Route of souls to the World of the Dead
of the dying
behavior of the dying |
Dusun |
Iban (Writing) |
comparative |
Yucatec day-sign |
[eyen wander unco-ordinately = "cross-eyed"] |
(p. 38) "crossroads" |
[cf. gecko, its each eye moving separately] |
Kan (its glyph: reptile-eye ?) = [Aztec] "lizard" |
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"outbreak of perspiration on the dying person" (cold sweat) |
"scorching" region |
Zaratustrian region of scorching sands (to be traversed by soul wearing boots) |
"fire-spirit" (in Book of C^ilam Balam) |
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"land of perpetual banquet" |
["food" (in Psalm 34 & 111)] |
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"At this point a dying person will appear to be clutching at flowers and fruits." |
"flowers or fruit" |
p. 24 (# 20.c) durian flowers; (# 20.d) durian fruit |
Manik (its glyph: hand-gesticulating) |
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"The stricken person now seems to be trying to kick a flying ball". |
"ball game" |
p. 25 (# 22.1) Bujan Agan Gemurai, hero of head-hunting |
Popol Vuh: ball-game in the netherworld, divine rabbit stole the ball, which was a human head |
Lamat = [Aztec] "rabbit" |
"banana grove" |
(# 23.1) wild-banana tree |
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"old, deaf woman ... surrounded by ... noisy chicks" |
p. 26 (# 24.3) "Yapping, ... as of young ... puppies" |
Oc "coyote" |
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"cooking the food for the souls, who, during the day, fashioned the boat which was to transport forty of them -- no more, no less -- ... to the further bank." |
p. 27 (# 26.2) "taboo food" |
[Kili clan of the Goldi] place on route for souls of the dead: 13th "where there are signs of boat-building" (CD, p. 46) {Persian flight to Simurg "40 birds"} |
BORNEO RESEARCH COUNCIL MONOGRAPH SERIES, Vol. 4 = Eva Maria Kershaw: A Study of Brunei Dusun Religion. Borneo Research Council, 2000.
BIJDRAGEN TOT DE TAAL-, LAND-, EN VOLKENKUNDE, Deel 121. 's-Gravenhage, Martinus Nijhoff, 1965. pp. 1-57 Tom Harrisson: "Borneo Writing."
CENTRAL ASIATIC STUDIES, VI = Ivan A. Lopatin: The Cult of the Dead among the Natives of the Amur Basin. Mouton & Co., s'-Gravenhage, 1960.
of the dead
Konyak |
Ao |
Sema |
Angami |
Meitei |
Toda |
Saribas, etc. |
p. 165 "place for washing feet" |
p. 189 "bathing place" |
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"regret at the sorrow of separation" hill |
["last, mournful glance at the longhouse": Punan, p. 150] |
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p. 228 cross stream Lungritsu: |
cross the steam Lai-Khong |
p. 398 cross the "Avalache" river |
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Thongak "the main gate of the land of death" |
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refresh themselves in one of 2 pots (1 for adults) |
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p. 229 must hurl spear at tree |
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Moyotsung, judge of the spear-hurling |
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p. 94 fork in road |
division of paths |
divergence of paths |
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convergence of paths |
though all reach the same goal |
p. 399 convergence of paths at "hot knock stone": lose all love for world of the living |
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lose all diseases |
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men make incision on main-tree with knife; women pound with mortar |
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thread-bridge, whence some fall off, bitten by leeches |
p. 190 shrinking "Bridge of Fear" |
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see grave-goods |
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"Earthen Door" or Worm Goddess Bunsu Belut [taleb "gate": Kelabit, p. 279] |
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voyage by boat [to sea; through "tunnel of darkness": Punan, p. 150] |
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p. 212 praecipice |
p. 186 descent, via rope, to a cave |
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resist being devoured by Kolavo [p. 244 by merely praetending to bite her lice] |
struggle with Metsimo (= Pekujikhe of the Memi on p. 182, fn. 2) |
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pp. 227-8 line of white rock "girls-cloths-drying", "a collection of dead men's cloths laid out to dry by their dead girl friends" |
[Rungus, p. 76: "Washing of the Bedclothes of the Members of the Household of the Deceased."] |
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p. 217 "souls go into butterflies" {Butterfly is 7th flier on Codex Borgia, p. 71} |
p. 184 7 lives (the 1st a butterfly) at 7th leaving rib on roof {cf. rib of >adam (B-R>S^YT 2:21)} |
p. 191 undergo 7 lives |
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{cf. mist from the ground (B-R>S^YT 2:6)} |
become mist, to condense into dew {cf. "dew of lights" in Bible} |
Christoph von Fu:rer-Haimendorf: The Konyak Nagas. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1969.
J. P.Mills: The Ao Nagas. Macmillan & Co., London, 1926.
J. H. Hutton: The Sema Nagas. Macmillan & Co., London, 1921.
J. H. Hutton: The Angami Nagas. Macmillan & Co., London, 1921.
N. Vijaylakshmi Brara: Politics, Society and Cosmology in India's North East. Oxford U. Pr, 1998. [the Meitei of Manipur]
W. H. R. Rivers: The Todas. Macmillan & Co., London, 1906.
BORNEO RESEARCH COUNCIL MONOGRAPH SERIES, Vol. 7 = William D. Wilder (ed.): Journeys of the Soul. Borneo Research Council, 2003.
