Thursday, March 14, 2024

The Dieri People of Southeast Australia

[Note: This post originally appeared as a 6-part series on my Facebook page.
It has been slightly edited for my blog.
This is not a work of original research.
More like notes from the book referenced below....]

Part 1

I am slowly working my way through this book on the history of world religions.

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There is an interesting case study about the Dieri people of Southeast Australia.

The descriptions of Dieri culture and religion in this book are taken from the writings of A.W. Howitt, an Australian anthropologist, naturalist, and explorer, who studied the Dieri in the 1860s.
The book notes that there has been much erosion of the traditional Dieri culture since the 1860s.

The Dieri live in an area that is very dry, and usually very hot, and with only scattered trees.
In the hot weather the people wear only "hip girdles."
In the rare times when the weather turns uncomfortably cold they wear kangaroo, wallaby, or opossum skins.

There are scattered tribes of Dieri, each with its own territory and its own dialect.
These people did not grow food or domesticate any animals.
They were food gatherers and hunters.

Dieri hunters used spears with separate spear-heads made from hardwood or flaked stone.
The spearheads could be barbed and the spears were hurled with throwing sticks.
The Dieri used knives and axes made of chipped stone and they invented two different types of boomerangs, one of which could return to the thrower if used properly.

The different Dieri tribes interacted with each other from time to time.
Sometimes they work cooperatively together, but sometimes there are hostile interactions as well.

Like almost all groups in human history, except for some royal families in Egypt and modern Europe, the Dieri noticed that marriages between close relatives often led to unhealthy children.
To deal with this they divided themselves into two classes: the Matteri and the Kararu.
The Matteri were then further divided into totem groups such as the caterpillars, cormorants, emus, eagles, hawks, and wild dogs.
The Kararu were divided into totem groups such as the carpet snakes, crows, rats, frogs, bats, shrew mice, red ochre, and even rain.

No Dieri could marry a person from their own totem group and, in fact, it appears they could not even marry a person from their own class.
A Matteri person had to marry a Kararu person and vice versa.
You got your totem membership from your mother so, if your mother was an eagle, you would be an eagle too.

The oldest man in each totem was the headman.
The group of all headmen took the lead in important matters like initiation ceremonies.

Part 2

The Dieri believed in supernatural beings called the "kutchi."

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They also believed that before the Dieri inhabited the land there was a superhuman race living there called the "mura-muras."

To communicate with the kutchi, or the spirits of the mura-muras, the Dieri would consult with a kind of medicine man called a "kunki."
A kunki could also interpret dreams, counteract evil spells, or drive out evil spirits.

In extreme cases a kunki could even kill people by projecting objects such as quartz crystals or bones right into their bodies.
A kunki could also kill people by secretly stealing their body fat.
The body fat could then be used to perform other magical rituals.

The Dieri did not believe that death was a natural event.
Death was always caused by someone.
As we saw above, death could be caused by a kunki.
Death could also be caused by one of the supernatural beings, the kutchi.

Of course, in addition to death, sickness could also be caused by the kutchi, or by some spell.
If a sickness was caused by the kutchi then a kunki could try to communicate with the kutchi and drive out the illness.

Sickness could also be caused by two enemies of the sick person using a ritual called "pointing of the bone."
In this ritual the enemies would point a human shinbone at the victim and recite a magical spell to make the victim sick.

When a person was sick, or when a person died, the relatives of the deceased could consult with a kunki to find out who caused the sickness or death.

Once the guilty party, or parties, were identified, the tribal council would appoint a "pinya" or revenge party to track down the perpetrators and either kill them or, at least, give them a severe beating.

Part 3

The Dieri live in a very dry place where there are frequent droughts.
They believe that supernatural beings called Mura-Mura live in the sky and put rain into the clouds.
If, for some reason, the Mura-Mura fail to do this the medicine men of the tribe conduct the ceremony intended to make it rain.

When this ceremony is needed the tribe digs a pit two feet deep, twelve feet long, and eight to ten feet wide.
Over the pit they build a hut out of sticks and branches.
The old men of the tribe sit in this hut while a medicine man cuts them with a piece of flint.
The men who are cut then drip or spatter their blood on the other men in the hut.
These drops of blood are supposed to symbolize rain.
A couple of the medicine men, who are also bleeding by this time, throw down into the air and this is supposed to symbolize clouds.

While all this is going on people are begging the Mura-Mura to end the drought and send the rain.

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At the end of the ceremony the men keep head-butting the hut until it is broken open and collapses.
This is supposed to release the rain.

