Maban
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Maban or Mabain is a material that is held to be magical in Australian Aboriginal mythology. It is the material from which the Clever Women and Clever Men [1] and Elders [2] of Indigenous Australia derive their magical powers. Maban is variously identified by different Australian Aboriginal tribes with quartz crystals, australites, or mother of pearl, blood, ochre, etc. The potent polyvalent term maban is also cognate with the term 'shaman' and may be employed to denote Clever Women and Clever Men directly.
During the ceremony in which a karadji initiates an apprentice, maban is used and spiritually "inserted" into the body of the apprentice. Lawlor (1991: p.374) states that:
A. P. Elkin compiled descriptions of Aboriginal initiations from diverse clans and distant tribes and found, beneath the innumerable variations, underlying universal themes. The most common was the implanting of a resonant substance in the body.
Lawlor (1991: p.374) affirms that the insertion of quartz crystals or mabain into the body of the postulant is a consistent initiatory theme.
Lawlor (1991: p.374-375) states that:
Throughout Australia one of the most consistent themes in Aboriginal initiation is the insertion into the body of quartz crystals, or mabain. This procedure symbolizes the transformation of consciousness from physical to psychic levels. The Aborigines seek quartz crystals with internal fractures that produce vivid rainbow light refractions. These fractures signal that the stone resonates powerfully with the primordial energies of the Rainbow Serpent. (NB: Original not meta-enhanced.)
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[edit] Blood and ochre
In many indigenous Australian Aboriginal peoples' traditions ochre and blood, both high in iron content and considered Maban, are applied to the bodies of dancers for ritual. As Lawlor (1991: p.102-103) states:
In many Aboriginal rituals and ceremonies, red ochre is rubbed all over the naked bodies of the dancers. In secret, sacred male ceremonies, blood extracted from the veins of the participant's arms is exchanged and rubbed on their bodies. Red ochre is used in similar ways in less secret ceremonies. Blood is also used to fasten the feathers of birds onto people's bodies. Bird feathers contain a protein that is highly magnetically sensitive.
Lawlor comments that blood employed in this fashion is held by these peoples to attune the dancers to the invisible energetic realm of the Dreamtime. Lawlor then draws information from different disciplines charting a relationship between these invisible energetic realms and magnetic fields. Iron and magnetism having a marked relationship.
[edit] Seed power and totem design
Mabain is cognate with what is termed Guruwari [3] in the Walbiri tongue. Guruwari may be translated as 'Seed Power' and 'Totem Design' and the energetic concept to which it refers is a pervasive cultural meme throughout indigenous Australia. Following is a quote from Lawlor (1991: p.36) who references the source of this anthropological scholarship to Munn (1984): "Guruwari refers to the invisible seed or life-energy that the Creative Ancestors deposited in the land and in all forms of nature."
[edit] Cross-cultural lineages
The first clear example of Buddhist settlement in Australia dates to 1848. However, there has been speculation from some anthropologists that there may have been contact hundreds of years earlier; in the book Aboriginal Men of High Degree, A.P. Elkin cites what he believes is evidence that traders from Indonesia may have brought fleeting contact of Buddhism and Hinduism to areas near modern-day Dampier. Elkin interpreted a link between Indigenous Australian culture and Buddhist ideas such as reincarnation. He argued this link could have been brought through contact with Macassan traders. There was also speculation due to reports of Chinese relics appearing in northern Australia dating to the 15th century, although it may have been brought much later through trade rather than earlier exploration.
[edit] Notes
- ^ 'Clever Women' and 'Clever Men' is the traditional scholarly euphemism for Shaman employed in the Australian investigatory anthropological tradition. 'Clever Men' is a rendering of karadji.
- ^ Elders are defined as key persons and keepers of various knowledge within Aboriginal communities.
- ^ An extended cross-cultural exegesis of Guruwari and the Sanskrit understanding of Bija and Bindu may be mutually culturally informative.
Endnotes
- ^ Elkin, A.P. Aboriginal Men of High Degree: Initiation and Sorcery in the World's Oldest Tradition. 1973. Inner Traditions, 1994.
- ^ Ibid.
- ^ Ibid.
[edit] See also
- Mana
- Fractoluminescence
- Photorefractive effect
- Triboluminescence
- Crystal oscillator
- Crystal gazing
- Seer stones and the Latter Day Saint movement
[edit] References
- Lawlor, Robert (1991). Voices Of The First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal dreamtime. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions International, Ltd. ISBN 0-89281-355-5
- Elkin, A. P. (1973). Aboriginal Men of High Degree: Initiation and Sorcery in the World's Oldest Tradition. Inner Traditions.
- Rolls, Mitchell (2000). Robert Lawlor Tells a 'White' Lie. Source: [4] (Accessed: Thursday March 1, 2007)
- Adzema, Mary Lynn (1995). Voices From the Dreamtime: An Essay Review of Robert Lawlor's "Voices of the First Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime". Source: [5] (Accessed: Thursday March 1, 2007)
- Munn, Nancy D. (1984). "The Transformation Of Subjects Into Objects in Walbiri and Pitjantjartjara Myths." In: M. Charlesworth, H. Morphy, D. Bell and K. Maddock, Eds. Religion in Aboriginal Australia: An Anthology. St. Lucia, Queensland: University Of Queensland Press.