2. George N. Appell & Laura W. R. Appell: "Death among the Rungus Momogun of Sabah, Malaysia".
3. Ida Nicolaisen: "Mortuary Rituals among the Punan Bah of Central Borneo".
4. Clifford Sather: "Saribas Iban Death Rituals".
5. "Death among the Kelabit."
the [apparently 7] me-karo~ are described (EK, p. 164) thus:
1st |
while alive, 4 |
2nd |
when recently dead, 3 |
3rd |
after one's own 2nd death, 2 |
4th |
after 3rd karo~ (death), 1 = po (species of deer) |
5th |
deer, upon being killed, becoming konkore` (koan-bird) by day, serpent by night {cf. Kemetian mythic winged-serpents} |
6th |
koan/serpent, upon being killed, becoming ve`ve` (butterfly) |
7th |
butterfly, upon being killed, becoming "a tree-stump or a lizard" [by night & day, respectively?] |
[Karo~ would be a variant of the river-name Karoni`, in Venezuela.]
EK = Manuela Carneiro da Cunha: "Eschatology among the Kraho`". In:- S. C. Humphries & Helen King (eds.): Mortality and Immortality. pp. 161-174.
differences in afterdeath-journey by shamans ([Iban] manang, [Rungus] bobolizan) from that by non-shamans (for the Kayan, differences in afterdeath-journey by aristocrats from that by commoners)
(Seeds, p. 37) musical "sound may guide the manang's soul, which is though to travel upriver in death, rather than downriver, the direction taken by the souls of the ordinary dead" |
{the music is that needed to be experienced while living in order to attain these benefits after death, in Pythagorean & Radha-Swamin mysteries, aequivalent to the "upstream"-movement practiced in yoga} |
sumpit (blowgun) "acts as a bridge [more accurately, a tunnel], extending from the human world to Mount Rabung." [Kayan, p. 314: funeral for aristocrats: "a tube out of sixteen sections of bamboo ...; this was called 'the bamboos for peeping' (bulu awang) with which the deceased could see the living."] |
Kic^e` (in Popol Vuh): Hun C^uen & Hun Batz within blowgun in S^ibalba [buluh "bamboo"-plant: Saribas, p. 206] {in Sumerian tombs, a tube was implanted in buried corpse's mouth, extending to the surface in order to serve liquor to the dead} |
p. 112 is taught sabak-song by Bunsu Bubut [Worm Goddess] |
{Eskimo shaman's visionary encounter with praeternatural worms} |
traversing "flower garden" while wearing "blinder charm" given by Entawai ["bat"] |
Kic^e`: Cama-zotz ("deadly bat") [bats pollinate night-blooming cactus] |
p. 130 casting the PUA> net [mio-soul (of skull) is caught in net: Konyak, p.94] {cf. nets obstructing flight to Daoist heavens; vis-a`-vis Norse skull as sky} |
Hawai'i: PUA is the goddess who re-assembleth the parts of a dismembered soul of the dead [Nightbird, p. 111: ritual to gather, by tinkling bells, the scattered souls of an individual] |
(Kayan, p. 300) re-assembling of souls as beads (threaded together) -- cf. [western Han dynasty] suit of pierced-jade scales, threaded-together, worn by corpse of aristocrats |
"Every dead Lhota has a bead or a cowrie tied on to his wrist with which to propitiate the spirit who guards the path." (Angami Nagas, p. 186) |
(Kayan, p. 314) briefing to dead aristocrats: "these swimming boars will carry your load. The young kingfisher will fly ahead of you and announce your impending arrival ... Likewise the squirrel". -- (loc. cit., fn. 32:) "The Uma Daro' section ... substituted a tarsier (hiko) for the squirrel." |
{is BRAN ("squirrel" in Kayan) cognate with [Irish] name of goddess BRAN-wen ?} {is HiKO cognate with [Kemetian] goddess-name H.Q "magic" = [<arabic] H.Q "truth" ?} |
(Rungus, p. 62) "when the soul of a bobolizan arrives at Nabalu, all the resident souls capture it and put it in a pigsty for seven days ..." |
cognate with [German] NieBeLUng, this NaBaLU for a bobolizan would be distinct from the mist which the ordinary dead become (according to the Saribas) {the pigsty is that of the sorceress Kirke in the Odusseis} [the 7 days for the shaman's soul being distinct from the 7 soul's nights' stay in the longhouse (Punan, p. 147)] |
{with the Lhota visiting in dreams of the "Cave of the Dead", for shamanic praescience -- cf. sleep by "Cave of the Numphai" on Ithake by Odusseus}
THE BORNEO CLASSICS SERIES, Vol. 5 = Clifford Sather: Seeds of Play, Words of Power: an Ethnographic Study of Iban Shamanic Chants. Tun Jugah Foundation, 2001.
VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE, 180 = Je'ro^me Rousseau: Kayan Religion. KITLV Pr, Leiden, 1998.
Carol Rubenstein: The Nightbird Sings: Chants & Songs of Sarawak Dayaks. Stenhouse, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire, Scotland: Tynron Pr, 1990.