If the rain still doesn't come after this ceremony, it might be assumed that the Mura-Mura are angry with the tribe for some reason.
Alternatively, and perhaps more ominously, it might be concluded that some other tribe has found a way to block the success of the ritual.

Part 4

The Dieri believed that, in the evening, the sun sank into a hole in the earth in the west.
During the night the sun traveled underground to get back to its rising point in the east.

The Dieri believed the sky was another country with trees and rivers similar to those on earth.
They called the Milky Way "the river of the sky."
The sky was thought of as a good place inhabited by supernatural beings called mura-muras and by the souls of the dead.

Sometimes the dead would return to the earth and visit people in their dreams.
When a person dreamed of someone who had died a witch doctor would decide if this was just a normal dream, of no particular significance, or if it was a real visit from a spirit.

If it was a real visit the witch doctor would instruct the person who had the dream to go to the grave of the dead person and light a fire and leave some food.
This was a kind of appeasement to prevent the spirit from causing any harm to the living.

The Dieri had an interesting ritual for increasing the population of carpet snakes and lizards which were part of their diet.
They believed that a mura-mura named Minkani was buried in the sandhills where these reptiles lived.

Women would wait in the camp while the men whose totems were the carpet snakes and lizards would go to the sandhill and dig down until they got to damp earth.
They would dig a little more until they found something they identified as the "excrement" of Minkani.
Then they dug more carefully until they uncovered something they identified as Minkani's "elbow."

Then two men would stand in the hole and cut themselves to drip blood on Minkani.
A special song was sung.
The men then began walking back to camp in a kind of frenzy, striking each other with their weapons.

The women would rush out to meet the men and hold shields over their husbands to protect them and put a stop to the fighting.
With the ceremony complete the Dieri hoped there would be more carpet snakes and lizards for them to eat.

The information in this book is based on reports from a person who visited the Dieri in the 1860s before they were much influenced by European culture.
The book says the Dieri live much differently now than they did when these observations were made.
Of course, we all live much differently now than people did 160 years ago….

Things change.
I hope they change for the better.

Part 5

This section is about the death rituals of the Dieri people of Australia.
Some of the details did not seem entirely clear to me from the book I am reading but I am trying here to summarize what I read as accurately as possible.
Also, at least one of these rituals will likely seem "gross" to many modern westerners.
So, fair warning....
Read on at your own risk.

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When a Dieri aborigine was dying the relatives would divide up into two groups.
The first group included the father, if he was still alive, and the father's brothers with their children.
The second group included the mother, if she was still alive, and the mother's sisters and brothers, as well as the dying person's sisters and brothers.

The mother's group would stay at a distance from the dying person.
This group was very careful not to look into the face of the dying person because his or her longing might draw them in and then they would die also.
The father's group would stay near the dying person and even throw themselves onto the body as the person expired.

Once the person had passed away the father's group would go into mourning and paint themselves with white gypsum.
The men from the mother's group would dig the grave and paint themselves with red ochre.

As two men carried the body to the grave they would ask the deceased who had killed him or her.
Then they would drop the body on the ground and study the way it landed to see if there were any clues about who had caused the death.
(The Dieri did not believe death was natural. They believed death was always the result of some malicious purpose.)

When the body was placed in the grave a maternal grandfather or cousin would cut pieces of fat from the body.
Certain relatives would eat this fat while others would not.
Mothers would eat the fat of their children while fathers would not.
Children would eat the fat of their mother but not of their father.
And so on, according to a complex set of rules about who eats who.

When the grave was filled in, a stack of wood was placed on top of it.
Some of the Dieri were very afraid that the dead would rise up and walk around.
To prevent this they might tie the toes and thumbs of the corpse together.
If the deceased person was an influential member of the tribe, food would be left at the grave for many days.
If the weather was cold a fire would be kept burning near the grave to keep the spirit warm and comfortable.
The tribe might also sweep the ground around the grave and then go back periodically to check for footprints.
If they found footprints they would assume the dead person was not happy with his or her resting place and they would move the body to a new grave.

Once the deceased was resting comfortably the tribe would move to a new camp and never speak of the dead person again to avoid causing any offense.

Part 6

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The first studies of the Dieri by Europeans, back in the 1800s, did not get much information about their beliefs in a supreme God, or about how the world began.
Later anthropologists believe the Dieri may not have felt like sharing their views on such questions, but that they probably had beliefs similar to those of other indigenous people in Australia.

Generally, the aborigines believed that everything began in a period of formlessness and unconsciousness, a period of chaos.
From this chaos Dawn Beings appeared spontaneously without being created.
This happened in a period called Dreamtime.
The chief Dawn Being was the High God or The Old Man of the Sky.
This being is sometimes referred to as “Our Father.”
I can’t tell from this book if the High God was thought of as eternally existing or if he was thought to have arisen spontaneously during Dreamtime like the other Dawn Beings.

