near East: and takes on those of a woman. “Even his
(37)
galithic temple complex. The northeastern thrust Ancient Babylonia; (38) Nogai. Eurasia: (39) Scythi- from the male to
across Siberia to the on the other pronunciation changes
Chukchi Peninsula, ans; (40) Serbo-Croatians; Albanians. Africa: (41)
effect of influences in the the female mode. At the same time his
hand, was an
Scythian Nuba, Kunama; (42) Konso, Galla[?]; (43) Lango;
eighth to second centuries B.c. The crown
(301 on (44) Rundi, Hunde; (45) Shona-Karanga, Lamba, body alters, if not in its outward appear-
page 173) is of these people. And we have already Venda; (46) Humbe, Handa, Musho, Ovimbundu, ance, at least in its faculties and forces.
.
. .

remarked the appearance in Alaska of Scythian art Kimbundu; (47) Ambo-Kwanyama. "4 he becomes a woman
Generally speaking,
with the appearance of a man.... He
when shamanistic first mani- work to the and seeks to win the good of men, and
inspiration portant study interpreta- graces
fests itself. It is, however, much dreaded tion of this its succeeds with the aid of
phenomenon: beginnings easily ‘spirits.’
by the
youthful adepts.” Indeed, as he in the archaic Near East in the cults of Thus he has all the men he could
young
learned, the youths in some cases
prefer deities wish for
regarded, not merely androgyn- as
striving to obtain his favor. From
suicide to
answering this call.'° And yet, asbut all these he chooses his and after
ous, beyond ‘‘pairs-of-oppo- lover, a

as
Jochelson avers: ‘“The transformed sha- sites’; its relevance to the time takes a husband."°
post-Paleolithic . . .

Moreover,
mans were believed to be the most themes of bisexual each ‘soft man’ is
?”
pow- mythological gods, supposed to have a spe-
erful of all.’”” bisexual souls, the world the cial the ‘spirits,’ who, for
parents, protector among
Hermann Baumann has devoted an im- world world and divine the is said
egg, giant, twins; most
part, to
play the part of a

174
 probably be employed in all the
family
ceremonials, where additional drums are

used for as much noise as

making possi-
ble. As to the shamanistic garb,” he con-

tinues, “the Chukchee have sim-

nothing
ilar to the well-known of coat covered
type
with and which is in
fringes images, gen-
eral use the Yakut and
among Tungus,
and which borrowed from
probably was 1
the latter
by the Yukaghir.”
Animal. sacrifice in association with
shamanic practice, on the other hand, is a

feature known to both the Paleo- and the

Neo-Siberians, and be an
may original
trait of the Paleolithic as the rock
complex,
painting at Lascaux of the shaman in
trance before the bison pierced a lance
by
would seem to In our illustra-
suggest.
tions on 158 we have seen
page already
the account of an Altaic sacrifice of a

horse, with the hide then on

hung a pole
(Figure 278); the sacrifice of a dog
by a
Koryak shaman, who is his drum
beating of

while
curing a patient (Figures 278/279), Syed a
ve
and a Chukchi of the
map sky (Figure s.
277), where Dawn Man receives the sac-
rifice of a and offers a fox in 304. Northeastward of the River Lena and the
dog exchange, are the Paleo-
while the Verkhoyanskig range Americanoid,
family of Evening Man, cos- Siberian sea-mammal-hunting and reindeer-breed-
tumed in the
guise of the gods of the sea, ing Chukchi, Koryak, Yukaghir, and Itelmen or

sacrifice to those Kamchatadals. Among their most precious posses-

pays gods." sions their dogs, and among
are their most important
These last two sketches, Koryak and rites are reindeer and dog sacrifices, for which only
Chukchi, are of the earlier, Paleo-Siberian the best are chosen. The animals are stabbed to the
303. A “soft man,” transvestite, or transformed,
tradition, the fea- heart with a spear, an unsuccessful blow
signifying
shaman of the Chuckchi. among characterizing the This
deity’s displeasure. early photograph is of a
tures of which, the
following seven may
Koryak underground house with its best dogs’ noses
be named:
pointed to the sky, where their souls have flown."
supernatural husband.” In the case of
1!
a woman transformed into a man, she 1. The sacrifice: which
dog may represent
cuts her hair, dons the dress of a
male, a continuation from the Late Paleolithic; Of the later shamanic Uralo-Altaic sys-
adopts the vocabulary of men, and even the
offering then, however, was of game
tem, these nine features may be noted:
learns in a short time to handle animals (the bear and the
very a
possibly
and to shoot with rifle. She bison), whereas here it is of a domestic
spear a easily 1. The wearing of a
special ritual costume,
finds a who consents to beast
quiet young girl a trait
already evident in the Paleolithic
becoming her “wife,” and at last she mar- 2. Areindeer sacrifice, which is of a
again rock paintings
ries. She obtains from the of a reindeer domestic species; the ancestors of these
leg 2. The sanctification and mythologization
a which serves her as a tribesmen having followed the great
gastrocnemius of the drum
male organ; and should she wish to have European herds northeastward as the
3. The drum’s association with the
children in this union glaciers melted, first as hunters, but
she and her wife Neolithic of the World Tree
then as owners and breeders of the image
will enter into a bond of mutual marriage herds 4. The drum’s association with the
with some
neighboring youth.!” 3. A of
sacrificed reindeer, of whose hide the
An feature of Baumann’s family anthropomorphic sky gods
interesting and another of sea whom the
drumhead is made
the distribution of the evi- gods, to
map, charting sacrifices are addressed: these 5. An association of the World Tree with
dence of these practices, is the large gap of a
the central pole of the yurt, and of the
necessarily post-Paleolithic,
through Central Asia, between the time
Neolithic vintage, very likely from the shaman’s ascent of this pole with his
and place of Herodotus’s on the heaven
report period of reindeer domestication journey
Enaries and Bogoras’s and Jochelson’s of 6. deities as
4, Anthropomorphic guardians
the Paleo-Siberian “soft men.”’ The Intervening anthropomorphic enemy
of the of the
period gates way
of of the
spirits, who may intercept and capture
development intervening Altaic 7. Ahorse sacrifice, which is an Indo-
the offered sacrifices
complex must, therefore, have been later European feature
5. The idea of a World Axis with the Pole
than that of the rise and of the
spread Star at its head, along the line of which
8. A radical dualism—a late Zoroastrian
Paleo-Siberian Scythian-Chukchi tradi- feature—of and dark, and
the sacrifices rise to their destination light sky
tion. “The shamanism of the Chukchee underworld, and terrible
6. The use of a drum in to benign
has
accompaniment divinities and their worlds
not reached a of
development,” stage shamanistic rites, but a drum not
yet
states to have 9. An extreme of the
Bogoras, “‘high enough especially sacred development
drums or of form, shamanic-crisis theme, with elaborate
clothing peculiar or,
7. Transvestite shamans:
a
indeed, character- representing dismemberment and death-and-
any special belongings
istic of itself. The Chukchee shaman uses
sphere of spiritual power transcending resurrection accents
the male-female polarity, this being a
the ordinary drum of his or
family, per- theme from the
high Bronze Age of the
haps he may make an extra drum for his Near East, carried into Central Asia by
own use; but this drum will have the most
exactly the Scythians about the fifth century Undoubtedly important, as

the same form, and, moreover, it will B.C. well as most characteristic, of all these

175
Uralo-Altaic features is the drum. The
shaman rides on his drum; and the Buriat
of Irkutsk declare that virtue of the
by
of his double-headed
power originally
drum, their first shaman, Morgon-Kara,
could back souls even from the
bring
dead.

Erlen Khan, the Lord of the Dead, com-

plained to
god Tengri, the high, that
great on

because he was
of no
longer
Morgon-Kara
able to hold the souls brought to him by his
deter-
Messengers; and so
Tengri himself
mined make trial of the shaman with
to
a test.
He took possession of the soul of a certain
and
man, slipped it into a bottle, then, sitting
with the bottle in hand, his thumb covering its
he waited to see what the mighty
opening,
Buriat would do.
The man whose soul had been taken fell ill,
and his sent for The sha-
family Morgon-Kara.
man
immediately recognized that the soul of
the man had been taken, and, riding on his
wonderful drum, he searched the forests, the

waters, the mountain gorges, indeed the

earth, and then descended to the Under-

world. The soul nowhere in of
being any
these, there remained but one domain to be
searched: Heaven. So, sitting on his
High
drum, he flew aloft. And he cruised the heav-
ens for some time before noticing that the
with
radiant
High God was
sitting there a

bottle in his the of which the 306. “The Three Worlds” on a

Lapp drumhead,
hand, over
top
from northern Sweden, c. 1800. In the Upper World:
ball of his thumb was the
pressed. Studying the sun and the moon the sun
that (or, perhaps, setting
circumstance, Morgon-Kara perceived and rising) are seen along with heavenly beings and
within the bottle was the very soul he had their tent. In the Middle World (left to right): the Mis-
come to retrieve. So he transformed himself tress of the Beasts sends animals to be hunted; a

into a flew at the and him hunter shoots a reindeer; and a shaman, riding up-
wasp, god, gave
ward in sleigh drawn by a reindeer, is followed by a
such a hot sting on the forehead that his a
soul dog. In the Lower World: three goddesses suggest-
thumb jerked opening and the
from the
ing the Norns are
pictured.
that
escaped. thing Tengri knew was
The next

the shaman, together with his prize, was on

earth. He
his drum again, sailing back to

reached for a thunderbolt, let it fly, and the up there begin to

dig, and he was
glad to think
drum was
split in half. And that is why sha- that his brother, believing that he might still
be alive, had returned to disinter him. How-
man drums today have but one head.’
ever, when the cover of his coffin was at last

removed, he saw four black men whom he did

not know. took his body and stood
They up
him on his coffin with his face turned
upright
toward his house. Through the window he
The Siberians could see
a fire burning, and smoke was com-

ing from the chimney.

The Yakuts tell of ashaman of earlier times
Then, from somewhere far in the depths of
named Aadja, the younger of two broth- bull.
the earth, he heard the bellowing of a
>

ers whose had died when

parents they The bellowing came nearer, nearer; the earth
were he and
very young. began to tremble; was
terribly afraid;
—
from the bottom of the grave the bull emerged.
Aadja’s brother was
thirty of age, and It was black and its horns were
years completely
he when he and that
twenty married, year, close together. It took him sitting between its
there was born a red piebald stallion with all horns and went down the
again through
the and of And
signs promise an
exceptionally opening from which it had just emerged.
beautiful steed. But that fall, Aadja died. where there
same
they reached a
place was a house,
And although he lay there dead, he could hear from within which there came the voice of
that
everything was
being said around him, what seemed to be an old man, saying, ‘“Boys,
and felt as he had fallen it is true. Our little has Go
though simply asleep. son
brought a man.
He could neither move nor
speak, yet could out and relieve him of his load!’”” A number of

distinctly hear them making his coffin and black, withered old men came
hopping out,
digging his grave. And so there he lay as the arrival, carried him into the
grabbed
though alive, unhappy that they should be house, and set him on the flat of the hand of

coming together to bury him when he might an old man, who held him to estimate the

very well have come back to life.

They placed i
4
weight and said: “Take him back! He is pre-
i eeeee
aT

es ao ae 2 ea
kane

him in the sienAttS

put the coffin in the Si.
coffin, grave, 2ee destined to be reborn up there!” With that,
and shoveled in the dirt. the bull took him between its horns,
305. The Mongol (Bajongol) shaman Otsir B66, in again
As he in that his heart and soul carried him the old and set him
lay grave, full regalia. On the vertical strut at the back of his up along way,
sobbed and cried. But then he heard someone drum is the image of his spirit helper. down where he had been before.

