By Bill Chalker

Share
From New Dawn 188 (Sept-Oct 2021)

Baldwin Spencer and Frank Gillen, in their book, The Northern Tribes of Central Australia (1904), provided a classic account of an extraordinary tradition. An Aborigine, Kurkutji, was set upon by two spirits, Mundadji and Munkaninji, in a cave:

“Mundadji cut him open, right down the middle line, took out all of his insides and exchanged them for those of himself, which he placed in the body of Kurkutji. At the same time, he put a number of sacred stones in his body. After it was all over, the youngest spirit, Munkaninji, came up and restored him to life, told him that he was now a medicine man and showed him how to extract bones and other forms of evil magic out of them. Then he took him away up into the sky and brought him down to earth close to his own camp, where he heard the natives mourning for him, thinking that he was dead. For a long time, he remained in a more or less dazed condition, but gradually he recovered and the natives knew that he had been made into a medicine man. When he operates the spirit, Munkaninji is supposed to be near at hand watching him, unseen of course by ordinary people.”

SNIP