The Dawn Beings shaped the earth and all the living creatures on it from the pre-existing chaos. After the world was created the High God gave newly created people the customs and rituals they were expected to follow.
Then he ascended to the Sky Country while many, or all, of the other Dawn Beings, stayed on the earth to establish totemic centers, presumably one totemic center for each group of human beings.

When young men were initiated, they were taught the secret names of the High God that women and children were not allowed to know.

Some Australian tribes believe the High God is remote and takes little interest in human beings.
Some tribes believe the High God watches over human beings very closely.

So, that’s all I have for the Dieri people of Australia.
I will put my six posts together, do a little light editing, and put the end result on my blog which I have been sadly neglecting!
This is really just reading notes strung together into sentences and paragraphs, but I hope it is interesting to some people. 😊

For my next culture / religion project I might write about the Benda or Venda people of South Africa.

We will see!

**********

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Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Rehoboam and Nixon, Two Jerks!

It was cool and damp in Inverness, Florida this morning.
This is the first winter of my life that I came down to Florida to escape from the snow and ice of the northeast.
I think that was a good idea!
So I made hot coffee and settled down in my comfy chair to read for awhile.

I read from 1 Kings 12 where the people ask Rehoboam if he will rule over them less oppressively than his father Solomon had.
Rehoboam tells the people that his father chastised them with whips but he will chastise them with scorpions!
What the...?

That Rehoboam was a real jerk!

The ten northern tribes decided to rebel against Rehoboam and serve Jeroboam instead.
Rehoboam, whose jerkiness was only exceeded by his stupidity, sent the tax collector Adoram to the Northern tribes to collect tribute.
As anyone with half a brain might have predicted the tribes of Israel stoned Adoram with stones until he died....

So then the people of Israel were divided into the Northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
This happened about 930 BC.

Interesting story.

Then I read from Hunter S. Thompson's classic book about the presidential campaign of 1972.
This was the campaign where Nixon was reelected.
Nixon was kind of a jerk too.
He had so little respect for the law that he needed a pardon from Ford after he left office or he probably would have ended up in jail with several other members of his administration.

At least Nixon went peacefully in the end.
He was a jerk, but he did leave office peacefully....
Give him a little credit for that.

***

{This is a great and crazy book about the 1972 presidential campaign. Definitely worth reading.
Please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of it.
https://amzn.to/3wKKtgp}

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***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Coffee Post – Sun., February 4, 2024

When I sit up in bed here in Florida and turn to the left and look out the window there, I can see a palm tree through the blinds.
I am quite sure there is no window in my New York house through which I can see a palm tree….

Be that as it may, it is time to drink coffee and read books and watch the world to see what is happening.

I have run out of coffee pods so I had some Folger’s instant coffee this morning.
That will keep me going.
But I think I will go to the store and look for coffee pods today.

***

Betelgeuse

I read from a book called “Stargazing.”
It recommends an app called Stellarium for locating stars and other heavenly objects.
I have used this app and it is a very handy one.
Lately, every time I go out after dark I look for the constellation Orion and the great star Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse is a red supergiant that makes Orion’s right shoulder.
(That is the shoulder on the left as we look at Orion from earth.)
I like to look at Betelgeuse whenever I can because it is expected to explode any day now….
Well, within 100,000 years anyway.
But a few days or 100,000 years are both blinks of an eye in astronomical terms.

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***

King Charles I

I read from a biography of King Charles I.
In 1640 some of the King’s top counsellors wanted to accuse certain members of Parliament of treason for conspiring with the Scots to invade England.
To protect themselves, members of Parliament accused some of the King’s top counsellors of treason and had them arrested.

When you live in a monarchy, or a dictatorship, political ethics can become very confused.
Who are you supposed to be loyal to?
Who are you supposed to oppose?

In England around 1640 Parliament wanted to limit the rights of Catholics because they were afraid Catholic powers like France and Spain wanted to conquer England.
At the same time the King wanted to limit the rights of everyone so he could rule unopposed.
Whose side should we be on?
It gets confusing….

One thing I believe, illegitimate rulers who try to rule without being chosen by the people - they are always traitors!
Always!

I hate dictators.

***

Hunter S. Thompson

I read from a biography of the Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
Hunter did some great writing, but he destroyed his talent with excessive indulgence in alcohol and drugs.

He thought the alcohol and drugs were helping him, but they weren’t. He thought he was living wild and free, but really he was just serving his addictions.