176
 its better than before for her
When the living corpse came to senses, protection. They set cut to
pieces. At eight, he began to shamanize
and it dark. Pres- fire to of wood at the exit took he
night had descended was a
pile hole, and to
perform the ritual dance. At nine,
black It shoved its brands in their and stood
ently a raven
appeared. glowing hands, was
already famous. And at twelve, he was a

head the dead

between man’s legs, him, lifted ready at the aperture, watching. When the shaman.
great
him with the
and flewdirectly upward. In the zenith was shaman appeared, they smote It turned out that he had this time come into
which firebrands and forced him back earth.
an
opening through they passed to a to the world some 15 versts [about 10 miles] from
both the and the moon At last, the little watcher in the nest at the of his former residence. And when
place where sun were the place
and barns of end of his three heard once the
shining and the houses were
years, again he paid a visit to his former brother, he found
iron. All the people had the heads of ravens, voice of the old man. “His years are
up,” the that his wife had married and that the
again
bodies like those of And voice said. “Throw our child down to the Mid- foal which had been born the
yet their colorful stallion
were men.

to be born
there could be heard inside the largest house dle World. He is to go into a woman
of old with the name Shaman which we have
something like the voice an man
saying: Aadja,
little has him. He shall be famous: no one shall
“Boys! Look! Our son
brought us a given
man. Go out and him in.”” A take his name in vain in the holy month.”
bring company 307. The Yakut (Karagasy) shaman Tulayev, of Ir-
dashed out the With and the seven hurled
of young men and, seizing songs blessings, kutsk, wearing his reindeer-leather swan costume.
the Middle
newcomer, bore him into the house, where the nestling down into World, On his cap of green cloth is sewn a wolf's muzzle
set him on the flat of the hand of a where he immediately lost consciousness, un- with the moon above and stars on each side. A
they gray-
he had ribbon adorned with stars, representing his spine,
haired old man, who first tested his weight able to recall
by what means come to

be where he It not until he was five hangs from the cap down his back. An x-ray-style
along and
and then said: take him was. was
“Boys, representation, in a blue Chinese fabric, of his breast
him in the nest!”” that this recollection returned—and then he
place highest bone and ribs has been sewn to the chest of his
For there larch whose knew that he had been born before, how he
was a
great up there, garment; a similar x-ray spine of and ribs appears on

size can be with had lived on this earth, and how he had been the back; arm-bone applique, on both sleeves. And,
hardly compared anything
born above and heard with his own and whereas the shaman’s left foot is bare, embroidered
we know. Its top surely touched heaven. And ears
on the right boot are toe and leg bones in white
there was on branch a nest as as a seen with his own
eyes the arrival of a sha-
every large reindeer hair. The head of the great drum is of rein-
man.
haystack covered with snow. The young men
deer hide, as is the cover of the head of the drum-
their in the of these, and as Seven years after his new
birth, he was stick.
lay charge highest Eagle-owl feathers on the shaman’s shoulders
had him there seized by the to and are his wings. Photographed c. 1927.
soon as
they set down, came spirits, compelled sing,
flying a winged white reindeer that settled on

the nest. Its teats entered his mouth, he began

to suck, and there he lay for three years. And
the more he sucked, the smaller became his

body, until he was no

bigger than a
finally
thimble.
Thus resting in his lofty nest, he one
day
heard the voice of the same old man, who
of his
now was
saying to one seven raven-

headed sons:
go down to the Middle
‘My boy,
World, seize a woman and bring her back.”
The son
descended, and in time returned tow-

ing a brown-faced woman

by the hair. They
all danced in celebration. But the one
lying in
the nest then heard the voice
saying:
again
“Shut this woman
up in an iron barn, so that
our son, who lives in the Middle World, may
not come and carry her away.”
They locked the woman in a
barn; and ina
little while, the nestling heard the sounds of a

shaman’s drum and song coming up from the

Middle World. The sounds gradually grew,
coming nearer—nearer—until, from below, a

head appeared in the exit opening. From his

nest, the watcher could then see a man of
nimble body and moderate stature with hair

already gray. Hardly had he fully appeared,

when, pressing his drumstick to his brow, he
with
was
immediately transformed into a bull
a
single horn projecting from the middle of its
forehead. The bull shattered with a
single
blow the door of the barn in which the woman

had been locked and galloped off with her,

down and away.
Following him, there went up cries and

shouts, laments and mourning, and the son

of the old man went down to the Middle

again
World. He returned with a white-faced woman,
who was first transformed into an insect and
then hidden in the central structural pole of
the heavenly yurt. Soon again the drum and

song of a shaman could be heard. And this

time, again, the one who arrived very soon

discovered the patient, broke the pole in

which she was hidden, and carried her off.

Whereupon the son of the old man went his

way a third time, returning with the same

white-faced woman, and this time the raven-

headed of the World did

spirit-people Upper

177
year of his death was now, indeed, a famous Bogoras found that among the Chuk- dered the coat all over. For its face they
steed. But his relatives failed to him eastward of the
recognize chi, just Yukaghir, sha- made a mask, with openings for eyes and
and he told them nothing. manism is with
largely affiliated the fam- mouth. Over the embroidered coat
they
One when of
summer
day, however, a man
ily ceremonials. ‘Each family,” he reports, put a coat of fawn-skins; and over that, a

property was
celebrating the Isyach Festival of
“has one or more drums of its own, on blanket of soft reindeer-skins.
the blessing of the sacred kumiss, which is
which its members are bound at
specific “Then the in the
they placed figure
accompanied by a ritual known as the Lifting to that is, to front corner of the house. Whenever
of the Soul of the Horse, the sha- periods perform; accompany they
Up young
the
man met the one whom he had seen come into beating of the drum with the singing were
going to eat
something good, they
of various melodies. Almost on first threw of it in the fire and held
the Upper World while
lying in his nest. The always, a piece
these occasions, one member at least of the over the smoke. This did
older shaman
immediately recognized him figure they
the tries to communicate with at meal; and thus fed the
and said in a voice loud enough for others to family every they fig-
hear: ‘‘When after the manner of shamans. which as a
I once was
helping another sha- ‘spirits’ ure, they worshipped god.’
man recover the soul of a sick I saw Such a one will with violent Pieces of the shaman’s dried flesh were
woman, usually,
in the nest
topmost on the
bough, ninth and continuous exercise on the sewn into of smoked
you shouting bags waterproof
sucking the teats of your animal mother. You
drum, work himself up to the highest hide and worn under the clothes as amu-
were
looking out of the nest.’” And the young and in this
pitch possible, condition pre- lets and, when traveling, the tribe carried
Shaman Aadja, hearing these words, became tend that the have entered his in a wooden box the figure with the skull.
furious.
‘spirits’
“Why do you bring out here, before In of this he acts in the It is called the same xiol, that
the secret of my birth?’ he asked.
body. proof exactly by name,
everyone, same as do the is used
when to the Chris-
To which the other
replied: “If you are plan-
way shamans—jumping today referring
his to saints."
ning evil against me, destroy me, eat me! I
about, twisting body in the most vio- tian
god, to ikons, or

lent contortions, and The extraordinary reverence here shown

was
formerly nurtured on the eighth bough of uttering gibbering
sounds and words before the remains and of an ex-
the same larch on which you were nurtured. | unintelligible sup- mystery
be the voice and the
am to be born again and nurtured by the Black posed to
language of traordinary man is but an effect, intensely
Chara-Suorun.” ‘spirits.’ Oftentimes he focused, of a sense of wonder be-
Raven, essays soothsay- general
ing and foretelling the future, though fore the mystery of the universe and of all
“And concluded such do
they say,” Ivan Po- attempts not
usually’ receive things, which inspires the secular, as well
the Yakut narrator of this on much attention. All this is done in the as modes of
pov, legend, religious, experience
March 22, 1925, “that the young shaman outer tent, where all the ceremonials are and action of the Paleo-Siberians. Bogoras
that and
night killed the elder. The young sha- performed, mostly in the daytime. found among the Chukchi the belief that
man’s swallowed him and thus “The acts of real shamanism, on the material and
spirits every object can act, speak,
about his death, and no one
contrary, are for the most walk itself. is of
brought performed
part by Everything spoken as

saw.—This tale told old in the

ancient I was
by a
sleeping-room, at
night-time and in “having a voice.” A stone endowed with
man.’’1!6 darkness.’’11 voice roll down and crush
perfect a
might a per-
In October 1896, Jochelson recorded son whom it had a or
against grudge,
from the lips of a named Sam- induce another it up and
Yukaghir person to
pick
the of his
sonov
following account peo- wear it as an amulet. The trees of the
of
ple’s way disposing of the
body of a forest talk to one another. Both the rain-
The Paleo-Siberian Yukaghir, now con- deceased shaman: and the sun’s have
bow rays ‘‘masters,”
fined to the northern rim of the Chukchi “Our ancient when a shaman live the of the
people, _who above, on
highest part
Peninsula between the Lena and Kolyma died, used to the flesh of the rainbow and the
separate at
place from which the
Rivers, have adopted from their Tungus from the bones. For that sun’s earth
corpse purpose rays emanate, descending to
and Yakut neighbors the Altaic costume on and masks. Then these of
they put gloves they along paths light. Even the shad-
and drum. Their term for the drum, took iron hooks, and the the wall constitute definite tribes
having caught ows on

ya'lgil, means “lake,” referring to the flesh of the drew it to them and and have their own where
corpse, country, they
mythic lake through which the shaman cut it off. It was considered a sin to touch dwell in huts and subsist
by hunting.
descends to the underworld; and the infi- the with bare hands, or to look at it As was told shaman of the
corpse Bogoras by a

nitive, yalgi’ne, means both “to have a with uncovered face. Thus Chukchi: “On the bank of river
they separated steep a

drum” and “to shamanize.’’"”” The sha- the flesh from the skeleton
through its there exists life. A voice is there and it
man himself is called a’lma, from the verb entire Then made aloud. I the
length. they drying speaks saw ‘master’ of the
a, “‘to do’; i’rkeye, “thealso
trembling frames and the flesh outside, to voice and with him. He
hung up spoke subjected
one”; and he occupies, according to Jo- in the sun. After the flesh had been himself and
dry to me sacrificed to me. He
chelson, a
very special place in the social dried, the relatives of the dead shaman came
yesterday and answered my ques-
system of the Yukaghir. divided it themselves. Then tions. The small bird with the blue
among they gray
“He the protector and
was
priest of a made a tent of larch-tree rods, and each of breast sings shaman-songs in the hollow
definite of relatives or of a clan,” them his share in the middle of the of the calls her
group put bough, spirits, and prac-
according to this author. ‘But he was not larch
separately. Then the relatives
tent of tices shamanism. The woodpecker strikes
a
professsional shaman in the sense of the shaman killed his drum in
dogs as offerings. They the tree with his
drumming
modern days. A’lma attended to the sick did not kill bad
dogs; they killed only nose. Under the ax the tree trembles and
of his group, offered sacrifices, prayed to good ones. Then they added the killed wails, like a drum under the baton. All
the gods for successful hunting and other dogs to their portions of dried flesh. After these come at my call.
benefactions, and had intercourse with that they left the tent with the shaman’s “All that exists lives. The lamp walks
the supernatural world and the flesh and the
kingdom offerings. around. The walls of the house have
of the Shadows. The ancient “Then
Yukaghir they divided the bones of the voices of their own. Even the chamber-
shaman his clan.
represented Every Yu- and after
having dried them, they vessel has land and house. The
-

corpse, a
separate
kaghir clan traces its
origin to some sha- clothed them. the skull skins
They worshiped sleeping in the
bags talk at
night.
man. From the merging of the ancestor of the shaman. made a trunk of The antlers the tombs
They lying on arise at
and the shaman in one
person there de- wood and set on it the skull. Then and walk in around the
they night procession
veloped the cult of the shaman- made for it a jacket and caps—two a while the deceased and
caps, mounds, get up
ancestor.’’1!8 winter and a summer one.
They embroi- visit the
living.’’?”?

