Murrinh-Patha
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The Murrinh-Patha, or Murinbata, are an
Language
Country
The Murrinh-Patha's traditional lands extended some 800 square miles (2,100 km2) inland from
Social organisation
The Murrinh-Patha consisted of 8 groups.
- Nagor
Religious ceremonies
The Murrinh-Patha conducted a
The Karwadi ceremony may be described as a liturgical transaction, within a totemic idiom of symbolism, between men and a spiritual being on whom they conceive themselves to be dependent.[4]
It took from one to two months to complete, and was participated in by members from both patrimoiety groups in neighbouring clans. The young men who are the subject of the Karwadi rite of initiation are candidates who have already been circumcised, but require this last stage of initiation because they are still regarded as refractory to the discipline of full maturity.[5] Karwadi is a secret name for the Mother of All, alternatively known as The Old Woman and the core of the ceremony consists in revealing to them her emblem, the ŋawuru (bullroarer).[6]
After consultation the young men, without compulsion, are taken to a ŋudanu (ceremonial ground) where the fully initiated men (kadu punj) circle them and chant a long refrain which concludes at sundown with the exclamatory of the Mother of All's hidden name, invoked with the cry Karwadi yoi!. All then return to the main camp, with the youths forbidden to speak to both patri- and matrikin, and required to eat alone, as their needs are attended to by adult men.
With the first sighting of the Morning star the initiands are taken back to the ŋudanu, and from that moment they are neither addressed, nor even seen, by anyone who does not belong to the group of adult men overseeing the performance to the end. As they take up the singing once more, men indulge in the comic antics of tjirmumuk, a jostling horseplay between moiety members, including attempts to grab each other's genitals, interleaved with obscene remarks that would normally never be tolerated.[5]
Alternative names
- Murinbada
- Karama (perhaps = 'water folk')
- Garama, Karaman
- Murinkura (apparently a tribe the Murrinh-Patha absorbed, becoming a linguistic group thus designated, the term meaning 'water language.' Tindale regards it as a distinct tribe)
- Nagor
- Nangu
- Mariwada
- Mariwuda[2]
Notes
Citations
- ^ Abley 2005, p. 18.
- ^ a b Tindale 1974, pp. 231–232.
- ^ Stanner 1959, pp. 109–110.
- ^ Stanner 1959, p. 110.
- ^ a b Stanner 1959, p. 112.
- ^ Stanner 1959, pp. 110–111.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-618-56583-2.
- Michaels, Walter Benn (2007). The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality. ISBN 978-1-466-81881-1.
- JSTOR 40329195.
- Street, Chester S (1987). The Language and Culture of the Murrinh-Patha. ISBN 978-0-868-92319-2.
- ISBN 978-0-708-10741-6.