Hunter was in his prime for maybe 5-10 years and then there was a long, slow, fading away. Sometimes Hunter was headed in the right direction, but, as an extremist, he never knew when to stop, or at least turn back toward the middle of the road, so even when he started off in the right direction, he would end up in the wrong place in the end.

I want to learn from his best writing.

Unlike him, I will remember to stay on the road and not go careening off into the ditches.

***

United States Attacked

I see on the news that a US logistics base in Jordan was attacked last weekend and three American soldiers were killed and more than 30 injured.
The attack used a drone launched by an Iranian-backed group, probably in Syria.

I don’t know if US troops should be in Jordan, but that is a question for the US and Jordan to answer and Iranian-backed militants in Syria should have nothing to say about it.

The US and its allies have now launched dozens of attacks against Iranian-backed groups in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.
These attacks are intended to degrade the military capabilities of groups that might want to attack the US, and to deter them.
I think that is the right response.
I hope it works.

If it doesn’t work, and if we have to, I suppose we can move from degrading capabilities to utterly destroying them.
But let’s hope this effort to deter is successful.

OK.
It is raining here now.
I think I will wander around a bit.
Find some coffee pods.
Find some brunch.
Find a different place to read….

NOTE: This post was published on my Facebook February 4, 2024

***

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Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Why America can NEVER Have an Official Religion

With the dangerous rise of “Christian” Nationalism in the United States I suppose there are going to be more and more yahoos yammering about how the US is supposed to be a Christian country.

The first problem with that idea is that it can’t be true unless we throw out the Constitution.
Which is a pretty serious problem, you have to admit!
The very first clause in the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”

Obviously, if Congress cannot make any law respecting an establishment of religion, then our national government cannot make one religion the “official” religion for the country.
And if our government cannot make one religion the official religion for the country then what does it even mean to say that we are supposed to have a Christian nation?

If it just means that lots of Americans are Christians then that is fine.
Americans can belong to any religion they choose.
But if it means the government is supposed to establish, or protect, or promote, one religion, or one religion’s doctrines, over others, that is WRONG, and that is a direct violation of our Constitution.

Now, it is true that some STATES had established religions at the time the Constitution was ratified.
This was a holdover from colonial times when, often, there was very little freedom of religion in the United States.
(Massachusetts Puritans used to hang Quakers on Boston Common after all!)

{This looks like a great history of religious freedom in America.
Let's read it! If you beat me to it please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of it.
https://amzn.to/3UQA9gY}

The Constitution of 1789 was a fresh start for America in many ways, not least of which was by providing a guarantee that the new Federal government would not meddle in religious matters, or elevate one religion to a preferred status over others.

The fact that states could still have established religions was a serious gap, though.
What good is talking about freedom of religion if states can take it away from you?
To be fair, most states had protections for freedom of religion in their own state constitutions and state laws, it is just that the Federal government had no authority to FORCE states to respect freedom of religion if they decided to go rogue and start hanging Quakers again….
Or forcing people to go to church on a certain day of the week.
Or killing witches.
Or whatever.

Fortunately for freedom, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, the Federal government was given important new powers over the states.
The Supreme Court used those new powers in a 1947 case called Everson v. Board of Education to apply the establishment clause of the First Amendment to state and local governments.

From the very beginning of the United States the Constitution has guaranteed that there cannot be a NATIONAL religion.
Since 1947 the Federal government has also guaranteed that there cannot be any STATE, or COUNTY, or CITY, or TOWN religions either.

So, if you hear someone saying that anyone in the United States can be a Christian, or even that everyone in the United States can be a Christian - if that is what they choose - that is absolutely true.
But if you hear some yammering yahoo saying that the United States is supposed to be a Christian NATION that is absolutely false.

Please remind people with such dangerous ideas of the very first clause of the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights which says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...”

Thank you!

Wikipedia has some good information on the establishment clause here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause

***

{This looks like a great history of religious freedom in America.
Let's read it! If you beat me to it please leave a comment to let me know what you thought of it.
https://amzn.to/3UQA9gY}

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Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway

Friday, February 16, 2024

"Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution." - Mike Pence

You don’t really know what someone is like unless you spend time with them, work with them maybe. If you can’t spend time with someone then the only way you can know them is by listening to other people who DID spend time with them.

If we really want to know Trump, for example, we could listen to his 2016 running mate who then served as his Vice President for four years, Mike Pence. There can’t be many people who know Trump better than Mike Pence does.

So, what does Mike Pence think about Trump?

In September 2023 Pence gave a speech where he discussed the political philosophy of Trump and his imitators in the Republican party. He said, “The growing faction would substitute our faith in limited government and traditional values with an agenda stitched together by little else than personal grievances and performative outrage.”

