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Joie de vivre, mon amie
Sep. 4th, 2009 08:48 pmThe last few days have been pretty great. I think I've settled into my new routine and I'm on top of -- if not ahead of -- the readings and assignments for class. You guys, I love being back in school. I'm learning so many fantastic things. In my Sino-American Dialogues class, for instance, we've been discussing creation myths for the last couple of weeks. My undergraduate work in Classical Cultures focused mostly on Greek and Roman mythologies, but I'm getting a real feel for global mythologies in this class. We watched a video with Bill Moyers interviewing Joseph Campbell, and I was instantly returned to all of those trips to my elementary school library, where I'd check out the same book again and again, like some kids watched the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.
Campbell tells this really terrific (or terrible, depending on your level of squeamishness) story about a tribe in Papua New Guinea whose ritualistic sacrifices mirror their myth culture. I can't tell it nearly as well as Campbell, but the basic gist is that this tribe is so connected to life and death that they still practice human sacrifice. When the young men in the tribe reach adulthood -- fourteen or fifteen, I think -- they have a three-day-long ritual that marks the passage of youth into maturity. Two days of this ritual are spent in exhaustive dance and exaltation. On the last day, the young men of the tribe line up in front of a ceremonial altar made out of wood, supported on either side by two large tree trunks. A young woman, dressed like a goddess, is led into the alcove. She lies down and the young men in the tribe take turns deflowering her. When the last young man finishes, the two tree trunks are pulled out of the structure, sending the whole thing crashing down onto the young lovers. They are then pulled out of the wreckage, cooked, and eaten by the rest of the tribe.
How different this is from our Western sensibilities about life and death! It's considered a high honour to be sacrificed for this ritual. I'm curious as to how the young man (and woman) are chosen by the community. And god, to imagine the anxiety that comes from waiting in that line! There are many things to be learned from this culture.
Mainly: "Never walk into any building in Papua New Guinea that is not up to code."
Campbell tells this really terrific (or terrible, depending on your level of squeamishness) story about a tribe in Papua New Guinea whose ritualistic sacrifices mirror their myth culture. I can't tell it nearly as well as Campbell, but the basic gist is that this tribe is so connected to life and death that they still practice human sacrifice. When the young men in the tribe reach adulthood -- fourteen or fifteen, I think -- they have a three-day-long ritual that marks the passage of youth into maturity. Two days of this ritual are spent in exhaustive dance and exaltation. On the last day, the young men of the tribe line up in front of a ceremonial altar made out of wood, supported on either side by two large tree trunks. A young woman, dressed like a goddess, is led into the alcove. She lies down and the young men in the tribe take turns deflowering her. When the last young man finishes, the two tree trunks are pulled out of the structure, sending the whole thing crashing down onto the young lovers. They are then pulled out of the wreckage, cooked, and eaten by the rest of the tribe.
How different this is from our Western sensibilities about life and death! It's considered a high honour to be sacrificed for this ritual. I'm curious as to how the young man (and woman) are chosen by the community. And god, to imagine the anxiety that comes from waiting in that line! There are many things to be learned from this culture.
Mainly: "Never walk into any building in Papua New Guinea that is not up to code."