178
 It is because he hears the voices of the has become
evidently the substance
so of the herds. This
specifically con- power is
stones and trees that are un- his life that, even the influence of nected with and the
the amulets
speaking, through images
heard to us all, that the shaman does not his relics, it is able to theirs. which herds
sublimify by specific are
protected.
live like other in relation the The of the
men
only to
living universe Chukchi is Also, in its character of the
Luck-bringing
of their of both above and be-
appearances things. Hearing composed planes Being, it may be represented as a raven—

he is led
songs, by them to the song low the earth—variously, two, three, or and here we see connections, on the one

within himself, which he is four with

through sus- above, equal numbers below. hand westward, to the seven raven-headed
tained in a life inflated the breath and These are connected a vertical of the Old Man
by planes by sons on
High in the Yakut
winds of the unseen. The of succession of holes, at the and the other hand
powers culminating legend, on
eastward,
which he thus becomes the vehicle Pole Star. these the souls of the to the Raven of the tribes of
may Through mythological
seem to be supernatural, but are ac- dead and of shamans from the
they spirits pass American North Pacific Coast.’
tually of nature itself. One thinks of the one world to the next. Or one ascend the both is
may Big Raven, among Koryak,
lines of the poet Wordsworth: ona
rainbow, ona of the or in the and is not the for when the Cre-
ray sun, Creator;
smoke of one’s funeral and there is ator becomes Raven on his
pyre; Big by putting
also an alternate an raven coat, he is then subordinate to him-
For I have learned
way, exceedingly
steep path toward the dawn. Some of self as the Moreover,
To look on nature, not as in the hour Supreme Being.
these worlds have as as suns. there is folktale the bird
Of thoughtless youth; hearing often but times many eight a
character,
The still sad music Game, when scarce on the earth, is abun- raven, known as Raven Man, or
Raven,
ofhumanity,
Nor harsh nor dant there, and when abundant here, is who, as
Jochelson describes him, is ‘a
grating, though ofample power
scarce there. The lowest is droll and who
To chasten and subdue. And
I have felt plane occupied contemptible personage,
A presence that disturbs me with the joy by souls that have died twice; which is to feeds on and
dog carcasses excrement,
Of elevated thoughts; sublime are not dead, but and has nothing to do
a sense with the
say, only forgotten: cult.’”!6
Of somethingfar more
deeply interfused, these will never be reborn. There is a We remember here the of Man-
ambiguity
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, world in direction of the tis in Bushman folktales.
every compass
And the round ocean and the living air, which there
(of are
twenty-two); there is Jochelson has discussed in detail the
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
another under water; and on distant con- similarities in and custom of the Ko-
myth
A motion and
a spirit, that impels stellations there are those to which the ryak and American Indian tribes—not
All thinking things, all objectsof all thought,
clouds are the station only the of the North Pa-
And rolls through all things.’ stops.’ nearby peoples
The that and sustains cific Coast, but also those of the interior:
power pervades
all this is and var-
Athapascans, Algonquians, and even Ir-
imprecisely personified
The and final function of named. of it as oquois. As he remarks:
really great iously Bogoras writes sim-
to
the shaman, then, is that of representing ilar to the manitou of the Algonquians and “Nothing points so plainly a
very
ancient connection between the
to his people the voices of things, their wakanda of the Sioux. It may be referred to Koryak
behind their the the and and Indian as the
masters, opening mere
ap- as Creator, Zenith, Midday, mythologies similarity
of the addressed of the elements of which
pearances intuitions a
power unseen; Dawn; in prayer as the Up- they are com-

the rocks and trees and the Outer known fur- posed; for while some of the cus-
so that, as once
spoke per Being One; religous
toms and ceremonies have been bor-
to him
something “far
of that more
deeply ther as the Merciful Being, the Life-giving may
rowed in recent times, the
interfused,’”’ now
speaks to his tribe of
he Being, and the Luck-bringing Being; it is myths reflect,
for a time and
that mysterium tremendum et
fasctnans which also the Reindeer Being who looks after very long very tenaciously,
the state of mind of the people of the
remotest We find in the Ko-
periods. . . .

ryak myths elements of the raven

cycle of
the Haida, and Tsimshian; those
Tlingit,
of the of tales about Mink of the
cycle
Kwakiutl and of
neighboring tribes; myths
about totem-
wandering culture-heroes,
ancestors; and of tales about animals cur-

rent tribes of British

among Columbia;
also myths of the of the inte-
Athapascan
rior, and the and east
Algonquin Iroquois
of the Mountains.”?”
Rocky

308. A Koryak shaman with his congregation and

the great single-headed drum to the sound of which
his spirit flies. Dwelling in a
region with a
population
of one person per ten square kilometers, this little

company represents a considerable piece of the

northern part of Kamchatka.
The landscape is rug-

ged, the climate

vegetation consists
severe, of tun-
dra or thin birch forest, and the principal occupations
today are fishing—mostly for crab—fur hunting and
reindeer herding.

179
Myths and Tales of

the North Pacific

and Arctic

The Great Kwakiutl Shaman we had found the box, and my whole com-

Named Fool pany was now sick. In the morning we set off:
it was calm. And when we arrived at Axolis

Iam a hunter of all kinds of animals, we unloaded our

cargo—all of us sick with the
always
about for which what I great smallpox, which had been contracted
paddling seals, are

want for I the oil from the blub- when we

picked up the boxes. We all lay in
most; try out
ber and sell it to tribe for I have bed in our tent. I saw that our bodies had
my gravy.
killed lots of hair seals and so have swelled and were a dark red. I did not realize
always
that the others were dead, but
never been poor. I used to be the principal presently
that dead.
doubter of shamans: what they said about cur- thought I was I was
sleeping; but
the sick and about souls. | then woke because of all the wolves that were
ing seeing people’s
would tell them out I coming, whining howling. and lick- Two were
loud, they were lying.
would be ing my body, vomiting up foam, trying hard
sitting with those beating time for
their curing ceremonies, and those shamans
to
put it all over me; and they were rough
hated me. the features of a
when they turned me over. I could feel myself
really 309. Wooden dance hat bearing
wolf. of eight potlatch getting stronger, both in
body and in mind.
Well, I was out
paddling for seals, one fine Haida(?) The tower, composed
rings representing so many potlatchs, contains sa- The two kept licking, and after they had licked
day, with the brave fellow named Leelamee-
cred white eagle down, which is thrown out during off all that
denole who
always my served as helmsman.
the dance of the performer.
they had vomited, they vomited
by quick head movements and had licked this
ever
him, neither again; when, again, they
Nothing frightened gales
nor vicious animals, fish, or the sea off, I saw that they had taken off all the scabs
dangerous
and sores. And it was
monsters that we
frequently see when hunt- And I dreamed, that night, of a man who only then that I realized
and that I was there the dead.
ing at night. That is
why we have to have came
spoke to me, saying, ““Why did
you lying among
fellows for our steersmen. I was stop here? Friend, this island is full of seals. I Evening fell and the two wolves rested. |
courageous
am on whom took must have become afraid, being the only one
paddling along at Axolis, when I saw a wolf Harpooner-Body, you pity
alive for I crawled the shelter
sitting on a rock, scratching with both paws today, and Iam now rewarding you for your there; away, to

the two sides of his mouth. He whined as we kindness, friend. From now on there will be of a thick spruce, where I lay all night. With
want that will not obtain. But no
bedding and only the shirt I had on, I was
approached and was not afraid of us; not even nothing you you
for the next four must not cold. The two wolves and
when I
got out of my small
traveling canoe years you sleep approached lay
and went to where he sat. He whined and I with your wife.” I woke and called tomy
down on each side of me, and when morning
noticed that his mouth I looked steersman. He rose and the anchor. came, got and again licked me all over,
was
bleeding. pulled up up
in and saw a deer bone stuck crosswise be- We went ashore, where I washed in the sea
vomiting up white foam and licking it off. I

his teeth both and back into the to see was

getting stronger, and when strong enough
tween on
sides, very firmly. He stepped canoe, eager
do whether, as had said in to stand, I realized that one of those two
was
evidently expecting me to
something: Harpooner-Body my
either kill him him of dream, there were lot of seals on the wolves was the one from whose mouth I had
to or to
help out his actually a
trouble. So I said to in rocks of the island. For I did not believe in taken the bone. All the others had remained
him, ‘Friend, you are

trouble and 1 am to cure like a dreams, or in shamans, or in any of the beliefs in attendance too. And I now was, in fact,
going you, great
shaman—for which I of my but in own mind. We quite well.
lay down, I to me and there came
expect you to reward me people; only my
before dawn and the the figure that in my dream, in the called
with the power to
get easily everything I want, paddled out approached place
the way you do. Now you just sit still here rocky, treeless shore, which I beheld covered Foam
Receptacle, had told me that his name
while I fix up
something to
help me get rid of with seals, all
tight asleep. I took my yew-
was
Harpooner Body. He sat down seaward
wood seal club, stepped ashore and clubbed of me and me with his nose until I
that bone.” I went inland and
picked up some nudged
from a cedar tree which I twisted into a four big ones, while the rest tumbled off into responded by lying on
my back, whereupon
twigs
the I he vomited foam and pressed his nose
string, and when | returned the wolf was still water.
put the four aboard, and we trav- against
there on the rock with his mouth eled home. the lower end of my sternum. He was vomit-
sitting open.
I took hold of the back of his head and So now there was at least one in which ing magic into me, and when he had
put the thing power
Ibelieved, the truth of finished he sat back. I became and
string, thin end, into his mouth, tied it to the namely Harpooner- sleepy
dreamed of the wolf that still at my
middle of the bone and pulled. Out came the Body’s words, delivered to me in dream. And was
sitting
bone. The wolf sat from that time on it was for when side. In the dream he became a man, who
only staring at me. “Friend,” easy me,
out to seals and other kind laughed and said, “Now, friend, take care of
I said,
“your trouble is ended. Now don’t for- hunting, get every
to reward me for what I have done for of game. this shaman power that
gone you. has into
get just
you.”
Two years later, in the summer of 1871, I From now on
you will cure the sick, you will

When I had said that the wolf turned went to Victoria with three catch the souls of the sick, and you will be able
my nephews, my
around the and trotted off—not fast. wife, and their wives and children. to throw sickness into in your tribe,
to
right Returning anyone
And he had little home in our we came to who wish should die. They will all now
gone only a way when he large traveling canoe, you
Rock on the north side of Nar- be afraid of you.”” That is what he said to me
stopped, turned his muzzle to me and Bay, Seymour
He howled and rows, and went ashore there. out of in my dream.
howled—just once. went into Stepping
the eldest four nice I woke and was and my mind,
the woods. I
stepped into my small canoe and canoe, my nephew saw
trembling,
boxes on the beach, full of very nice since then, has been different. All the wolves
paddled away with my steersman. Neither of clothing,
two of flour, and all kinds of food. We had left me, and I was now
a shaman. I walked
us
spoke of the wolf. We paddled and an- bags
chored in where wind could see no one around who own the to Fern Point, where I remained alone
a cove no ever blows, might way
called those and carried them aboard and for a
long time in one of the seven abandoned
Foam-Receptacle; lay down in our small things so,

and our closed in moved on. When we came to Beaver Cove, a houses there. On the way I met a man whom
canoe, eyes immediately
northeast wind and we I told of the deaths of my whole crew, and he
sleep; for we had risen before daybreak and sprang up stayed
there for six then left in fear and hurried home. I not
were
very tired. days. It was ten
days after
me was

180
depressed, but just kept singing my sacred well.” their all
got into
They big traveling 310. Regalia and mask of a Tsimshian shaman
songs, evening after
evening, the four songs canoe, while arriving to cure a
patient. To warn of his
Endeavoring-to-Invite, coming approach,
of the wolf. For I was he taps the ground with his carved staff.
just like someone drunk, into my house,
begged me to join them: which Hanging
from his beaded necklace is a carved
completely happy, all the time. And I I did, and ivory soul-
stayed we
proceeded to Teeguxtee. catcher; his crown is of twenty-two
there, at Fern Point, for more than the period When arrived
grizzly-bear
we at the beach before Caus- and with the rattle in
claws; his left hand he will
of one moon.
ing-to-be-well’s house, not I, but the others, accompany the hum of his
curing song, which, as the
A canoe-man heard
passing my song, one
stepped ashore and, entering the
building, curing spirits begin to appear (visible only to himself)
will gradually louder. A helper
evening, and spoke of it to the people at Tee- built a fire in the middle of it, and, when it had grow (often the sha-
man’s wife) will be beating a large box drum to the
guxtee; who immediately decided to invite the been four shamans out and
lighted, came
rhythm of the shaken rattle. And the song will
new shaman whose had been heard to sung
song summoned everybody to come in—men, be something like the following:
come and cure their sick chief, whose name
women, and children—to watch the new sha-
was the wolf O | to take and
Causing-to-be-well. Meanwhile, man. Theythen came and called me, still sit- Supernatural Power, beg you pity
had again to cure this our friend.
appeared in my dream, warning me ting in the big canoe. I rose and walked with
O Supernatural Power, | implore you, take pity
to make
ready for the chief, who was indeed the four of them into the house, where the
and remove this sickness of our friend.
seriously ill. ““You must suck out his sickness leaders were time for
song already beating Take pity, O Supernatural Power, that | may
and
fling it upward,” he said to me in that me. And there I saw, in the rear of the house, make this friend of ours to live again.
dream. “When are him do not O Great Real Supernatural Power, Great Life-
you treating Causing-to-be-well, sitting on a mat. The
mouth more than four times.” I Bringer, Supernatural Power,
apply your rhythm of the beating quickened as I entered,
woke and at once and stomach the beating of the batons
Help me to remove easily this sickness of our
my body began on the boards. My friend.
to tremble. I sang sacred and contin- and started to
my song, body my belly tremble, and,
ued till late in the when I heard a number The
day, standing in the doorway together with the payments to shamans for this kind of work are

of men outside One whose serious. According to

they include Franz
ca- Boas,
my house,
talking. four shamans, I sang my sacred song. Then I
name noes, chilkat blankets, sea otters, slaves, houses,
was
Endeavoring-to-Invite said, ‘‘We went to where was
Causing-to-be-well sitting, and the daughters of chiefs. The goods accumulate
have come to ask treasured to the four shamans
you, great one,
following, and I treated him
during the course of the cure as
inducing payments
have pity and to restore to life with your water as instructed the wolf. And I have to the
by now, as
spirits; but in the end, of course, they are
of life our
friend, our
chief, shaman carried
Causing-to-be- my name, the name Fool.’ away by the shaman.’”

