Myth Paper

Eric Crouch

11/30/11

Lit 285

Final Paper

Angels of Ignition

            “A life in which the gods are not invited isn’t worth living.  It will be quieter, but there won’t be any stories.  And you could suppose that these dangerous invitations were in fact contrived by the gods themselves, because the gods get bored with men who have no stories” (Calasso 387).  Roberto Calasso’s book The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony is an extremely detailed account of Greek mythology.  Calasso  helps us understand that the gods are still present in the lives of humans; when one looks, one will find that the gods are everywhere and continue to influence and seduce us.  The fiction genre is heavily influenced with mythology.  Richard Van Camp’s The Lesser Blessed tells the story of Larry and his mythological journey through adolescence.  The Lesser Blessed has many mythological similarities with John Fowles’ The Magus.  Both Larry and Nicholas, the protagonist of The Magus, experience Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth.  Mythology can be identified as three distinct stages: separation, initiation, and return.  Through each of these stages, if reading closely, one can see how mythology predestines the lives of Larry and Nicholas.  Their stories have already been told before and many humans will walk in their footsteps.  The stories of Larry and Nicholas are examples of how mythology is the precedent behind every action; stories of the gods and their influence in the lives of fictional characters help us understand our own lives through a new lens. 

            Separation is the first stage of mythology; for most humans, this is when we were a zygote in the belly of our mother.  The time before separation is simple and things are in the absence of chaos.  However, something happens to us and we are whisked away from this innocence by something more powerful than our human bodies.  In The Lesser Blessed, Larry is separated from the innocence of his childhood when he accidentally sees his father raping his unconscious auntie. “…she was passed out.  He was on top of her and he had her shirt up and everything.  I wanted to scream.  The way she just took it, I could tell she didn’t know.  My dad fucked her so fast.  I couldn’t believe it.  I ran away…” (88).  The act of rape is something not uncommon to mythology; by seeing the rape, Larry is separated from his childhood.  Larry is also separated from other children his age and the adults who are in his life.  In The Magus, Nicholas is separated from his usual daily routine when he meets Alison.  “Even close to her, I was always being wrong-footed.  She would be ugly one moment, and then some movement, expression, angle of her face, made ugliness impossible” (31).  Nicholas has met a woman who will change his life forever; Nicholas’ previous life of de-flowering virgins and womanizing was over; he had now entered a new ballgame, a Godgame.  Though by different scenarios, Nicholas and Larry have subconsciously left behind their old lives and will be embarking on something much more frightening and deeply mythological.

            Initiation is the second stage of mythology; initiation usually begins immediately with many trials and tribulations after the act of separation.  Initiation takes many shapes; often times, the period of initiation is very long and is always a painful process.  Pain and suffering is prevalent in both Larry and Nicholas’ life.  Shortly after Larry sees his father’s act of rape, his father sexually abuses Larry.  “I couldn’t breathe.  I wanted to sew stitches through my lips so he could never fuck me there again.  Mother.  The flame light.  The flame rush” (78).  This act of rape was Larry’s first stage of initiation.  Sexual abuse is something that is de-humanizing can ruin a person for the rest of their lives.  In the footsteps of a hero, the only thing Larry can do is kill his father.  “… me standing over him; fire roaring from room to room; me standing in the crowd with a box of matches and the hammer; oh God in Heaven forgive me, my hammer, my secret tusk; me standing over Dad and bringing it down, slamming it down, knowing Dad’s passed out, knowing he’s dreaming” (78).   Larry burns down his Dad’s house after he had beaten his dad unconscious, ultimately killing his father.  Patricide is a highly mythological act; many gods and heroes have killed their own fathers.  Oedipus, in the play Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, is a one of many examples of Patricide.  Oedipus knows that he is destined to kill his father and takes many preventative measures from killing his father and marrying his mother.  The power of myth is much more powerful than the soul of a hero or human.  In the end, Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. 

