Ethnopoetry or Natural prose; a small contribution by Madrason

Ethnopoetry or Natural prose;

ABSTRACT/RESUME
Poetry has been largely overlooked in the research on traditional
Native litera- ture. The author reviews and categorizes the
traditional poetry of North American Indians. This poetry was
oral, usually presented as song, but good translation and the
transfer to a written form can still preserve the flavour of
the cultures in which it developed.
Traditional Native literature consists of two major categories:
mythology and poetry. A great deal of research has gone into the
collecting, categorizing and analysing of myths and legends but
poetry has received relatively little attention.

Myths and legends were used to teach sacred truths or to pass on
historical information. Origin myths dealt with the transition
from a mythical to a modern age; essentially the myths tell how
the earth was created and how living things came to benefit from
the phenomena of nature. The plots of the stories that have been
developed in human society reflect the cultural settings,
occupations and interests of the people and are usually called
legends. Most widespread and popular, however, are the stories
told about the "trickster". He is an inchoate being who wanders
from place to place; he violates human values at will though
he does not appear to be intentionally good or evil. It is through
him that all values come into being (Radin, 1972:xxiii). The
"trickster" straddles both myths and legends and is found, not
only in ancient tales of all hunting societies,
but in many contemporary Native societies as well. He can,
perhaps, be viewed as a psychological phenomena, an attempt to
understand human nature. Carl Jung saw him as the personification
of those traits of character which are sometimes better and
sometimes worse than the normal human being (Radin, 1972:
195).
In that she is right, lies the foundation of this article, to
bring tribal poetry closer to a larger public. One thing we all
seem to know or have read something about;
The way Sitting Bull and Geronimo addressed the dirty agenda and
contracts the States tried to pull through their noses as if they
were ignorants!

The metaphors they used as a reply were of a grandeur only life in
nature could present. If I give you many dollars would you sell
your lands, said a governor who started a negotiation in
resettlement! The reply of a certain chief was, after a long
discourse about the treasures of nature and stealing from Wakan or
from Great Manitou;
If the governor is willing to pay a silver- dollar for each grain
of desert- sand in my hand, then we have a deal! M

http://www3.brandonu.ca/library/cjns/5.1/grant.pdf

                      A small contribution to ethnopoetics, by Madrason


 Literature:

1. C.M.Bowra “Primitive Song”
2. African Poetry by Ulli Beier Oxford
3. Dichtungen der Naturvolker Eckart von Sydow 1925 Phaidon
4. Tirade:213 “Luister hoort toch Marupu”
5. Les Baoules, Dictions et Proverbes, CEDA
6. Lyriek der Natuurvolken, Hella S Haasse & W. Muensterberger
7. De donkere Lier door W A Braasem & Ed Hoornik
8. The Masks of the Gods, Joseph Campbell
9. Alcheringa magazines , as quoted and illustrated.
10.Bluenotes, by Madrason.
11. This article downloadable on gdrive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7crRLaefXfrYkpZWFVnSWxVV1JaYS00VmpTTXNhVzZrdGFr/view?usp=sharing

The Tsjurunga or Churinga Docs:Part 3 dreamtime, offered concept by Madrason

The Tsjurunga or Churinga Docs:Part 3 dreamtime, offered concept by Madrason

Dreamtime 1

Along with a host of others, you've left the camp, leaving behind the women and the uninitiated and all vestiges of the mundane, your spears and carrying bags, and your social names. You're on a solemn journey to your birth place. Single file, without a sound, you and the others walk in awe. Although it's not far into the desert, few ever visit without invitation.
Your group has arrived, and all immediately begin to clear the ground of the debris and stones that have accumulated since last you were here. The area of some twenty paces is laid smooth. Several go to a nearby rock outcropping and, from the cache, bring out with great care the churinga boards. Some are as long as an arm, most much shorter, all of wood, each richly carved with the signs of the clan ancestors and of their adventures. Sitting in a circle on the cleared earth, the churingas are passed to each of your group in turn. Each holds the oval-shaped boards close, rubbing them against himself.
* * * * *
Ground Painting
of the Wallunqua (Snake) Totem
(Warramunga Tribe, 2 meters long)

The following illustrations are the reverse sides of a churinga board. The board is from the Aranda (an Australian Aborigine people) and represents the Frog spirit, an expression of the Alcheringa. The wood carving is 39 centimeters in length. On the churinga, the three prominent sets of concentric circles are the celebrated gum-tree at the sacred site near Hugh River. It is out of these
trees that the frog comes forth. On the first side (top), the double concentric circles are the bodies of small frogs having just emerged from the trees. The lines connecting them are their limbs. On the reverse side (bottom), the three gum-trees are again seen. The series of lines extending from them are their roots. The smaller concentric circles are less important gum-trees with their roots.The dots are the tracks of the frogs as they hop about in the sand of the river bed.

alcheringa [Arunta of Australia, alcheringa], n. 1. The Eternal Dream Time, The Dreaming of a sacred heroic time long ago when man and nature came to be, a kind of narrative of things that once happened. 2. A kind of charter of things that still happen. 3. A kind of logos or principle of order transcending everything significant. v. 1. The act of dreaming, as reality and symbol, by which the artist is inspired to produce a new song. 2. The act by which the mind makes contact with whatever mystery it is that connects the Dreaming and the Here-and-Now.