181
 Man agreed. And when had served for “This time will not he and
they you revive,” said;
some time, Big Raven said to Miti, his wife, hold of Grass Woman, he carried her
taking
“What shall we do? Shall we them our back to his tent.
give
Folktales of the daughters?” Miti consented, and so, Gull Man
Big Raven waited long, and when Ememqut
married
Chanéi-nydéut, and Raven Man, Yinyé- failed to return, sent his sons-in-law to find
a-nyéut. Then Big Raven’s son, him. back with the
Ememqut, They came
body in pieces.
Maritime and said, “I, too, shall serve for a wife.”” And he “Well, Raven Man,” said the father, “revive
went to the house of Root Man, whom he him!” “IT don’t know whether I can, but I’ll
Reindeer Koryak found at work making snowshoes.
try,” said Raven Man. “You will have to kill
Root Man looked up. “Oh, here’s a
visitor,” two reindeer.’’ He beat the drum, and when
he said. “Come in!”’ went into the house, he had drummed for some time the
They pieces
and refreshments reunited. He
Already by the end of the last century, the though were
brought out, again poured reindeer blood on

his the head and

old myths of the Paleo-Siberians—the Yu- Ememqut, impatient to announce
suit, ate pressed bone marrow to the
very little. “I have come to serve for mouth. “It tastes like wood,”” said
kaghir and the Chukchi, the Koryak and your Ememqut.
daughter,” he said. “All said Root More another of blood,
the Kamchadals—had little right,” drumming, pouring
disappeared, Man, ‘‘you may stay.” and the marrow: ‘Do taste the
again you
more
remaining than ill-told, fragmented The Grass Woman. sweetness?” “It is the
folktales. Yet daughter’s name was as delicious,”” came an-

something of a long-forgot- married and she bore ‘as the I used take
ten
They a
daughter. Then swer, marrow to from the
mythological base can be discerned Ememqut told his father-in-law he would like wild reindeer I killed.” ‘““You may rise,” said
even
through these. Moreover, analo- to take his wife home, and Root Man gave Raven Man. “You are
completely revived.”
gous tales among the Eskimo and, more them four for the And stood
driving-reindeer journey. Ememqut up.
especially, the Indian tribes of the Ameri- One day, when Grass Woman had gone to A third time the adventure was
attempted,
can North Pacific Coast, back to a
pick berries, she failed to and
point return, Ememqut and a third time, Big Raven’s son slain. Titon
shared from old Ber- looked everywhere. Gull Man told him that
heritage—possibly Man, this time, burned the body and
flung the
elements also evident from Triton Man had carried her off, and his father bones into various lakes.
ingland—with And Big Raven, a

the warned, “Don’t follow her. You will be third his

very much later East Asian, Neolithic, time, sent sons-in-law to the search.
killed.” “Oh, I’m not afraid to die,” said found the ashes. Then Gull Man flew
Bronze and Iron They
Ages. Recounted here for
and he set forth.
are tales collected in Ememaut, out over the lakes, dove into them, and, one
comparison Koryak Triton Man was out with his reindeer herd
1900 and 1901, Eskimo stories from as far by one, came
up with Ememqut’s bones.
when walked into his took
east as and Raven
Ememqut tent, The two returned to
Big Raven, who a third
Greenland, episodes Grass Woman the and started for
by hand, time ordered his son revived. “This time, I
from the Indian tribes of the American home. But Triton Man felt some- said
immediately can’t” Raven Man. “Oh, try!” Big Raven
North Pacific Coast. and to his feet.
thing jumped “How my heart ‘Well then,” said Raven ‘Let
pleaded. Man,
flutters,” he muttered. has four white
‘Something hap- reindeer be killed.” They were
pened at home.” He rushed to the tent. and he beat his drum all
killed, day and night
“Where is wife?” he asked. until last the bones
my ‘“Ememqut at reunited and covered
Grass Woman's Abduction and Rescue took her,”” his mother And he started
replied. themselves with flesh. The blood was
poured
after, overtook the slew
couple, Ememqut, and the marrow
put to the mouth. “Is it
In this tale from the remotest northeast and carried Grass Woman back to his sweet?” the “it is
“No,” camé answer, like
corner of Eurasia, it is difficult not to sus- dwelling. wood.” Raven Man again beat the drum,
Big Raven waited for his then said
pect a reflex of the distant
leg- Eleusinian long son,
poured blood, and again asked about the mar-

to his two sons-in-law.” ““Go out and look for row. “It is as sweet as the marrow from the
end of the leg
wheat-goddess Persephone brother-in-law.” found the
your They body bones of the wild reindeer I used to kill,”
(here known as Grass Woman), who was and returned with it. ‘You must do
something Ememqut said; and up he stood, hale and
abducted to the Underworld by the Lord to revive him,” Raven said. And Raven
of the
Big well.
Abyss, Hades (here appearing as
Man
replied, “T’ll try. But first you must kill a One whole and did not even
Triton But whatever the day Ememqut
Man). explana- white reindeer.” mention his wife. Then he asked his father,
tion be, the Neolithic
may vegetation Big Raven waited
long for his son, then said “Should I not
again?” “No!” try his father
myth has in this story become incorpo- to his two sons-in-law, “Go out and look for said. ‘“Better go hunting!’” So, next day,
rated in the context of an
earlier, Paleo- Raven Man ordered the meat removed and
Ememqut went hunting, and when he had
lithic, shamanic tradition, on an only the blood left on the hide. Then he took killed a wild he lay down be-
centering reindeer, to rest
Creator and known up a
drum, and, when he had beat it several ‘neath bush.
ambiguous Trickster, a
stone-pine And he had not been
Raven. times, he poured some of the blood over
as As in
Koryak folklore generally, resting long when he heard a voice from un-

Ememqut’s head. The stirred. Raven

so
here, this figure is represented in two body derground, a child’s voice. ‘“Grandma, tell me
Man bone marrow to the mouth. “Do
distinct, somehow related, characters: pressed a
story.” “What can I tell you?” an old
yet the
you taste sweetness of the marrow?” he woman’s voice
replied. “I don’t know any
(1) Big Raven, who in
Koryak tales repre- asked. “No.” “It tastes
sents the ‘‘creator’” of the Emequt responded. stories, unless I tell you the one about
primarily aspect like wood.” Raven Man returned to the drum, “Well tell that said
Ememqut.” then, me one,”
mythic being, and who, as “ancestor’’ of
poured more blood over
head, the child.
Ememqut’s
the Koryak, is known as
Big Grandfather, and again gave him some marrow. “Do “Triton the old
Outer and and
you Man,” woman
began, ‘‘car-
One, World, Creator, taste the sweetness?” “Yes!’” said ried wife
Ememqut. Ememqut’s away, and
Ememqut
plays (or once played) an important part “When I shot wild reindeer and ate the mar- took her back three times; but Triton Man
in observances; and Raven row of their bones, it sweet what I
religious (2) was as as overtook him each time and killed him.”
Man, who represents taste now.” ““You have
primarily the Trick- completely revived,” “And how is
Ememqut going to
get his wife
ster of the said Raven Man. “You rise.”
aspect mythic being and is a may back?” the child’s voice asked, and the old
However, the moment to his
more
distinctly popular, inferior person- Ememqut got woman
replied: ““He would be able to, if
I told
ification of the
the actual feet, he said, “I must set out
again for my him how.”
bird, raven,
wife.” “No!” his father
as a
droll, and urged. ‘Triton Man
Ememqut searched beneath the stone-pine
represented greedy, con-
will
In the again kill you.” “I don’t care if he does,” bush and found a hole
leading to a house
temptible, yet clever, magician. said
he is shown to be
Ememqut; and he made away to Triton
underground. Down he went and found old
following folktale, a
Man’s place. ““Come, Grass Woman, let’s gol” who lived down there with
serviceable shaman, as well. Spider Woman,
he said. And
again the couple made off. But her
granddaughter. She greeted him and
Triton Man was
again alarmed, ran
home, served him food, which, however, he did not
“Let us to Gull Man
go Big Raven,” said, heard the news, overtook the two, slew touch. He said to her, “You
“and serve for his two Raven only just told your
daughters.’” Ememqut, and cut him into small pieces. that knew how
granddaughter you Ememqut

182 .
 Map 39. Afull circle of taiga, tundra, and ice! Cul-
\4
BOE ees turally, the Eurasian half differs from the American in
The Arctic Province that reindeer herding is there practiced, and racially,
iad
-————-

international boundaries
tue itis more various. Animal sacrifices, like those of the
Contemporary
Ethnic Group and Koryak to mythical beings (see 304 on page 175),
Culture Area boundaries i]
——.
are unknown in the American Arctic, since they are
Tribal boundaries
as functions of a herding-culture stage, where the ani-
Yakuts Tribe or Ethnic Group mals offered are valued possessions. Life in both
Eurasian Shamanic Domain halves depends on meat, however, and their funda-
| | to the beasts. Fur-
Eskimo Domain
mental festivals are of petitions
[] thermore, the shaman’s drum resounds
|
Aleut Domain
throughout,
and there is everywhere an especial reverence for
Domain of the North
Pacific Coast Indians the bear.

a
The of the Eurasian mixture follows from
Wei 7
complexity
p
the number of its sources: first, Paleolithic Europe;
Paxi %

moseds
next, the matrix (unidentified) from which the Paleo-
Siberian races sprang; and finally, the Altai-Baikal

region, whence migrants followed northward the

Barents
/ Okhotsk Yenisei, Ob, and Lena valleys.
ee Yakuts.

