The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire by Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus Page B
Authors: Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus
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of later clans.
Early humans wandered Earth, performing rituals that generated spirit people. Each ritual created a sacred landmark, such as a spring or a rock outcrop, to which the spirits were tied. Some spirits eventually became people, but others became part of a reservoir of “spirit children” who lay in wait to be reincarnated. When an unsuspecting Aranda woman passed a sacred landmark, she ran the risk of being impregnated by a spirit. Such spirits, the ultimate source of all babies, returned to their landmarks after the people they inhabited had grown old and died.
In the second stage the Aranda were taught to perform circumcision with flint knives. This ritual replaced their earlier circumcisions, which (all male readers should skip the rest of this sentence) were done with glowing fire sticks. In the third stage they learned ritual subincision, an even more painful mutilation of the male organ. In the fourth stage they learned the section/subsection system. We now know that stages two, three, and four were later additions to an older creation myth. We suspect that stage one of the myth was very old, because ancient rock paintings in northwest Australia depict half-formed humanoids without mouths, like those of the Alcheringa. These cave paintings, like those of Ice Age Europe, were probably visual aids for the teaching of creation myths.
Earth gradually took on its present form as early humans and their animal ancestors traveled, creating landmarks to mark sacred events or places where people died. During their travels, some older men became weak and were given nourishing drinks of blood from the arms of younger men.
This was the cosmology the Aranda conveyed to Spencer and Gillen in the 1890s. Like all cosmologies, it provided the basis for Aranda morality and ethics. It explained why Aranda clans were named for the plants or animals involved in their ancestors’ creation. It lessened the trauma of infanticide, which the Aranda considered no more than the returning of a reincarnated spirit to the sacred landmark where it lived. It explained the practice of ritual bloodletting, including the giving of healthy men’s blood to sick old men.
Aranda elders knew, of course, that each new generation would have to learn its group’s cosmology from scratch. An appropriate time to indoctrinate youths into all this sacred lore would come when they were old enough to be initiated. Young men would learn male lore from older men; young women would learn female lore from older women.
Anyone who has ever tried to deliver a long, complicated lecture to young people knows that they do not always pay attention. Let them watch music videos over and over, however, and they commit every lyric to memory. Combine art, music, and dance, throw in an intoxicating beverage, and they cannot get enough of the awesome experience.
The Aranda held a secret ritual known as churinga ilpintira, which integrated art, music, and dance. It was performed at a secret venue in the desert and began with a group of men smoothing an area of bare ground. One or more would provide blood, often as much as a pint, from veins in their arms. This sacred blood was used both to dampen the ground and to serve as a medium for the paint. Impersonating legendary ancestors, the men serving as artists painted their bodies red, white, yellow, and black, adding downy bird feathers glued on with blood. Using a chewed twig as a brush, they slowly painted the earth with white pipe clay, red and yellow ocher, and charcoal. As the painting took shape, the elders sang ballads recounting the mythical exploits of the ancestors; less experienced men watched and learned.
Aranda earth-paintings were geometric, featuring circles, squares, dots, and lines. Each told the story of an ancestor from the Alcheringa. Members of the Emu clan painted yellow, white, and black figures that represented the eggs, intestines, feathers, and droppings of the emu. Members of the Snake clan
Early humans wandered Earth, performing rituals that generated spirit people. Each ritual created a sacred landmark, such as a spring or a rock outcrop, to which the spirits were tied. Some spirits eventually became people, but others became part of a reservoir of “spirit children” who lay in wait to be reincarnated. When an unsuspecting Aranda woman passed a sacred landmark, she ran the risk of being impregnated by a spirit. Such spirits, the ultimate source of all babies, returned to their landmarks after the people they inhabited had grown old and died.
In the second stage the Aranda were taught to perform circumcision with flint knives. This ritual replaced their earlier circumcisions, which (all male readers should skip the rest of this sentence) were done with glowing fire sticks. In the third stage they learned ritual subincision, an even more painful mutilation of the male organ. In the fourth stage they learned the section/subsection system. We now know that stages two, three, and four were later additions to an older creation myth. We suspect that stage one of the myth was very old, because ancient rock paintings in northwest Australia depict half-formed humanoids without mouths, like those of the Alcheringa. These cave paintings, like those of Ice Age Europe, were probably visual aids for the teaching of creation myths.
Earth gradually took on its present form as early humans and their animal ancestors traveled, creating landmarks to mark sacred events or places where people died. During their travels, some older men became weak and were given nourishing drinks of blood from the arms of younger men.
This was the cosmology the Aranda conveyed to Spencer and Gillen in the 1890s. Like all cosmologies, it provided the basis for Aranda morality and ethics. It explained why Aranda clans were named for the plants or animals involved in their ancestors’ creation. It lessened the trauma of infanticide, which the Aranda considered no more than the returning of a reincarnated spirit to the sacred landmark where it lived. It explained the practice of ritual bloodletting, including the giving of healthy men’s blood to sick old men.
Aranda elders knew, of course, that each new generation would have to learn its group’s cosmology from scratch. An appropriate time to indoctrinate youths into all this sacred lore would come when they were old enough to be initiated. Young men would learn male lore from older men; young women would learn female lore from older women.
Anyone who has ever tried to deliver a long, complicated lecture to young people knows that they do not always pay attention. Let them watch music videos over and over, however, and they commit every lyric to memory. Combine art, music, and dance, throw in an intoxicating beverage, and they cannot get enough of the awesome experience.
The Aranda held a secret ritual known as churinga ilpintira, which integrated art, music, and dance. It was performed at a secret venue in the desert and began with a group of men smoothing an area of bare ground. One or more would provide blood, often as much as a pint, from veins in their arms. This sacred blood was used both to dampen the ground and to serve as a medium for the paint. Impersonating legendary ancestors, the men serving as artists painted their bodies red, white, yellow, and black, adding downy bird feathers glued on with blood. Using a chewed twig as a brush, they slowly painted the earth with white pipe clay, red and yellow ocher, and charcoal. As the painting took shape, the elders sang ballads recounting the mythical exploits of the ancestors; less experienced men watched and learned.
Aranda earth-paintings were geometric, featuring circles, squares, dots, and lines. Each told the story of an ancestor from the Alcheringa. Members of the Emu clan painted yellow, white, and black figures that represented the eggs, intestines, feathers, and droppings of the emu. Members of the Snake clan
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