Man's Innate Desire For Other Men -- Papua New Guinea
Tava's Pier Murals At Vinny's (Continued)
----
The Men's Houses:
Of course there are anthropologists who
disagree with the theory of
The Separate Gender Houses.
The following book is an example of
this opposite view for your further research:
Books in Anthropology (Oceania)
Fruit of the Motherland:
Gender in an Egalitarian Society
by
Maria Lepowsky,
University of Wisconsin,
Madison
1994 / 344 pages / 20 photos /
ISBN 0-231-08121-9 / $17.50, paper
ISBN 0-231-08120-0 / $49.00, cloth
A portion of her thoughts on the subject follow:
A Gender-Equal Paradise in the South Pacific?
Feminist Anthropologist Claims an Existing
"Non-Patriarchal Society" in New Guinea
Excerpted from Columbia University Press:
New and Recent
Contradicting scholars who consider sexual
inequality a universal condition, Lepowsky
presents an
ethnography of Vanatinai, a matrilineal,
decentralized society in New Guinea where
there is no
ideology of male dominance. Fruit of the
Motherland explores the role of gender in
social life and
history; religion; and ritual performance,
and includes a thoughtful cross-cultural
analysis of gender
roles, ideology, and power.
The New York Times' Science Editor Promotes Lepowsky's Claim
Also the author, John Noble Wilford comments
on the above work in "Sexes equal on South Sea isle."
He comments that:
The research that anthropologist
Maria Lepowsky
has conducted by living with the
people of Sudest Island in the South Pacific is
discussed. She says that on Sudest, or Vanatinai
as it
is called by its inhabitants, men and women live
and work as virtual equals.
journal code:NY
journal ISSN: 0362-4331
source: New York Times
sec,pg:col: c, 1:1
date: Mar 29, 1994
There are other myths and legends that can be found at
rdrop.com
They state that their Myths and Legends are
stories . . . (from) various sources
and are included . . . for entertainment purposes.
They are the more commonly heard and read ones in the west.
Some, if not all are probably 'made up'
stories and in no case should be mistaken for
'secret knowledge'.
From Alistair Black
There are a number of stories revealing
something of the significance of the Didjeridu in the
Aboriginals of northern Australia. It is seen
as
Phallic Symbol And Male Instrument,
with
women in many areas traditionally
prohibited
from playing.
One story that links the Didjeridu with creation
tells of how in the beginning the Great Spirit
Balame (Byamee) created man and woman and they
in turn had the responsibility to create
the animals and birds which they did by either
singing them into form or sounding them into
form through playing
The Didjeridu.
The Didjeridu itself
was supposed to have been
created or conceived a long time ago. In the
North of Australia, two young and beautiful
adolescent girls were captured by a mean giant
who wanted them to be his wives. After some
time the girls managed to escape and hastily
made their way back to their tribe. The mean
giant was angry when he discovered what had
happened and endeavored to reclaim what he
considered his property. Meanwhile, the elders
of the young girls' tribe set a trap for the
giant. They dug a huge pit along the path leading to
their home camp. The giant, in his angry haste,
fell into the pit and was immediately killed with
many spears thrown by tribal hunters hiding
nearby. As he curled on his penis, looking very
much like a huge porcupine, he began to blow on
his penis, making an amazing droning
sound. They tried to copy it, to no avail' so
they searched for and found a large hollow log,
the center of which had been eaten out by
termites. By blowing on one end of this hollow log,
they were able to create the sound made by the
giant in his death throws.
From the same interesting web site:
Gary Fenstermacher
relates a wonderful story that he
heard from the didj player, Paul Taylor :
Three men were camped on a cold night in the
outback. One of the men told another to put
another log on the fire, because the fire was
getting low and it was so cold. So, the other man
turned around and grabbed a log, which was
awfully light to the touch, for it was hollow. As
he turned to drop it into the fire, he noticed
the entire length was covered with termites. He
didn't know what to do, for he could not throw
the branch into the fire, because it would kill
the termites, and his friends were telling him
to do so because it was cold. So he carefully
removed all the termites from the outside of
the log by scooping them into his hand, and he
deposited them inside the branch. Then he raised
the branch to his lips and blew the termites
into the air, and the termites blown into the
air became the stars, and the first didjeridu was
created.
Francis Firebrace (as told to Ed Drury)
"Yidaki - Francis Firebrace"
We the indigenous people of my country,
Australia - the Europeans tell us - have been
there
for over sixty thousand years. But we know,
we have been there since the beginning of time.
We are the
Oldest Living Culture On
Earth.
And we have the world's oldest known musical
instrument that we call the
YIDAKI
or what
Europeans call the
DIDJERIDU.
This instrument
is a branch from a tree in which white ants
(or termites) eat their way up through the center
towards the sunlight keeping the outer shell
solid for protection. And when this branch
eventually dies and falls to the ground, the
aboriginal people cut the ends off and this then
becomes the DIDJERIDU.
This story of the didjeridu comes from the
dreaming of the people of the Northern Territory
and they say that YIDAKI the warrior was coming
home from a hunt with kangaroo over his
shoulder when he saw a dead branch lying on the
ground. He picked it up and there was
daylight coming in the other end and noticed
there were a lot of little insects (which you call
termites) in there. And he blew through it to
get rid of them and it made a sound something
like this ....
And the warrior liked the sound that it made.
He found that by breathing through his nose and
out through his mouth in a circular fashion he
could make rhythm and many other sounds.
Something like this :
The warrior took his hollow branch back with
him and played it for his people. And they
were drawn to the sound and they painted up
with coloured ochre and danced Corroboree
to it's rhythm. And during his lifetime the
warrior taught many other young men the circular
breathing method and this simple instrument
became very popular and part of their culture.
And it was used in ceremony, dance and forms
of healing.
When the warrior died, his spirit left his
body and went into the hollow log that you call
the DIDJERIDU. And if you listen in a quiet place
somewhere by holding one end to your ear,
you can still hear YIDAKI playing in this
instrument. And the aboriginal people of the
Northern Territory believe that because there
is a man's spirit in there it is a man's instrument
and women should not play the DIDJERIDU. This
then, is the story of what aboriginal
people call the YIDAKI and you know as the
DIDJERIDU.
And if you listen now to this spiritual
instrument, it will not only enter your ears,
it will
open your heart and reach and lift your spirit.
One more web site worthy of exploration is:
Aboriginal Art
There I discovered that
in the aboriginal tribes
over 100
different languages were spoken.
. . . people had to
be multilingual to communicate. The
Arrernte group
could speak up to 10 languages/dialects.
Likewise, music
and dance, kinship systems, art forms and
ceremonies differed
dramatically between regions. Yet
these differences
were probably less important than the
underlying similarities
which brought groups together for
ceremonies, for trade,
to intermarry, and which allowed
the maintenance of
myths, and song lines and exhange
cycles that extended
over hundreds of kilometres. Even
today regional variations
remain ; there is no one
Aboriginal society and
people in different regions tend
to emphasise their own distinctness and identity.