Kamchadal
Whereas to the American Arctic there but
Ses
4

Lamuts and Yakuts L, was one

Koryaks
—
ir
°

"
gate, and already as noted (pages 34—36), after

. weZ Beringland submerged there appeared in Alaska, c.

i.
[ox
Lamuts
Yukaghir
Chukchi 3000 B.c., a microlithic,
ently of caribou hunters.
small-tool industry, appar-
By 1000 B.c. this Denbigh
North Pole Flint complex had reached Greenland; and it was

probably out of this base that the prehistoric Dorset

ARCTIC
vircle
Cir
Culture developed (c. 800 B.c. to A.D. 1200) in north-
OCEAN
Arctic eastern Canada and Greenland.
Sea
GREENLAND
The Eskimo tradition emerged from a
Bering Sea,
(Denmark) a

seal-hunting culture, c. 500 B.c. By the first centuries

A.D., influences were
appearing in Scythian Ipiutak
art (see pages 38-39). By A.D. 1200, this culture had

Ms ATLANTIC
reached Greenland, overlying the Dorset. In the next
o
2

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OCEAN
century the Norse arrived, and the circle was com-

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might get his wife back. Iam Ememqut. Will When Raven Man she found in bed. He did not
get up, but

you tell me?” the Sun remained in silence so as not to open his
Swallowed
*“Go to Triton Man’s Woman mouth. Approaching, she said slyly, “I have
place,” Spider
said, “but do not take wife. First, left Little Bird Man. I have a for
your you longing you.”
_must the box that stands in a corner of And, him she tickled him
open In this amusing fragment of a
larger tale, embracing firmly,
the tent. In that box is Triton Man’s heart. Take under his arm. He laughed: his mouth had
the negative aspect of the Trickster ap-
his heart out of the and when have the
box, you
pears, but with a hint, also, of his cosmic opened, sun
escaped, and again there was

done that, it
carry away.” role and In his service for a wife, light."
power.
Ememqaut gave the old woman the reindeer
he loses out to Little Bird and in
he had and hastened home.
Man, a
just killed, Big creates a disaster.
Raven but pique general
was
lying down, on
seeing his son,
he sat up. ‘‘Why so cheerful?” he asked. “You the Cannibal Giant
Glutton,
must have heard news.” Raven Man and Little Bird Man went to
Big
good “Spider
Woman,” Ememqut answered, “has just told Raven’s place to serve for a
They both
wife. The character of the
Glutton, the Vora-
me how to
get my wife back.” “Then once wanted to his elder daughter Yinyé-a- cious One, or takes the
try marry Gourmandizer,
more,’’ Raven said, and hurried nyéut, but Little Bird Man won her hand. form
Big Ememqut in the
following story of a
young
Some time later, when the had come to
away. couple giant whose original identity with the
When he arrived at the tent, he the a visit to the bride’s parents, it
suddenly
opened pay Raven Trickster becomes evident in the
box, took out the heart, and when he had grew dark: someone had swallowed the sun.
end, when he marries
reached home with it, built a fire into The second had a Yinyé-a-nyéut,
great daughter, Chanai-nydut, who is Raven Man’s wife.
which he threw it. The moment it to husband who claimed to be a shaman. Given normally Sig-
began nificant is the identification of
while
Glutton’s
burn, Triton Man—who was out watch- a drum to beat, he tried his skill for a
again
belly with the Underworld.
ing his herd—felt ill; and when the heart was and then cried, “‘I see! It’s Raven Man! It’s he Yinyé-a-
burnt he died. who has swallowed the sun.” nyéut’s release of a multitude from this
completely up,
Then Ememqut went and
brought his wife Yinyé-a-nyéut got up. “T’ll go to him. I’ll set belly is a
counterpart to the medieval leg-
back home, after which lived with it free,’”” she said. She on her reindeer- end of Christ’s of Hell releas-
they quietly put Harrowing
Raven.'!” leather coat and went to Raven Man, whom from the Devil’s the souls of the
Big ing keep

183
Old-Testament patriarchs. It is One when
analogous How Universe the Supreme time, Big Raven living on was

also to
Yinyé-a-nyéut’s release of the sun
Being Makes Rain earth, it rained for so
long that everything he
from Raven Man’s mouth in the owned got wet, his clothes and
preced- provisions
tale. Or began to rot, and his house
ing one
may think of Little Red underground
Hood the filled with water. At last he said to his eldest
Riding (the Sun-girl) released from Universe, Koryak Supreme Being,
Rain Woman son, Ememqut, ‘Universe must be doing
the wolf's For both in folktales and and his wife, or
Supervisor
belly.
in the theme of the Woman, dwell in a inhab- something up there. Let us
fly up and see.”
major myths great heaven-village their
the They went outside, put on raven coats,
release of light, of life, or of innocent ited by people of sky. Big Raven,
and flew to Universe’s where
from the of is an of this place, they
beings belly or
keep some evil dwelling on earth, aspect heard the sound of a drum from within. It was

has been universal favorite.**! In the following tale,

power a
heavenly power. Universe who was
drumming. His wife, Rain
Universe and Raven are seen as
Big sepa- Woman, was beside him. He had cut off her
Yinyé-a-nyéut was
living alone, at that rate; for, like the Father and Son of the vulva and it the he had
hung on
drum; also
time, in the wilderness. was the
Upstream Christian tradition, though theologically cut off his own
penis and was
using it as a

young giant, Glutton, who had turned into a

of ‘“one substance,”” mythologically they drumstick; and when he beat the drum, water
cannibal. He had devoured his mother, rela-
are ‘‘two poured from the vulva as rain.
and
persons.”
tives, neighbors, and was now going from be told When Universe saw
coming in, Raven
The following tale might to
put Big
village to village devouring the inhabitants. he hid the drum, and the rain
When
a
stop to rain or to a snowstorm. It was stopped. Big
he came to
Big Raven’s place, Yinyé-a- not to be told in fair weather.
Raven said to
Ememut, “The rain has
stopped;
in her
nyéut sleep saw him enter and eat
Big we can leave.” They went out, the drumming
Raven himself, Ememqut, and everyone else
resumed, and the rain poured down as before.
except Ememquet’s wife, Grass Woman, whom They returned, Universe his drum,
put away
he then married. and the rain
stopped. Big Raven whispered to
When woke, she hurried to
Yinyé-a-nyéut his son, ‘We'll
pretend to go, but hide and see
her father’s village, where there was no one; what they are doing.’”” Then he said to Uni-
then to Glutton’s place, where Grass Woman
verse, “This time we’re
really going.” Pre-
was alone. She had turned into a cannibal and
tending to leave, the two turned into reindeer
threatened to kill her sister-in-law and feed hairs and lay on the floor. They saw Universe
her to her husband; but her intended victim ask his wife for the drum, she gave it to him,
contrived to extract her cannibal stomach and he beat it, and the rain
poured as before.
return her to her senses.
Big Raven said to Ememqut, “I’m going to
“What brought you here?’”” Grass Woman make them fall
then
asleep. You watch where they
asked. “When my husband returns, he
put the drum and stick.” Immediately, Uni-
will kill “Let him,” said
you.” Yinyé-a-nyéut, verse and his wife fell asleep. Big Raven took
“since he has eaten father, mother,
already my the drum and stick and roasted them over the
and brothers!”” Grass Woman hid her inside a
fire until
dry and crisp, then
they were re-

bead, and Glutton was heard arriv-

presently turned them to their places and broke the
ing outside, dragging a dead man ona
sledge. sleeping spell. Universe picked up and beat
He shouted, ‘‘“Grass Woman, come out!” the drum, but the more he beat it, the finer the
She went out and unloaded the sledge. ‘‘Why weather became, until there was not a cloud
don’t you exclaim over the catch?” he asked. in the
sky. Universe and his wife then went to
“T am she “but have
pleased,” replied, just bed.
eaten.”
They hauled the body into the house
“Now,” Big Raven said to his son, “let us
and stowed it with many others. Then Glutton
really go home.” The clear weather continued
cut off a head to and
fry, Yinyé-a-nyéut, for days, but they had no luck in their
hunting
watching from her in the bead, saw that
place either of sea mammals or of reindeer. Every-
it was her father’s.
body was
starving because Universe was
Glutton sniffed the air. “It smells of human
sleeping. “I’m going back to see what he’s
flesh here,” he said. From within her bead
doing now,” said Big Raven, as he again put
.

Yinyé-a-nyéut whispered to Grass Woman, on his raven coat and flew.

“Let him eat me. I'll revive all those he has “We're now
having very good weather,” he
311. Koryak shaman
killed.” So Grass Woman drew her out and beating his drum. Walrus-
told Universe when he arrived, “but every-
threw her to the
ivory carving from the Chukchi Peninsula. Photo-
cannibal, who devoured her We can’t find
graphed reflected. Height, 2’ inches. Carried away body’s starving. any game.”
at once.
on the sound of his drum, the shaman’s
spirit is said “That's because I’m
looking after my chil-
not
Yinyé-a-nyéut found herself in the Under- to ride on the animal whose hide has been stretched Universe “Go back
dren,” replied. home.
with all her relatives and the others he over the drum-frame. The drumstick is then his knout
world, From now on have
or
whip. And lest his body, too, be carried and
you'll good hunting.” Big
had killed. she cried. “Before the away
“Hurry!” Raven left, and when his sons thereafter went
sides of the road
possibly not return, the shaman is sometimes bound
come
together!’’ She turned, mammals wild rein-
while in trance. The Northern Lights may be the hunting, they got sea and
they followed, and when Glutton, next morn-
flashing of shaman spirits somewhere in combat. deer. Big Raven pulled from the ground the
ing, set out on his daily hunt, they all came
up to which his and out
post dogs were tied,
from into his house,
underground filling it so came a whole herd of reindeer. He sacrificed
full that the walls were
pushed apart. And many of these to Universe, and after that, he
when Grass Woman saw
among them her
had only good luck in his
father and former she
hunting.’*
husband, said, ‘““Why
have you all come back? Glutton will eat you
again.” “Never mind!” an-
Yinyé-a-nyéut
swered. “Let him eat!’’
he and when he the
Eskimo Tales
Presently arrived, saw

multitude, he shouted, ‘““What a lot of meat I

The of the Eskimo culture over
shall have!’”’ But
Yinyé-a-nyéut walked up to uniformity
its whole reach from Strait to
him and with an iron hook pulled out his Bering
Greenland has been remarked.
cannibal stomach, and he became sane. The frequently
who had returned from However, a certain differentiation has
people underground
for their homes. Glutton married also been remarked, east and west of the
departed
Mackensie River. A
Yinyé-a-nyéut, and at first would eat
only linguistic distinction
once a month, but later he ate all kinds of to these the Inupik dialect
pertains areas,
food, as of old.'?

184
 in the east, and the in Then there came from the sea a
being spoken Yupik mighty The Old Woman, Sedna, of the Sea
the west. influences from both flood. Many were
drowned, and men became
Moreover,
Asia and the North Ameri- fewer. The marks of that flood can still be seen
neighboring “Evidently,” remarked Boas in 1888, ‘’this
Indian
on the high hilltops, where mussel shells are
can tribes are
significantly stronger tale is known to all the tribes from Green-
found. And when men had thus become
in the west than in the east; and these find
two old debated:
land westward to Alaska, since fragments
fewer, women ‘Better to be
expression, as Franz Boas observed, “ina
without said “if thus we be
have been recorded in many places.”
of decorative day,” one, may
higher development art, in Robert E the other in
without death.” “No,” said the other, “let us
Spencer, on hand,
the occurrence of a few inventions un-
have both light and death.” And as she northern Alaska some later
spoke, seventy years
known to the eastern Eskimo (such as
pot- it was so:
light came, and death. (1959), found that “no ramifications of
tery and the use of tobacco), and in reli- It is said that when the first man
died, oth- this or the tale in form of the
myth, any
gious observances, beliefs, and current covered the
ers
body with stones, but the
goddess of the sea could be tracked down
tales not found in more eastern districts.”"™ not
body, rightly knowing how to die, tried to
in the area.”
!
W. Bogoras, among the
The tales of the brief selection come back. It stuck out its head and tried to
following Paleo-Siberian Chukchi in c. 1900, found
are from the eastern zone: Green- get up, but an old woman thrust it back,
chiefly say- a
counterpart of the Eskimo Sedna in a
Baffin and Hudson ing: ‘“We have much to and our sleds are
land, Land, Labrador, carry
known as Mother of the Wal-
small.’’ For theabout to set out sea-goddess
Bay; the last two are from the northern people were She
on a
rus. was
supposed to have had two
slope of Alaska. hunting journey. Having got light, they
walrus tusks but one had been
were able to go on
journeys and to hunt. They originally,
had recently broken, and this had so incensed
no
longer to eat of the earth. And with
death came also the sun, the moon, and stars; her that she had thereafter reduced the
for when men
they ascenddie, to the sky and game supply. When the second tusk is
When the Earth Was Made
become brightly shining things there.’ broken, all will from the
up game disappear
surface of the earth. (There was also a
From a Polar Eskimo of Smith Sound, at
Chukchi Reindeer Master with one
eye
the northernmost of the western
point
closed, who had diminished the reindeer
coast of Greenland, comes the
following When the other the
recollection of an ancient supply. eye closes,
extraordinary Sun Sister and Moon Brother reindeer will disappear.) Bogoras discov-
cosmology. ‘Those who lived
long before
these
our
day did not know how to store their The action of these Eskimo tales is not
ered, among people, the legend of a

