Multitasking aspects of shamanic practice among recent Neolithic societies in Melanesia
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-04-26

Full title: Healers, Seers, Mediators: Multitasking aspects of shamanic practice among recent Neolithic societies in Melanesia 

In the course of years participating in field work among New Guinean highlands tribes during the early seventies of the last century, when these still greatly presented societies of Neolithic standards, I had the unique opportunity of getting revealing insights into many of their secret spiritual traditions. Among my local informants, including herbalists, traditional healers, and so-called ritual experts, there were some exceptional people reputed as possessing outstanding mental abilities. In the vernacular of the Mbowamb, inhabiting the most part of the Wahgi Basin within the Western Highlands Province, such men were known as ‘morn wua’ (literally ‘men of power spells’), whereas women of similar reputation just were referred to as ‘poison meri’ in the sense of witches. These men were not only believed to have the gift of seers, but also of managing personal dislocation and invisibility, besides several other supernatural skills. While these topics for countless generations used to be handled as most serious secrets, even among initiated men, at the time of field research their mission influence was already gaining gradual decrease of such secrecy and, in the case of a former ‘power spell man’ who was willing to convert to Christianity, this provided best chance of obtaining first-hand information of the underlying intricate spiritual backgrounds.

Henry Dosedla (CINDIS)