In our travels Im sure many of us have come across shamans, healers and similar people.
While I am interested in the use of plants and other substances for healings and accessing inner states, I often neglect to record the ceremonies usually to save the batteries and memory space for the bushcraft and scenery which are my prime interest.
Here are some that have been recorded. Please add your own
This is an Iban manang performing part of an exorcism / dream interpretation. Certain stones have been soaked in a water and oil mix with mouse deer bones. He holds the stones to the light and reads them in some arcane way.
What I cannot explain is why his hand has become incandescent. I did not see any incandescence and this is not a double image of the lamp. All I can think of is that one of the drab little stones is actually amber or topaz and it has refracted the lamp light
The following pictures are a healer blessing a visitor to a Kenyah longhouse deep in the Borneo interior. With flash and without.
Dont remember what this was about but his light sabre is quite cool
These are the tabernacle and offerings of a tamarok a ceremony at harvest festival time but this special sort is only, I understand, at decade intervals. The Dusun bobohizan (female priests) asked that they not be photographed while in the trance and for some reason I did not seem to take any photos of them in their finery before the trance dance. The entire event lasted a day and a night and several children with severe afflictions were brought out for healing and blessings around midnight. Did not feel it was right to photograph the kids especially as it would involve flash so you just get the tabernacle and offerings
Here is a spirit house along a small river near the Kalimantan-Sarawak watershed. It is where the ceremonies and sacrifices are carried out but nothing was being done that night (as far as I am aware of). Look closely at the top of the pole.
To be balanced I visited the house of God to see the syncretic symbol devised by the priests commemorating sacrifice at the mission about a hundred klicks away.
I do think however that the former animists and now Christian converts of this longhouse have captured the aesthetic spirit of their new religion much better than their priests.
However the most powerful spirits I have encountered in the jungles of Borneo are these dancing in the lamp light.
While I am interested in the use of plants and other substances for healings and accessing inner states, I often neglect to record the ceremonies usually to save the batteries and memory space for the bushcraft and scenery which are my prime interest.
Here are some that have been recorded. Please add your own
This is an Iban manang performing part of an exorcism / dream interpretation. Certain stones have been soaked in a water and oil mix with mouse deer bones. He holds the stones to the light and reads them in some arcane way.
What I cannot explain is why his hand has become incandescent. I did not see any incandescence and this is not a double image of the lamp. All I can think of is that one of the drab little stones is actually amber or topaz and it has refracted the lamp light
The following pictures are a healer blessing a visitor to a Kenyah longhouse deep in the Borneo interior. With flash and without.
Dont remember what this was about but his light sabre is quite cool
These are the tabernacle and offerings of a tamarok a ceremony at harvest festival time but this special sort is only, I understand, at decade intervals. The Dusun bobohizan (female priests) asked that they not be photographed while in the trance and for some reason I did not seem to take any photos of them in their finery before the trance dance. The entire event lasted a day and a night and several children with severe afflictions were brought out for healing and blessings around midnight. Did not feel it was right to photograph the kids especially as it would involve flash so you just get the tabernacle and offerings
Here is a spirit house along a small river near the Kalimantan-Sarawak watershed. It is where the ceremonies and sacrifices are carried out but nothing was being done that night (as far as I am aware of). Look closely at the top of the pole.
To be balanced I visited the house of God to see the syncretic symbol devised by the priests commemorating sacrifice at the mission about a hundred klicks away.
I do think however that the former animists and now Christian converts of this longhouse have captured the aesthetic spirit of their new religion much better than their priests.
However the most powerful spirits I have encountered in the jungles of Borneo are these dancing in the lamp light.
