TOLK MEDICINE IN BORNEO- DIAGNOSIS AND CURE
23
a shaman has to have a large number of spirit friends; and human aristocrats, whose social relationships with other villagers are mostly those of clients and followers, do not readily admit others to their friendship. On the whole shamans are middle-ranking people. Their personal histories often show that at some stage in their lives they suffered from psychological disturbances; and that once they accepted the role of shaman they usually calmed down. Some of them, especially men who appear ambitious, and who were blocked in their political or economic careers, were very intelligent, and used their position as a shaman to gain advantages. On the other hand, some of the shamans were not intelligent; but were also not very well thought of as shamans. One man, who was particularly ambitious, had had his career blocked by aristocrats, it was said, on several occasions; and it was whispered that he was a witch, a very venomous shaman who could only just control his more dangerous spirit friends. Some people, indeed, said that his moral character was not strong enough to keep them in order, and that he did allow them to feed on neighbours' blood. A hundred years earlier the aristocrats would undoubtedly have speared him to death.
―
At this point I realise, with some dismay, that I have given only the roughest idea of the Melanau's ideas on human illness and its causes and cures. What I hope I may have done is to give some indication of the complexity and sophistication of the system of thought that lies behind their ideas on illness. The universe they live in, which, if used incorrectly, almost automatically produces the ills that the human condition is subject to, is as complex and as aesthetically and imaginatively satisfying as the universe inhabited by Dante and the men of the European middle ages. Clearly the way in which the Melanau empirically handled many of the illnesses that afflicted them was less effective than the practice of western medicine in 1950. The terrifying number of newly born babies who died during my first visit to their villages and the fact that the owner of the house next to the one I lodged in died of tuberculosis six months after my arrival was sufficient evidence that many of their cures failed. But most of the disorders they suffered would in any event have cured themselves, as they do almost everywhere else in the world. The fact that the Melanau had little control over their environment, though they did have a detailed and extensive knowledge of its possibilities and dangers, meant that the way in which they organised that knowledge into an extension of the ordinary moral system gave them the assurance they needed
TOLK MEDICINE IN BORNEO- DIAGNOSIS AND CURE
23
a shaman has to have a large number of spirit friends; and human aristocrats, whose social relationships with other villagers are mostly those of clients and followers, do not readily admit others to their friendship. On the whole shamans are middle ranking people. Their personal histories often show that at some stage in their lives they suffered from psychological disturbances; and that once they accepted the role of shaman they usually calmed down. Some of them, especially men who appear ambitious, and who were blocked in their political or economic careers, were very intelligent, and used their position as a shaman to gain advantages. On the other hand, some of the shamans were not intelligent; but were also not very well thought of as shamans. One man, who was particularly ambitious, had had his career blocked by aristocrats, it was said, on several occasions; and it was whispered that he was witch a very venomous shaman who could only just control his more dangerous spirit friends. Some people, indeed, said that his moral character was not strong enough to keep them in order, and that he did allow them to feed on neighbours' blood. A hundred years earlier the aristocrats would undoubtedly have speared him to death.
―
At this point I realise, with some dismay, that I have given only the roughest idea of the Melanau's ideas on human illness and its causes and cures. What I hope I may have done is to give some indication of the complexity and sophistication of the system of thought that lies behind their ideas on illness. The universe they live in, which, if used incorrectly, almost automatically produces the ills that the human condition is subject to, is as complex and as aesthetically and imagin- atively satisfying as the universe inhabited by Dante and the men of the European middle ages. Clearly the way in which the Melanau empirically handled many of the illnesses that afflicted them was less effective than the practice of western medicine in 1950. The terrifying number of newly born babies who died during my first visit to their villages and the fact that the owner of the house next to the one I lodged in died of tuberculosis six months after my arrival was sufficient evidence that many of their cures failed. But most of the disorders they suffered would in any event have cured themselves, as they do almost everywhere else in the world. The fact that the Melanau had little control over their environment, though they did have a detailed and extensive knowledge of its possibilities and dangers, meant that the way in which they organised that knowledge into an extension of the ordinary moral system gave them the assurance they needed
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