Tips; Spencer and Gillen:

https://archive.org/details/nativetribescen02gillgoog

The Tsjurunga or Churinga Docs:Part 2 offerd concept by Madrason

 The Tsjurunga or Churinga Docs:Part 2:

Many artistic activities of the aborigines have a religious or magical background. This applies to some rock paintings and engravings, and also to decorated weapons. But beside these, there are sacred objects made especially for use during ceremonies. Some of these, such as the churingas and
bullroarers of Central Australia, the dancing boards, ceremonial tablets, and the rangga carved figures, are very ancient, and have been handed down from generation to generation for an unknown length of time. Other ceremonial objects are made and used for one ritual only and are
afterwards destroyed or discarded.Many of these lovingly made and decorated objects have intricate patterns and are artistically of a
high order.

Churingas
A churinga (of Central Australia) is a very sacred object which represents the ancestral and the individual spirit of its owner. Each tribe is divided into totems related to animals, plants or objects,and the legends and relationship of each totemic group are recorded on the churingas. The churingais an oval or elongated slab or stone or wood which can be either rounded or pointed at both ends.
The size of the smallest churinga is only one inch, but large stone ones may be about three feet long, while those from Western Australia are chiefly made from wood and vary considerably in size,some of them reaching a length of seventeen feet. The large ones are known as, dancing-boards.
Some Central Australian wooden churingas have a small hole drilled through one end, and if a string is fastened through it they can be whirled round. They produce a loud humming sound which the women believe to be the voice of a dangerous spirit. These churingas are called bullroarers.
Many churingas are manufactured with great care and patience, and beautiful highly conventionalized designs are engraved on them by means of possum teeth. The churingas are sacred, and they can be seen only by initiated men during the time of ceremony. At other times they are carefully wrapped in bark or skins and hidden in sacred places. Women and children are not
allowed to see them, and the breaking of this rule is punishable by death or blinding. The churingas are known to exist in many parts of Australia, but the finest decorated stone ones come from Central Australia. Conventionalized designs on these record legends, and the various symbols will help the
man who knows the legend to recite it correctly. This is well shown in the British Museum on a churinga of the grasshopper totem of the Ngalia tribe from Central Australia.

 The symbols are explained on the churinga and referred to while the story is told. The meaning of the design on this one is: At a place called Ngapatjimbi (1) there were a number of grasshoppers.
They came out of the ground, and flew up, and coming down they went into the ground again. The grasshoppers multiplied, and after the next rain they came out of the places marked (2). They flew up and came down as men. These men went to Wantangara (3), and going into a cave, turned into churingas.

On this particular churinga (first pictures)the bands of parallel lines linking circles represent the paths the grasshoppers made by breaking down leaves. Pairs of lines represent their tracks.
Meanings of symbols vary. For instance, the most frequently used pattern of concentric circles may represent a water-hole, fruit, a tree, a grass-seed cake, a locality, a rat's nest, or the body of a spider.
Another typical symbol, the U-shaped curve, may represent a resting-place or men sitting down.
Markings on churingas from Central Australia have hundreds of different and definite meanings, yet the number of conventionalized symbols or patterns is relatively small. Some of them, illustrated from specimens in the collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Cambridge University, are shown in Fig. 55.

Tip: read the book: Die Lehrenden Steine des Verschwunden Stammes
aboriginal art abroad, PTY ltd.Edward Pappelendam


http://www.australien-lifestyle.de/page/shop/browse/category_id/68bb975f7c4082d17c153a579a284927

Ein seltenes Buch mit Abbildungen von geheimen Zeichen der australischen Ureinwohner, fotografiert und veröffentlicht mit der Erlaubnis des Stammes.
Ein Album mit zahlreichen Farbfotos, aufgenommen an den Orten, die von Aborigines noch bewohnt sind, gibt ein Einblick in das reale Leben und in die Symbolik gelebter Weisheit, die in gekritzelten Steinen, wie in unseren Büchern, seit Generationen weitergegeben wird.
Die Texte zu den Bildern sind einfach, aber sehr informativ, und geben ein wahres bodenständiges Panoramabild vom Leben des Stammes. Auch Gebrauchsgegenstände und Tiere, mit denen Aborigines zu tun haben, sind vorgestellt.
Die abgebildeten Symbole und lehrende Steine auf dem roten australischen Sand fotografiert, haben tatsächlich eine unheimliche magische Kraft und berauschende Linienästhetik. Aboriginal Culture Abroad, 1988

Aboriginal professional books/ german language.