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It was August 1985 and I was back in Kwamala for a month to collect more plants. I had been in the village only a few days when Kamainja appeared at the door of my hut one evening literally shaking with fear. "It is not safe for you here at the edge of the village," he said. "Take down your hammock and sling it in my hut. The witch doctor of the Wayanas has put a curse on our village."
His alarm was contagious, and I quickly gathered up my belongings. Once I was safely in his hut, he told me what was happening.
"Last year," he began, "the son of the Jaguar Shaman went east to the Sipaliwini savannas to hunt parrots. One morning he woke up terrified, claiming that he had been cursed by the witch doctor of the Wayanas. [...] As proof of the curse, the Jaguar Shaman's son showed us three small, pointed sticks he had found in his hammock."
[...]
"Three days later, he put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. This evening his younger brother found the same types of sticks in his hammock, here in Kwamala. And tonight several hunters returning to the village saw an apparition of the Wayana at the edge of the river."
The next thing I remember was him waking me gently by tapping me on the cheek with his fingers. He helped me to my feet; I felt a bit dazed and rather unsteady. The Wayana led me down the path toward the village by the light of a full moon, which gave the jungle an eerie iridescent silver glow.
"Wait here!" commanded the medicine man as he stepped off the path. In a moment he returned, his right fist in a ball. Slowly he uncurled his fingers to reveal three small, sharp, pointed sticks.
"Yolok peleu," he said. "The arrows of the evil spirits." He closed his fist and opened it again. There was nothing there. I was too frightened to ask any questions.
Originally posted by WatchNLearn
I have studied tribes in South America and New Guinea. In my experience this “harmonious balance of the masculine and the feminine,” you speak of is a myth.
The Apollonian is associated with the masculine, and its qualities include: law, order, religion, rationality, man the creator, the doer, the observer, perfection, sobriety, boundaries, man makes art, civilization, matter
The Apollonian is associated with the left brain
The Apollonian makes things happen
The Apollonian god is Order (Fate)
The Dionysian is associated with the feminine, and its qualities include: lawlessness, chaos, spirituality, man the partaker, the experiencer, no boundaries, intoxication, instinct, man is art, nature, energy
The Dionysian is associated with the right brain
The Dionysian lets things happen
The Dionysian god is Chaos (Chance)
We, in the west, the domesticated ones, look upon their ways as backwards, as we are conditioned to do so, but they are infinitely superior. This is because they live in a harmonious society, in which they use both sides of their brains; a balance between the masculine (left brain) and the feminine (right brain)
Originally posted by Sonya610
Originally posted by WatchNLearn
I have studied tribes in South America and New Guinea. In my experience this “harmonious balance of the masculine and the feminine,” you speak of is a myth.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing when I read that. He is imaging it is a utopia. I don't know much about the south american tribes but it is the same way in Africa (the men sit around and the women do all the work, especially since in agricultural societies there is not any hunting going on).
I mean an understanding of nature and that we are a part of it, the self, and that there is more beyond the physical.