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Chauvet Cave Through the Mind of a Sculptor
Visit to the Chauvet Cave in 2001 by John Robinson
Dream travel
Through dreams the Shaman could establish contact with primeval forces. In a state of trance he separates his shadow from his body, and sent it to the distant lands or the Underworld. Before the wet season started the Medicine Man went to the rock painting of the Wandjina to re-establish contact. He is also the only one who can associate safely with the rock spirits that eat the corpses and carry off people’s souls. Finally it was the Medicine Man who could send his soul to the underworld, thus maintaining the link between the living and the ancestors.
Heal-sick-people
It was the task of the Medicine Man to fill the Wandjina with renewed life, in this way guaranteeing the rain for each year. This same power enables him also to heal sick people, ensure success in the hunt, or even kill people who proved to be a burden to the fellowship of the tribe. The Medicine Men were the poets of the tribal community, and received the Corroboree songs and dances from the Underworld.
Dreaming a child
The Aborigines believe the act of procreation was of only slight significance for their entry into life, although they were in no doubt at all about this physical function in the case of animals. In their view spirit children split off from the Wandjina and then live in the depth of the water hole with them. Only through a dream process could a man acquire such a spirit child. A further dream process was necessary to transmit the spirit child to the man’s wife. The spirit child was about the size of a finger, and when the father found one he could bind it into his hair and carry it around with him for years.
Changes into a small snake
The man gives the spirit child to his wife in a dream process. She dreams that she had received the spirit child, which resided in the pit of her collarbone. Later the spirit child changes into a small snake or lizard that enters the woman’s body through her vagina.
Sex-change
A child’s sex was known from the moment the spirit child was found, but at the moment of birth its sex could be changed. The Aborigines stick a club upright in the sand beside the woman giving birth if they want a boy or a cleft digging stick if they preferred a girl. After birth the umbilical cord was hung around the child’s neck and must not be lost, otherwise the child would die. The child is then washed and fine charcoal dust is rubbed into it’s skin to make it black. When a person dies the spirit child, or the second soul, returns to the Wandjina’s watering place where it was found in a dream by the father.”
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