Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religionHartland, Edwin Sidney
Religion
Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religion
Hartland, Edwin Sidney
Ethnopsychology; Magic; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
Thus the _churinga_ have to the Blackfellow a more or less definitely
personal aspect. It may be said that the songs chanted over them are
after all merely magical spells. But the spell implies some more or
less defined personality in the objects to which it is addressed. In
these tribes rites are performed, called in the Arunta tongue
_Intichiuma_, for the purpose of causing a manifestation of the power
of the totem, of multiplying the totem-animal or plant, and generally
of increasing the prosperity of the totem. In the course of these
rites there is much singing. The members of the group invite the
witchetty grubs to come from all directions and lay their eggs, or the
hakea-trees to flower and their blossoms to fill with honey; they beg
the rain to come and bring fish; they direct the kangaroos to go from
one place to another; and so on. Even when the songs and the actions
performed in the ceremonies recall the events of the mythical past,
they are not necessarily more magical than the words of sacred dramas,
which everywhere in the lower culture inseparably interweave what we
generally speak of as magic and religion. The mighty ancestors (as
elsewhere {105} the gods) whose deeds they chant are present in the
rite. “The totem, the ancestor, and the descendant (that is to say,
the performer) appear in these songs as one. Without keeping in view
the indivisible unity of the totem, the mythic ancestor and the
offspring (_ratapa_), many of the songs are quite
incomprehensible.”[105.1] Thus where invitation or command is not
issued directly to the object, the _mana_ of the ancestors seems to be
evoked for the accomplishment of the end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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