Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien: Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien, 2. Teil, Mythen, Sagen und Märchen des Loritja-Stammes : die totemistischen Vorstellungen und die Tjurunga der Aranda und Loritja

Band: Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien, 2. Teil, Mythen, Sagen und Märchen des Loritja-Stammes : die totemistischen Vorstellungen und die Tjurunga der Aranda und Loritja

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Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-715371

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-715371

Persistenter Identifier:: BV048277977

Titel:: Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien

Untertitel:: von Carl Strehlow, Missionar in Hermannsburg, Süd-Australien ; bearbeitet von Moritz Freiherrn von Leonhardi

Autor:: Strehlow, Carl

Sonstige Person:: Leonhardi, Moritz von

Erscheinungsort:: Frankfurt am Main

Verlag:: Joseph Baer & Co

Lizenz:: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sammlung:: Allgemeiner Bestand

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Religionsethnologie

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Werks-URN (URL):: https://digi.evifa.de/viewer/resolver?urn=urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714420

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714420

Persistenter Identifier:: BV048284387

Titel:: Die Aranda- und Loritja-Stämme in Zentral-Australien, 2. Teil, Mythen, Sagen und Märchen des Loritja-Stammes : die totemistischen Vorstellungen und die Tjurunga der Aranda und Loritja

Erscheinungsort:: Berlin

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1908

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Lizenz:: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Titel:: Die tjurunga der Aranda und Loritja

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Anthropos 87.1992 102 Mathias Guenther and the like) that were inchoate structural ten dencies prior to contact. In addition, it may have introduced to the indigenous hunter-gatherers an actual complex of witchcraft practices and beliefs. A provisional hypothesis about witchcraft among hunter-gatherers, then, might be that forms of witchcraft would be found in foraging socie ties who are either of the delayed-return type and/or subscribe to a fatalistic worldview. Con versely, those hunter-gatherers of the immediate- return type and/or with a benign cosmology would be free of the witchcraft complex. Briefly scanning the world of hunter-gather ers, we find that sorcery was, indeed, full-fledged amongst such classic delayed-return hunter-gath erers as the North-West Coast Indians (see, for example, Oberg 1934; Olsen 1961; Spencer and Jennings 1965: 203 f.; Service 1978; 237). Amongst Australia’s aborigines sorcery appears to be found commonly amongst central Australian groups, whose complex structures of social orga nization hold systemic, generational and gender, intra- and intergroup conflicts and rivalries. Ex amples are the Aranda (Spencer and Gillen 1927), the Murnging (Cannon 1942; Eastwell 1982), the Walmadieri and Gugadja (Berndt 1972: 203), the Mardjudjara (Tonkinson 1978: 110-112). Howev er, as Elkin (1964: 282-285) stated, sorcery is by no means universal in Australian aboriginal society; indeed, sorcerers are, on balance, very rare and “whole regions lack such an individual” (282). One group that has virtually no sorcery complex are the Tiwi of Bathurst Island (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988: 95-98). It is instructive to note the reasons the authors give to explain this circumstance: a favourable environment and ecological base; elaborate and emotionally satis fying mortuary ritual that effectively handles death and grief; a vast system of taboos that provide cogent explanations for misfortunes as well as for the universe, which is accepted as given and not to be changed (through magic); and absence of hostile neighbours in their island environment. These factors are all variations on the theme of the benign cosmology identified in this paper as one reason for the absence of witchcraft patterns in a hunter-gatherer society. In addition the authors note the absence of a tradition of magic and, with it, of a “conceptual infrastructure” for any sorcery complex. A cosmology is benign, first and foremost, to the extent to which it is capable of formulating attitudes and practices for the people who sub scribe to it, reducing their grief and anxiety about death. As seen above, the Bushmen are, on the whole, well served by their cosmology in this respect. In a detailed comparative study of the attitudes towards death of four foraging societies, Woodburn (1982b) found all four to have death beliefs and practices that are unelaborated and low key, rendering death relatively “invisible” in these societies (1982a: 202). The societies examined are the Hadza, the Mbuti, the Baka and the !Kung, all of them of the immediate-return type and, all of them, without any patterns of witchcraft. 9 All follow procedures for disposal of the body that are simple and mundane and spend little effort in searching for the cause of death or in formulating beliefs in an afterlife. Witchcraft is given no con sideration as a cause of death. As discussed earlier, Woodburn explains this casual outlook on death in terms of the economic, social, psychological, and ideological dimensions of immediate-return soci eties which do nof’provide fertile ground for the ideological elaboration of death beliefs” (Wood- bum 1982a: 208). For a society with low-level technology, whose members live within and off nature, the benign disposition of the cosmology formulated by its members is largely affected by the nature of the environment they inhabit. If the natural environ ment is itself benign, is free of the threats of hunger, thirst, exposure, animal attack, and other natural threats, the cosmologies of hunter-gather ers that live in it is likely to be benign as well. Equally, existence must be free of social threats, such as were experienced by the colonial /Xam and, until recently, the farm Nharo, in the form of encroaching, hostile settlers. If the environmen tal threats exceed a certain threshold, the anxi eties created may override the appeasing effects of such social practices as sharing, cooperation, non-competitiveness, and ludic conflict manage ment. Cases in point might be the Ik of Uganda (as described by Turnbull 1972) or the Siriono of Bolivia (Holmberg 1969). The classic examples, however, derive from the arctic or subarctic or other hunter-gatherers living in harsh, cold envi ronments (such as the Great Basin Paiute [Whiting 9 Woodburn (1982b: 192, 208 f.) points out parenthetically that such witchcraft practices and beliefs as are found among the Hadza were acquired by them in government settlement camps, where “witchcraft fears are rampant.” The feared witches are both non-Hadza and Hadza, the latter having learned the craft from the former. Woodburn explains the appearance of witchcraft in terms of the high incidence of ill-health and death in the camps and the in ability of individuals to move away from those with whom they are in conflict. Moreover, he mentions acculturative influences, through the agency of non-Hadza diviners who readily employ witchcraft as explanations for misfortune.

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