girl who was tossed overboard and whose

words in little black marks, do,” assigned to the timeless
as Dream Time of a
you
Rasmussen was told the narrator. true fingers were
chopped off; but she was not
by Mythological Age, but, to
quote identified the Chukchi with their Wal-
could
only tell stories. And by
“They they again Franz Boas: ‘The general condi- she is identified in the Es-
told
rus
Mother, as
many things, and therefore we are tions of life supposed to
prevail at the time kimo with Sedna.” There was
not without of these of the the the conditions legend
knowledge things, story are same as
at continuous
which we have heard told and *’”
fact
thus, one time, a
province
many of life at the present time.” This
of the of this ex-
many a time, since we were little chil- results in such as those in mythology sea-goddess
incongruities from the Chukchi Peninsula to
dren.’ the tale, where, before there tending
following Greenland. She is known in Greenland as
were sun and moon, there were
already the Food Dish. And that she was once
daylight and night. Likewise, in tales
A time when the earth in Alaska we know from a
long, long ago, was
such ‘““The Old of the present report
as Woman, Sedna,
to be made, it
dropped from the sky; earth, in 1886." Her
Sea,””’ where seals and whales are published disappearance
and stones down and thus the pro- from the Barrow
hills, came
area, therefore, may be
duced from Sedna’s finger joints, are
earth was made. they due to the success there of the
not the first of their kind. As Boas states Presbyter-
And when the earth had been made, came
ian which
mission, has completely broken
of these legends, “The animals
men. It is said that they came from the earth. created the of her attendants, the local sha-
rather individuals than the first
power
From the willow bushes, out of the are of
among mans, the last of whom died in 1939.
little children all covered with their The version here
ground came
species.’’* repro- The folklore of the area now has the char-
willow leaves, and there they lay among the duced of the Sun Sister and Brother Moon
acter, rather, of wonder-tales told for en-
bushes, lay and kicked, for they could not adventure is from the Central Eskimos of
nts tertainment during the long winter night,
even crawl. And they got their food from the Baffin Land and Hudson it was
Bay; pub- than of
earth. myth.'*
soossenThen there is told about a man
lished in 1888 by Franz Boas.
The best-known version of the
legend
something
Wass and a woman:
something not
clearly known. of this old
sea-goddess features a refusal-
When did they find each other? Where had A brother and sister lived in of-suitors motif. In folk traditions
a large village gener-
in which there house where
they grown up? The woman
sewed, made was a
big singing ally, and in those of North America espe-
children’s clothes, wandered forth and found the sister and her friends went
night to
every cially, such a refusal of suitors is followed
the little dressed them, and enjoy themselves. One time, when the lights
oN ones, brought inevitably by a
supernatural courtship.
them home. And in this way men became had been extinguished, a
youth approached
many. unseen and made love to her. This then hap-
[tease with
Being
dog a
many,
leash
they
in
desired
hand
dogs.
stamped
So
on
a man

the
pened
cided to
several
find out
evenings,
who her
until
unseen
finally she de-
lover was. with
Sedna,
her
beautiful
widowed
solitary
and
father
proud,
on a
lived alone
Arctic

ground crying ‘““Hok—hok—hok!” And the In the soot of the fire she blackened the shore and who
palms spurned every suitor came to
of her hands and that night, when
dogs came hurrying, each from its tiny mound, receiving her. One
springtime day, therefore, at the
and violently shook themselves. For their his embrace, left the mark of her palms on his time of the of the ice, a fulmar [an
breaking
coats were full of sand. back. When the lamps were again lighted, she Arctic sort of came over the ice
seagull] flying
In those a time noth- was to see that he was her brother. floes with a that seduced her.
days, long, long ago, appalled flattering song
ing was known of death. Children were born She cut off her breasts and flung them at him “Oh, come with me to the land of birds, where
and to be old; and they were with the words, “Since relish eat there is never tent is made of the
grew increasingly you me, hunger. My
on the earth, until at last
they could these.” She then fled from his pursuit about most beautiful skins. Your will be
many lamp always
neither walk nor lie down. They went blind. the room, and as
they ran
they were elevated filled with oil, your with meat, will
pot you
Nor did they know the sun: lived in the to the sky. She became the he the rest on the softest bearskins, and
they sun, moon, my com-

RVs dark. There was

light only inside their houses, with her black handprints still upon him. Oc- rades will clothe you warmly with their feath-
where they burned water in their
lamps; for in casionally he catches her, and then there is an ers.” She could not resist, and him in
joined
mee. those days water would burn.
eclipse. flight over the ice floes. His tent, however,

185
 was of broken fishskins, his bed of walrus
hides; and there was no of meat,
pot only
miserable fish from the beaks of birds.
“Oh my father,” Sedna sang, “if you knew

my sorrow, you would take me

away in your
boat!”
Next her father arrived in his boat,
spring,
and when he saw the condition of his
daugh-
ter, he killed the fulmar, took her aboard, and

paddled for home. However, the fulmars very

soon discovered their comrade slain and cried
in as have been
mourning crying ever
they
since. Then still
they flew, crying, in pursuit
of the fleeing and
couple, conjured up such a
terrible storm that the father and
daughter in
the boat were in of their lives.
tossing danger
And it was then that the miracle occurred
ugly
which transformed the
those two into under- passage throughregion of the happy 312. Eskimo shaman preparing for a
spirit flight,
world dead; the bound head to knees and hands behind.
powers. next, crossing of an abyss on the Bird wings
The in his
are fastened to his back. His drum is beating itself.
father, terror, to appease pur- flat of an
wheel, as slippery
ever-turning From an Eskimo drawing collected
suers, threw his overboard, but she by Rasmussen.
daughter as ice; next, a
boiling kettle full of fero-
clung to the of the boat. He off
edge chopped cious seals; and, at the entrance to the Old
the first joints of her which fell into
fingers, Woman’s house itself, the seals and
the sea and became whales. He
chopped off dogs
by which it is these
the second which fell into the sea and
guarded. Beyond
joints, there is the
became seals. She continued to so he crossing of a second gorge on
tering, saw a
very beautiful young woman,
cling, a the
bridge as narrow as
edge of a knife. dressed in skin of wondrous
chopped off her hands, which fell into the sea clothing make,
Other are and the skin of
and became ground seals. The storm then dangers a
large burning lamp, a fox
hanging on
a line. The
two rocks that strike man’s entrance startled
subsided, for the fulmars thought she had together, and a
pel- her, and he asked if it
vis bone. The task of the was she who had done these kind the
drowned. And the father took his daughter shaman, finally, things,
on is to free the past replied that
days. She she was his wife
back into the boat. arrival, Old Woman’s
head and that to do these was her she
But she now bore him such resentment that of the unconfessed abortions that things duty;
when they had landed home and he had fallen infest it and are the whole occasion of her only hoped that they had been done as he
she called her would have wished.
asleep, dogs, they gnawed and
anger. 14” She then remained with
off his feet and hands. him, and when
Waking in a fury, he so
they had lived number of
roundly cursed his daughter, and himself that together a
days, the
the The Fox man detected a
musty odor about the
earth opened and swallowed the hut, Wife lodge
and asked what it be. She
daughter, father, dogs, and all. And they have might replied that
From the Eskimo of the district, the odor was hers and that if he
lived ever since in the place down there called Ungava was
going to
Labrador, comes the find fault with her because of she would
Adlivun.1 following folktale, it,
leave.
recorded in the 1890s, which is of a
type Throwing off her clothing, she resumed
known her fox-skin, and has
scholarship to as the Mysterious slipped quietly away,
never served man since.”
Housekeeper: Men find their house mys- any
Sedna sits in her dwelling, alone in in order
teriously put and discover that it
front of a beneath which is vessel
lamp a is done bya girl, frequently an animal
The Wild Goose
to receive the oil that continually flows transformed Wife
into a
girl.’ The plot and
from it. And it is either from this vessel or
action are
certainly not of Eskimo inven- From the northwesternmost corner of
from the dark interior of her house that
tion, originally from
she sends forth the animals of the hunt.
but Asia—possibly Greenland, Smith Sound, some 900 miles
Southeast Asia or Indonesia. Variants are from the North
When
Pole, there comes this
angry, however, she withholds distributed
through Europe and Africa, as classic rendition (though with an
ugly
them and people starve. The Greenland well as
through both North and South
ending) of the folktale of the Swan Maid-
Eskimos ascribe her to a of
anger plague America. There is a
charming Japanese ens: A man sees ona lake some who
that fasten themselves to
geese
filthy parasites version, ‘““The Crane’s Wife,”” which the have taken off their feathers and become
her head and are called a name that
by playwright Junji Kinoshita has turned women. He steals the feathers of one, and
means “abortions” or “dead-born chil- into a
popular children’s theater piece, the rest
fly away as
geese. She remains
dren.” As these accumulate, she becomes The Twilight Crane. and marries him, but one finds her
wrathful and withholds her herds, at day
feathers when she and her children
which time it becomes the task of the fly
A hunter, to his found it Like
the to down to her
returning lodge, away as
geese.’*! the Fox Wife tale,
angakok, shaman, go in order, it would have been if he
nicely put as
this is not an invention of the Eskimo, but
and relieve her of her pain. had had a wife. A hot meal was
ready to be an from
importation Asia—possibly first
The Eskimos’ earth plane of land and eaten. His leather and boots had been
clothing known in Central Asia. In the Arabian
sea rests, like a vast table, upon four pil- cleaned and
hung out to dry. Yet there were Thousand Nights and One Night, there are
lars. Above is the solid vault of the no tracks or
signs to suggest who might have
sky, two fine ‘The
around a mountain done these things. The next day, likewise,
examples: Story of Jan-
revolving pivotal high shah” 131 and ‘Hassan of Bassora
in the farthest north. Above the there and so, too, the next; until the hunter deter- (Tale b)
sky and the of the
is a land of mountains, and
mined to learn by ruse who this was that was King’s Daughter Jinn” (Tale
valleys, lakes,
and below the earth another such being so attentive to his needs. He went out, 155). It is the fairytale of Tchaikovsky’s
land,
which can be entered either of the
as
though as usual to
go hunting, but circled popular ballet, Swan Lake, and in medieval
by way back and hid in the brush within of the India, it provided the for the
sea or certain mountain clefts. sight inspiration
through entrance to his of the trickster hero Krishna’s
The shaman to meet Sedna will first
lodge. episode
going Presently there fox that trotted in
stealing the Gopis’ clothes.
came a
have his
body tied with thongs. He then
through the entrance, in
quest—he sus-
invokes his
guardian spirits and his soul
pected—of food. When it did not
reappear, he
The
departs. perils of the way are: first, a
cautiously approached the
lodge and, on en- A hunter once came to a lake upon which a

186
number of wild had descended. They Very soon the raven felt himself
geese sinking
removed their feather and became from weariness and lack of
garments, sleep. “Something
women stealth- to rest on!” he cried, and to his two
young bathing. Approaching gasping;
the feather cloaks and wives “Sit the side side!’’
ily, he
on
gathered up hid, water, by They
that when the bathers came ashore did so, while their comrades flew on. The
so
they
were He then returned all the raven settled down on them and fell
dismayed. asleep.
when the oth- But the other
cloaks but one, whose owner, they saw
flying farther geese
and farther and
ers had flown, became his wife. away, so
dropped that raven
They lived together some
years, and she into the water, and flew off. “Something to
bore two children. But when her husband was rest on!”’ the raven as he met
again gasped,
away one
day, she found some wings which the water, sank to the bottom, and drowned.
she hid among the skin coverings of the walls, After a while his broke into little
body pieces,
and when he was next away, she put these on and his soul turned into those little black mol-
*°
herself and her two children and together, lusks that are known as “‘sea ravens.”

away they flew.