Pence knows that Trump and his followers are not true conservatives who believe in “limited government” and “traditional values.” Instead of campaigning on these principles, Pence reminds us, Trump and his cronies whip up their crowds with “personal grievances” and “performative outrage.”

We know that Pence is right about Trump not believing in limited government. Trump has claimed that a president should have breathtaking powers, extending all the way to assassinating political rivals with impunity. There is nothing limited about the powers Trump wants for himself and his government. He wants the power of life and death over American citizens just like any ancient despot or any medieval king claiming divine right demanded for himself.

Remember what Trump said in a speech to conservative students in July 2019? "Then I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president, but I don't even talk about that." It would be good if Trump did NOT talk about Article II of the Constitution because that does NOT say the president can do whatever he wants. But that is what Trump WISHES that it said, because Trump does not believe in limited government as long as HE is the one in power.

Just as Mike Pence has warned us.

{Check out this book about Trump's final destructive days in office.
https://amzn.to/3uyy52D}

Pence is also correct when he warns us that Trump does not believe in traditional values. Any one who has been found liable in courts of law for sexual abuse, repeated defamation of his sexual abuse victim, and years of business fraud, certainly does not believe in traditional values.

And anyone who doesn’t believe Mike Pence when he says Trump’s campaign is driven by personal grievances only has to listen to the ex-president for five minutes. There is currently no one in America - over three years of age - who whines and complains more about how unfair everyone is to him than Trump does. He is a billionaire and a former president who loves insulting people and calling them names, but isn’t it so terrible how people can be so mean to HIM?

Mike Pence knows Trump very well. He knows Trump is NOT a conservative, does NOT believe in traditional values, and seems to be able to whine just about non-stop for 20 hours per day.

This link here will take you to these observations of Mike Pence about his former boss.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/mike-pence-goes-trump-imitators-shift-gops-roots-rcna103743

But there are far worse things about Trump than his lack of conservatism, his lack of respect for traditional values, and his unbearable, endless, infantile whininess….

At a Gridiron Dinner Mike Pence said: “President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

There are a couple of really shocking points made in this quote.

First of all, Mike Pence is telling us straight out that Trump wanted to overturn the 2020 election. There may be Trump supporters who refuse to believe that Trump wanted to overturn an American election, there may even be Trump supporters who are so far lost to what America stands for that they don’t even care about elections anymore, but Mike Pence KNOWS Trump tried to overturn that election, and Mike Pence is still American enough to know that was WRONG.

Secondly, Mike Pence is telling us here that it was Trump who was responsible for the violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Mike Pence knows it was Trump’s “reckless” words that inflamed a mob to attack the Capitol of the United States of America. Trump supporters can pretend that Trump did not whip that angry crowd into a fighting frenzy, or maybe some Trump supporters are so lost to what America stands for that they no longer even care if their political leader inspires violence, but Mike Pence knows it was Trump who put his own Vice President and his Vice President’s family in danger on that shameful day.

Here is a link to Mike Pence telling America that Trump wanted an American election overturned and then inspired an attack on the American Capitol.
https://apnews.com/article/pence-trump-january-6-capitol-riot-carlson-1e38cb44d55737031ca528b4f33aa1fb

And for people who think that maybe, in spite of all his despicable flaws, somehow, deep down inside, Trump really does respect our American Constitution, here Mike Pence drives the nail into that coffin by telling us what Trump really wanted on January 6, 2021.

According to Mike Pence, “The American people deserve to know that President Trump and his advisers didn't just ask me to pause. They asked me to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election," and "On that day, President Trump asked me to put him over the Constitution. But I chose the Constitution and I always will.”

That lays it out as clear as day, doesn’t it? Trump wanted the 2020 election overturned and he wanted the Vice President to put Trump’s desires above the Constitution. On January 6, 2021 Trump tried to carry out a coup d’etat and seize illegitimate power in the United States of America. It is probably ONLY because of Vice President Mike Pence that Trump’s evil schemes failed.

Here is the link where Mike Pence tells us that, if Trump cares about the Constitution at all, he certainly doesn’t care about it as much as he cares for himself.
https://www.axios.com/2023/08/02/pence-trump-jan-6-indictment-lawyers

Mike Pence has known and worked with Trump for years. He certainly knows Trump better than any of us who only see him on TV. He has warned us over and over again that Trump is a bad and dangerous man who should never be president again.

I hope enough Americans will heed the warning!

***

{Check out this book about Trump's final destructive days in office.
https://amzn.to/3uyy52D}

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***

Copyright © 2024 by Joseph Wayne Gadway