Archives internationales d'ethnographieP.W.M. Trap, 1894 |
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Side 233 - The religion of the Melanesians consists, as far as belief goes, in the persuasion that there is a supernatural power about, belonging to the region of the unseen ; and, as far as practice goes, in the use of means of getting this power turned to their own benefit. The notion of a Supreme Being is altogether foreign to them, or indeed of any Being occupying a very elevated place in their world
Side 158 - The conclusion to which this study of Nagualism leads is that it was not merely the belief in a personal guardian spirit, as some have asserted; not merely a survival of fragments of the ancient heathenism, more or less diluted by Christian teachings, as others have maintained; but that above and beyond these, it was a powerful secret organisation extending over a wide area, including members of different languages and varying culture...
Side 233 - There is a belief in a force altogether distinct from physical power, which acts in all kinds of ways for good and evil, and which it is of the greatest advantage to posses or control.
Side 233 - This Mana is not fixed in anything, and can be conveyed in almost anything ; but spirits, whether disembodied souls or supernatural beings, have it and can impart it ; and it essentially belongs to personal beings to originate it, though it may act through the medium of water, a stone, or a bone.
Side 117 - The ancients, who often paid more attention to received opinions than to the evidence of their senses, believed that fern bore no seed. Our ancestors imagined that this plant produced seed which was invisible. Hence, from an extraordinary mode of reasoning, founded on the fantastic doctrine of signatures, they concluded that they who possessed the secret of wearing this seed about them would become invisible.
Side 234 - These are believed to be the habitat of spirits, and are in the possession of persons called yolnuruk, ie nurukers. They work injury by their connection with the burning of something which has touched or come from the body of the person who is to be injured. "For this purpose the part of a man's food, his belt or garment, can be used. In fact, a stick he has had in his hand, a stone on which he has sat may be scraped, and the scraped, and the scrapings taken to burn as Nuruk.
Side 116 - There be empiricks or blinde practitioners of this age who teach that with this herbe, not only the hardness and swelling of the spleen, but all infirmities of the liver, may be effectually, and in a very short time removed. But this is to be reckoned amongst the old wives...
Side 145 - The practice of throwing pins into wells, of tying rags on bushes and trees, of driving nails into trees and stocks, of throwing stones and sticks on cairns, and the analogous practices throughout the world, suggest that they are to be interpreted as acts of ceremonial union with the spirit identified with well, tree, stock, or cairn.
Side 137 - ... is geleeraard , dat het eene volk in recht , moraal en geheele wereldbeschouwing »de antipode van het andere zou zijn; ten minste indien die stelling iets anders «moet beteekenen, dan dat ten opzichte van recht, moraal en wereldbeschou»wing de verschillende volken op een verschillend standpunt van ontwikkeling •staan , — een waarheid die niet behoeft verkondigd te worden , omdat zij door •niemand -wordt in twijfel getrokken" '). Wie tot die oppervlakkige ethnologen moge behooren, zeker...
Side 233 - Tagaro came down from heaven, made men and other things and went back again to heaven." In neighboring islands Qat made men out of earth. For one Polynesian episode Dixon (8) notes: "The episode of the origin of man from worms occurs also in New Guinea.