They were already far away, when the hus-
band, returning, realized what had happened
and decided to follow and recover them. He
In the Two Tales
walked the beach, and when he had Beginning:
along
walked for many days, saw before him a
large In the there was darkness and
beginning only
man
chopping with an axe and making of the a woman with her father at the of
living edge
great chips that flew walruses and seals. The the sea. She went out one time to water,
get
man listened to his story and proposed to take and, while snow saw a
scraping together,
him in his boat to the land of birds, but with feather floating toward her from the sea. She
the warning to
keep his eyes shut all the way. her mouth, it floated in, she swal-
opened
There were times when he greatly wanted to lowed it, and became When the
pregnant.
look, but he was warned and reminded con- was it had raven’s and the
baby born, a
beak,
stantly, until finally they landed ona shore. woman tried to find for it. There was a
toys
It was the children who first saw him com- bladder in her father’s
blown-up hanging
ing. They ran and told their mother, who was
house, and the whose
child, name was Raven,
incredulous, for they had flown, she thought, at it and cried for it. At
continually pointed
much too far for him ever to reach them. She last she took it down and let him have it; but
refused to come out to see him, and when he in he broke it, and there
playing, immediately
walked into her tent, she feigned death. He was When the father came he
light. home,
took her out, buried her, covered the grave scolded. But Raven had disappeared."
with stones, went back into the tent, and

pulled down his hood in

mourning. However, Men that the world was made Raven.
say by
his wife, alive, broke out of the grave, strode He is a man with a raven’s beak. When the
into the tent, and began pacing about, when came from the water it drawn
ground up was

he took up his spear and killed her. A great Raven. He down into it,
up by speared
many geese came down around him, and he the land, and fixed it into
brought up place.
killed them. But his two
boys, meanwhile, The first land was a of
313. In western Alaska, an Eskimo plot ground hardly
had fled.**? grandfather than
bigger a house. There was a
family in a
teaches cat’s cradle figures to his
granddaughter.
house there: a man, his wife, and their little
Compare the young Bushman girl exhibiting a cradle
(181 on page 101). son. This boy day was aRaven. One he saw

The Raven Who Wanted a

Wife sort of bladder bed. over his
hanging parents’
He begged his father for it, again and
This and the two that follow are
again,
piece but his father
from the Old North Pacific Raven
always said, ‘“No!’’ until finally,
Cycle. “Why are
you weeping?” “I am
weeping for he gave in. While
playing, Raven broke the
In the
first, from in northern
Upernavik my lost husband. I was fond of him because bladder, and light appeared. ‘We had better
Greenland, the Trickster in his have
appears he caught worms for me,” said the sparrow. night too,” said the father, ‘‘not just day-
inferior character as the impudent, greedy And the raven
said, ‘One who can
hop over light all the time.”” So he grabbed the bladder
bird, very like Raven Man of the Koryak; high blades of grass should not be weeping. before the little boy could damage it further.
And that is how
whereas, in the following two pieces, Take me for a husband. I have a fine high day and night began.
broad and Now the father had a
from Barrow, Alaska, he is in human form forehead, temples, a
long beard, a
kayak. ‘’There is more
beak. will and land far
but with a raven’s beak, like the Paleo- big You
sleep under my wings away,” he said, and Raven asked to

Siberian Raven in his role of I shall

give you lovely offal to eat.” “I will not be allowed to go there. At first his father said,
Big higher
take for
my husband,” she said, “for you “No!” but then to let him The
the Creator—or more
precisely, not the you agreed go. boy
have a
forehead, broad and
Creator, but the World Transformer, since high temples, a long paddled a
long time, finally came to a

beard, a
big beak, and will give me offal to place in the sea where there was land
the world bobbing
already in being when
was he
eat.’”” So the raven flew up and down on the water. It would rise and
away.
arrived to
reshape it. Noteworthy in these He went to seek a wife among the wild then sink. He was afraid and slowed up. As
tales are: the virgin-birth motif; concep-
geese. He was so lovesick that he could not he watched, the land rose, then sank, then
tion the the
through mouth; origin of light sleep. But when he came to the wild geese, rose
again. He had his spear in the
kayak, and
(that is, of daylight-consciousness) through about to off to other lands. The when the land he and
they were fly again came
up, speared
the accident of an infant’s play; and the raven said to two of them, “Seeing that a held it fast with the lead rope. This secured it,
use of a
spear to fix the earth upon the miserable sparrow has refused me, I will have and getting out of his kayak, he walked
cosmic this last motif “We are about to
fly away,” said around its surface. The place where that
waters, being a
you.” just upon
in the the geese. “I'll go too,” said the raven. ‘But was done is to this
day called Umiat, “the
prominent early Japanese cosmog-
of the consider,” they warned. ‘“No one can
go with landing place” [Colville River, 69° 30’N, 152°
ony Kojiki.
us who cannot swim on the surface of the sea; 16'W]. After the land had become fixed, the
A little for her lost for along the we there are no ice- sea
began to move and there was
sparrow was
mourning way go away dry
the “I
ground all around.
husband, of whom she was
very fond, for he bergs.” “That’s nothing,” said raven. So it was because of Raven
shall sail through the air.” And the wild that able to live in this
caught worms for her. And as she sat there geese people are now

to her and asked, flew the raven with them. world.'°

weeping, a raven came
up away,

187
 mother of many children, who all died The chief
young and his wife had two
big slaves, a
because of her brother’s wish that she should miserable and
man wife called Mouth-at-
not bear male the
Four Raven any offspring. [Compare Each-End, who every morning brought to the
Episodes Greek Kronos and Rhea; also, the Hindu house all kinds of food to eat. One
day, when
Kansa and Devaki, uncle and mother of the the chief and his wife had
from the American Savior, Krishna.] Advised the
gone out on a round
by Heron, of visits to the tribe, these two
brought in a
woman circumvented her brother
by swallow- large cut of whale meat, threw it on the fire
North Pacific Coast ing a redhot stone. [Inversion of Rhea’s and
giving were
eating it, when the shining youth
the stone to From this she
Kronos. ] conceived
approached and asked what it was that made
The Paleo-Siberian thrust eastward into and gave birth to Raven, who was hard as them so
hungry. “We are
rock and
hungry,” they re-
America was carried the Eskimo so
tough that he could not be killed.
by along plied, “because we have eaten scabs from our

the Arctic Coast to and Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass made this second

Greenland, by In- shin bones.” “Do you like what you eat?” he
dian tribes both southward the Raven head man over the world.!*” and the
along Pa- asked; man
replied, ‘Yes, my dear.”
cific Coast and “T should like
southeastward into the to
try those scabs myself,” said
continental interior. in the interior the youth; and the woman broke it: ‘“No, no,
Only Raven Becomes Voracious
the role of Raven my dear! Don’t wish to be as we are!” “I'll
was taken over
by other just
taste,” the said, ‘‘and then
trickster figures: in the Woodlands by the this and the follow- youth spit it out.”
Throughout episode So the male slave cut off small
Great Hare, and on the Plains both from the
a
piece of the
by Coyote. ing, Raven Cycle of the
whale meat and it
In the his adventures recalled put into a small scab. The
Arctic, are
Tsimshian, there is an of sha-
atmosphere woman
scolded, “Oh, you bad man! What are
in folktales half-remembered, while on manic and wonder that
magic is far to our The
the
you doing poor prince?” youth put
Pacific Coast, the full mythology sur- than to
stronger anything surviving us the piece into his mouth, tasted, spit it out,
vives, reflected in works of an extraordi- either from the Chukchi or from the then left the and
two, returned to his bed.
nary art and enacted in masked, Eskimo. It is that When the
great, possible we have some- chief and his wife came back from
mid-winter ceremonials. here of the of the Paleo- their tribal visits, the mother went to the bed
thing quality
Siberian and the said to her, “Mother, I
originals, adapted to the land- prince am

and of hungry.” “Oh, dear!” she said, “Is it true, is it

scape sociology Queen Charlotte
He Whose Voice Is true?” and she ordered the slaves to
Obeyed Sound. prepare
rich food. did and he ate it all. Still he
They so,
The Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands’
At the time when all was the ani-
was
hungry; the slaves prepared more food
darkness, and it to
know Raven as He-Whose-Voice-Is- gave him, and then more and more.
mals lived ina named the
A distinction
village Kungalas, on
This went on for several
Obeyed. is made, however, days, until all the
southern of the Queen Charlotte Is-
point in the
between the of the provisions chieftain’s house had been
cosmogonic legends lands. A chief and his wife resided there with
first of his eaten. Then the prince began to go about from
portion story and the tales of their little for whom the
only child, a boy, house to house
his trickster adventures. The first chief built a bed above his own in the of consuming whatever could be
portion rear
found. soon the chief realized that
is called his Very the
‘The Old Man’s and the large house. When the boy had to
Story,” grown
of his tribe almost
chiefs he fell provisions were
exhausted,
permit no
laughter when its
leg- young manhood, suddenly ill and died
and was ashamed. He called the
and when the chief, in people to his
ends are recited. his great sorrow, had
large house and said, “I am to send
invited all the animals to his house, he or- going my
child away before he consumes we
Not there land be dered the boy’s body laid out, and said to the everything
long ago was no to seen.
have.” and the father
Then there little attendants, “Take out his intestines.” They agreed; sum-
was
a thing on the ocean. The They moned his son him sit in the
removed and bidding rear of
rest was all open sea. Raven sat this little
were burned at the rear of
upon the room. dear he “Iam
the and the then great “My son,” said,
thing. ““Become dust!’ he said, and it became house, body was laid to
going to send you inland, to the other side of
the earth.’ rest in the bed that the father had built
the ocean.” He the small
above his own. gave shining youth a

round stone, a raven

blanket, and a dried sea-

lion bladder filled with berries of all kinds.

The chief and his wife mourned
The Greater and the Lesser Raven
every day “When are the
at dawn beneath the you flying across ocean and
body of their dead son,
feel this round stone the
and the whole tribe wailed with them, until weary, drop on sea

The two of Raven are held distinct and rest it; and
aspects one the chief’s wife upon when you reach the
the
morning, early, rose,
by Tlingit: one, as Raven-at-the-Head- climbed mainland, scatter these fruits over the land;
up to the bed, and there saw a
of-Nass
youth, scatter also the salmon and
(the Nass
River), and the trout roe in all the
other, bright as
fire, where the
body of her son had
as Raven. rivers and brooks, so that not lack
(Compare Big Raven and Raven been. She roused her husband. “Our beloved you may
food as as live in this world.”
Man of the child has returned to she long you
Koryak, pages 182-183.) life,” said; and
Then the started
the chief youth out. And his father
went to the foot of the ladder that
At the of there named him Giant.!8
beginning things was no reached to the place where the
body had been
daylight; the world was in darkness. At that laid, climbed up, and said, “Is it you, my
time there was
Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass beloved son?” “Yes,” the
with the
replied shining
sun, moon, stars, and, in
dwelling youth. “It is I.”’
his house Raven Steals Heaven
along with
daylight, two old When the Lightfrom
men:
people entered to
participate in
Old-Man-Who-Foresees-All-Trouble-in- the amazed at what Giant
the-World and
wailing, they were
they flew eastward and, presently tiring,
He-Who-Knows-Everything- saw. The youth
spoke to them. “Heaven was
dropped the little stone that had been
In given
that-Happens. darkness, underneath the much
annoyed by your constant him. It became
world,
wailing, so a
large rock, far out at sea,
was Old-Woman-Underneath. He sent me down to comfort your minds.” upon which he rested, his coat.
Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass man-
removing
brought The tribe was indeed comforted; and the chief There was no
light in the world at that time.
kind into existence. He undertook to make and his wife loved their son He resumed the
out of rock
glorious now raven coat and flew on,
people a
and, at the same
time, out more than ever.
However, the reached the mainland the
of a
leaf; but the rock and
shining youth at mouth of the
was
slow, the leaf, never ate. He would chew
quick; therefore, human are from the
only a little fat, but Skeena River, and there scattered the salmon
beings swallow
nothing. His parents tried to
give him and trout roe, as he let it fall, “Let
leaf. Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass showed the
saying every
food, but he declined and lived without it. creek and river have kind of fish!”
every From
leaf to the new race and said: ‘You see this Then one he went alone for the
leaf. You
day a
walk, and sea-lion bladder he then scattered the
are to be like it. When it falls from its while he was out, the chief ascended the lad- fruits over the land “Let
branch and rots, there is left of it.” So
saying, every moun-
nothing der to the bed, and—behold!—there lay the tain, hill, valley, plain, and the whole be
death came into the world. land,
corpse of his earlier son.
Nevertheless, he and full of fruits!” It dark.
was
very When the
Raven-at-the-Head-of-Nass had sky
asister, the his wife continued to love the new arrival. was clear there was
only a little from the
light

188
stars; and Giant, thinking it would be hard for returned to their houses, and Giant de-
him to find food if it remained that way, re- scended into this world with the Ma.
membered that there had beenlight in the He came down near the mouth of the River
heaven from which he had Nass, and with the box intact went
originally come. upstream
The he on his raven coat in the dark. Then he heard a noise of
following day put people
and flew came to the hole in the out in their olachen in
upward, sky, canoes, catching bag
and went
through it.
Removing the coat, he nets. He sat on the shore and called to them,
left it near the hole in the sky and, “My dear throw me of
going on, people, something
came to a
spring, not far from the house of the catch.” him, called
your Recognizing they
chief of heaven, where he himself down ‘‘Where did
sat back, you come from, great liar?”
and waited. The chief's “Throw me of catch,” he
daughter presently something your
appeared with a little bucket in which to fetch called ‘‘or I'll break the Ma!” made
again, They
water, and when Giant saw her he fun of him: “Where did what you are
coming, you get
transformed himself into a cedar leaf talking about, liar?’”” Twice more he called;
floating you
on the surface. She it up in her bucket twice more mocked him; and when he
dipped they
and drank, then returned to her father’s had said his say four times, he broke the Ma,
house, and in due time, birth toa son. and there was in the world.
gave daylight
A
The chief and his wife were
delighted. The gale then blew from the north, and
great
all those
boy began to grow and to creep about. He was
people who had made fun of Giant
and him with could be seen to be blown down-
strong, they raised great care.
frogs being
But he was
continually crying, ‘““Hama! Hama!” stream.
They were blown to a mountainous

This island when

troubled the chief, and he invited his where, they sought to make their
wise men to
interpret the child’s What the rocks, they became stuck, frozen
crying. way up
he wanted, the chief was told, was to to stone
by the wind—and can be seen
play they
with a box that was
hanging in one corner of there still.*°

314. Haida “chief's rattle” from Skidegate, Queen

Charlotte
carved
Islands,
of cedar
c. 1850
wood
to
in
1875. Length, 13
to
The First Kwakiutl
Totem Pole
inches; a
design common
several Northwest Coast tribes. The underside of the Wakiash had never had a dance of his own,
raven’s body is carved to represent the sparrow and since all the other chiefs had dances, he
hawk; the frog has emerged from a hawk’s head; and was and went into the mountains to
unhappy
from the frog’s tongue, the man
reclining on the fast. He remained four days, fasting, bathing,
raven’s back is sucking a
poison believed to give
and the
shamans the power to work spells. In The First
on fourth, early in the morning, was
so that he lay on his back and slept.
Kwakiutl Totem Pole retold below, the frog has be- weary
come a chieftain’s
guide to the acquisition of tokens Then something dropped onto his chest.
of prestige. “Wake it said, “and see where are
up,” you
going!” His eyes opened and he saw
a frog.
“Lie still,” it said;
“you are on a raven’s back
the box in which that is
fly you around the
the building. This was
day- going to world, so

and Giant that what want and take it.”

light was kept. Its name was Ma, you may see
you
had known of it before. They flew around the world in four
days, and
The chief, on of his on the fourth, Wakiash saw a beautiful totem
learning grandchild’s
desire, ordered the box to be taken down and pole and a house with a noise inside of sing-
fire. the He wanted that the who
placed by the Immediately boy ing. pole; so
frog,
sat down beside it, and knew his thoughts, told the raven to
stopped crying, stop.
he would it “Hide behind the said the “and
pushed it about. Sometimes carry door,” frog;
to the door. For four days he played with the when people the begin dance, in the house to

box this until the chief jump out.”” However, when the people tried
way, stopped paying
attention. Then he picked it up,
put it on his to
begin their dance, they could neither dance

shoulders, and ran out with it. Someone nor

sing. One said, “There is
something doing
shouted: “Giant is off with the Ma.” this.”” And their chief said, ‘“Let the one who
running
But he came to the hole in the sky, put on the runs faster than fire go around the house and
raven coat, and flew. The hosts of heaven see.”’ So the mouse
said, very well, she would
go. She was in the form of a little woman, for
she had taken off her mouse clothes, to dance.
All those were animals that had taken
people
off their animal skins. Their chief was Beaver.
When Mouse ran out, Wakiash her.
caught
“Ha, my friend,” he said, “wait, and I'll give
nice
you present!”” He
a
gave her a
piece of
mountain-goat fat, which so
pleased her that
she asked him what he wanted. He said he
wanted the totem
pole, the house, and the
dances and songs that went with them. “Wait
here,”’ she said. “‘T’ll be back.”’
Mouse told the she had found noth-
people
but when they tried to dance,
ing, they were
still unable to move. Three times they tried,
and each time, sent Mouse out to run. Each
time she talked to Wakiash and told
finally
him to make then went back, and
ready, again
they tried. Whereupon Wakiash sprang forth,
and the people all hung their heads in shame;
for a man had seen them like men.
looking
“Let’s not
just stand here!’”’ said Mouse. “‘Let’s
ask him what he wants!” So Beaver asked
what Wakiash wanted. Mouse knew his

thoughts and them. Then Beaver

reported
said, ‘Let our friend sit down. We'll show him
how we
dance, and he can choose whatever
he likes.” So they danced, all wearing masks.
Wakiash wanted the Echo mask; also, the Lit-
tle Man mask, who goes around the house,
talking. Beaver told him he could have these,
and along with them the totem and the
pole
house. He wrapped them all in little
up a
bundle. “When you reach home,” he said,
“throw this bundle down. The house will be-
come as it was when you saw it, and you can

then give your dance.”

Wakiash returned his bundle to the
with
raven, who flew with him toward the moun-

tain from which had set out. But before

they
they arrived, Wakiash fell asleep, and when
he woke, the raven and frog were gone. He
started home, and when he arrived; threw the
bundle down and there was the house with its
totem
pole. painted The whale on its side was

blowing. The animals on the totem pole were

all their noises and the masks inside
making
were
talking. Immediately, Wakiash’s people
woke, coming out to see what was
going on.

Then he learned that he had been away, not

four days, but four years.
Wakiash taught his people his songs and

they sang. He danced and Echo arrived, and

whoever made a noise, the Echo mask made
the same, changing its mouths to fit. And
when they had finished the house
dancing,
disappeared, returning to the animals. And
all the other chiefs were
ashamed, because
now Wakiash had the best dance.
He made masks, a
house, and pole a totem
of wood, and that was the first pole this
totem

tribe ever had. Its name was

Kalakuyuwish,
“Sky-supporting Pole.” It made a
creaking
noise, the sky was so
heavy. They made a

song for it, and Wakiash took the name of his

totem
pole as his own.'©

316. Onthe brink of madness, the Kwakiutl Indians

of the North Pacific Coast enact in spectacular mys-
tery plays the violence and brilliance of shamanic
visionary ordeals. A youth undergoing initiation here
will be seized and possessed by a cannibal spirit,
become cannibalistic himself, and dash about crying
“Eat! Eat!” while snapping and biting at those who
strive to restore him.

190
191
 THE NORTH AMERICAN
TWILIGHT OF THE
PALEOLITHIC
GREAT HUNT

317. The calumet is held, stem to sky, so that the

One Above may be the first to smoke. Then the
Indian will himself send puffs in reverence to the four The Idea and Ideas
directions. His tobacco is an incense; his medicine
pipe, an altar. The buffalo skull at his feet is a relic of God
and sign of the necessary sacrifice of life to life and,
in this regard, a token of the mysterious covenant of
man and nature. Between its horns two decorated On the banks of the Orinoco c.
1795, Alex-
eagle feathers have been laid in symbolic offering: ander von Humboldt met a
they are white and black, as in life and death all missionary
who that local
things are two. Consider Letakots-Lesa’s feathers reported a
jungle native
(319). That on his right is male; on his left, female. had once said to him: “Your God
And each is two, half light, half dark; daylight
keeps
and
himself shut up in a house, as if he were
darkness, summer and winter. Man himself is two:
old and infirm; ours is in the forest, in the
two eyes, ears, nostrils, hands, and feet: one for 319. Letakots-Lesa. His otter-skin bonnet con-
one for woman. Or stand in the sun and— fields, and on the mountains of
man, Sipapu, notes wisdom; his necklace, the bear’s virtue. His
behold!—body and shadow, body and spirit. whence the rains come.’”1¢ feathers are two: male and and moon.'?
female, sun

Oe a

“Ser
= a
; Ore
a

Indians of the North Pacific Coast

=
Peoples of Tierra del and
|| Fuego Patagonia

; Region of the North American Great Hunt

North American Medicine Wheels

Midwestern Prehistoric Cultures

a

Map 40.

Indians of the
higher civilizations of proached the phenomena of nature with
America also im- of the
recognized divinity as a sense
participation: universe was

manent in all
things. The Aztecs of Ten- seen as reflections of
relationships be-
ochtitlan (old Mexico for tween life and of life
318. Rabbit-man, rock painting at Lake Mazinaw, City), example, forces, every aspect
Ontario. On vertical rock walls along the numerous as Richard Frazer Townsend has ob- was of an cosmic
part interpenetrating
waterways of this Canadian province, from Lake
served, “saw the between ’’16
Mazinaw (north of Belleville) to the Manitoba border, relationship system.
their and its natural environment The
more than 1000 petroglyphs have been recorded city as words of the Pawnee chieftain, Le-
from 100 sites. an structure—an
approximately They were
produced, integrated cosmological takots-Lesa, already cited at the
opening
apparently, by Algonquians of about the sixteenth ordered universe within which the natu- of this volume are of the
century A.D. Most could have been painted only from (page 8), same
ral phenomena were intrinsi-
the artist's bark varying
canoe, at water levels. A regarded as mythic tone: ‘‘Tirawa spoke to man

paint of red earth cally sacred, alive, and related his works.”
(ferrous oxide) predominates, intimately through Not
through any
though white and black also occur, and the figures to the activities of man. This outlook con-
special, privileged revelation, but univer-
are of deer, caribou, rabbits, heron, trout, animal trasted with that of the who
tracks, hand prints, canoes, and various mythic Europeans, sally! Nor is only man made in the
image
from Lake Mazinaw is un-
saw cities as artifacts of civilization— of God: the
beings. The rabbit-man so, too, are
Jaguar, buffalo,
doubtedly an apparition of the Algonquian trickster
places where religious and institu- bear, and
the Great Hare.'®
legal eagle serpent, butterflies, trees,
hero, Nanabozho, tions man’s
sharply distinguished iden- rivers and mountains. For “All
things
tity from that of untamed nature. The
speak of Tirawa.”
Spanish friars and soldiers This monistic
automatically philosophy is on the or-

placed themselves as human

beings on a der of the Hindu and Chinese, in contrast
higher level than other forms of life in a to the biblical separation of nature and
hierarchy of Creation. But the Indian ap- man.

193
 This in fact, is fundamen-
philosophy,
tal to archaic and must
thought generally,
have been carried to the Americas by the
earliest Paleolithic immigrants. It would
other
have been carried alsoby all those
Asians who crossed the Pa-
subsequently
cific to these shores, whether from Neo-

lithic or later, China, North

Japan, Shang,
Vietnam, or Cambodia. There has been,
of course, considerable argument con-

of such 320. Chinese jade ornament of the Chou period.

the crossings;
cerning possibility The mask at the center of the t’ao-t’ieh (the “Glutton’), a
but the evidences now
multiplying can no and Chou sacrificial
characteristic ornament on
early Shang
be denied. Questions of the possi- of the
longer vessels, being there evidently symbolic consuming
ble number and extent of the influence of energy of life, which thrives on sacrifice.

such later Asian arrivals cannot

qualify
our of the obvious and fun- yi
recognition is
damental fact that, from the period of the
first American Indian
immigrants, my-
have been in this
thologies grounded
monistic “elementary idea’ (see p. 9),
which is in irreconcilable contrast to the

later, ecclesiastical doctrine of a special,

revelation, first to a chosen
supernatural
authorized church,
people, and then to an

which doctrine is a ‘ethnic

provincial,
idea,”” which in the Near East
originated 321. Kwakiutl of Sisiutl,
wood a
demiurgic monster
carving
in historic times. familiar to of the Northwest
mythologies Coast. To attempt to

explain the resemblance of this complex symbolic form to its

The idea of a whether of gods or of
god, Chinese counterpart by any such mechanistic term as “con-
a
High God, that is fundamental to the vergence” would be ridiculous.
earlier, archaic mode is not
theological,
but The god,
mythical—transtheological.
that is to say, is not a final term (like Yah-
weh), but the or
agent of a
personification
power that is transcendent of deification
and definition. American names for this
include: Manito (of Algon- the
mysterium
quians), Wakan (of the Sioux), Orenda (of
the Iroquois), and Tirawa (of the Paw-
Personified, the can be
nee). power
of as “out there” to whom
thought a being
are addressed. Absolutely, how-
prayers
it is the life and of
ever, informing energy
all so that the is actually a
things; prayer
meditation, the up of
a from
calling power
within. Ramakrishna, the great Hindu
saint and teacher of the last century, used
to ask those to him for consola-
coming
tion: ‘How do you like to
speak of God,
with form or without?’ We have already
remarked the African Bushman experi- 322. The association of t’ao-