Similarly, one of the stories from Mercia Eliade’s From Primitives to Zen is a creation story which involves patricide.  Hesiod’s Theogony and Cosmogony is a story of how the earth convinced her son, Cronus to castrate his own father.  The earth-mother is prepared to use violence to castrate the sky “My children, you have a savage father; if you will listen to me, we may be able to take vengeance for this evil outrage: he was the one who started using violence.”  The blood of the castration spills into the sea and created sea-foam from which Aphrodite was born.  The drops of blood which landed on the earth created Erinyes; Erinyes appear when matricide has taken place.  “In the course of the revolving years she gave birth to the powerful Erinyes [Spirits of Vengeance] and the huge Giants with shining armour and long spears.”  Although it is an incriminating offense in most penal systems, Hesiod’s Theogony and Cosmonogy had somewhat positive outcomes from the initiation act of patricide.  In the case of Larry, his act of patricide was only the start of initiation. 

One of the ways that Larry deals with the pain and suffering of initiation and adolescence is through storytelling.  Mythology is based on the act of oral storytelling; the written word was a technology that many cultures did not create or utilize until relatively recently in human history.  Stories are therapeutic for Larry and also for whoever is listening.  Larry uses stories to help him through the trials and pain of initiation.  One major theme that developed in The Magus and The Lesser Blessed was the dead living through love.  Conchis speaks to Nicholas about his love and affections towards Lily; Conchis speaks of Lily as if she were alive.  Nicholas asks Conchis why he talks of her in that manner and Conchis replies that the dead live by love (153).  Conchis tells Nicholas this because he wants Nicholas to transcend with him and blur the lines of reality.  In The Lesser Blessed, Juliet, the girl Larry is infatuated with, asks him to tell her a story.  Larry can tell Juliet is in tears; Larry transcends and tells Juliet a story.  “I closed my eyes and decided to let the story lead.  I was just the voice, and I knew the story would tell itself” (99).  Larry tells Juliet a story about a Dogrib (Larry’s tribal ethnicity) women who was haunted by her son.  After some investigation, this woman learned that she had to burn all of her dead son’s belongings to allow his soul to pass into the afterlife (99-101).  Larry tells Juliet a story of how the dead can live in this world through love.  Throughout the novel, Larry’s act of separation has rendered him incapable of understanding the feeling of love.  Stories help him develop with the pain of initiation and adolescence.  The presence of souls and their functions within the humanly world are a large part of Native American mythology, and mythology in general.  The transcendence of Larry’s stories help him in the process of understanding the reality of his life and surroundings.  This process helps him get closer to the third stage of mythology: return.

The third and final stage of mythology can be reached in many different ways.  In Larry’s case, the return comes in the form of sexual satisfaction; having sex with Juliet allows him to finally understand the idea of love and acceptance, something he has been struggling with his whole life.  “We went for spice and my tusk pulsed inside her my heart was inside her and it was sweet violation and she pulled me tight and this was the place of Jesus this was the place of Jesus this was the place of Jesus.  I was touching her soul and I began to drown” (110).  After sex, Juliet notices the deep burn scars all Larry’s body; she compared these scars to pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  The journey to return is not an easy one; Larry has severe scars from being burned in the fire of his initiation.  In The Magus, Nicholas’ does not experience the final stage of mythology until he realizes that he has been a victim of a Godgame; he meets with Alison to find the meaning to his pain and suffering on the island of Phraxos.  “The final truth came to me, as we stood there, trembling, searching, between all our past and all our future; at a moment when the difference fission and fusion lay in a nothing, a tiniest movement, betrayal, further misunderstanding” (654).  From the moment of meeting Alison, Nicholas’ life had become property of a great puppeteer.  Only in the last few pages of the novel does Nicholas realize that the Godgame has changed his life forever.  His initiation had mostly mental pain and confusion; I would argue that psychological pain is on the same level as physical pain.  These two novels help us understand that there are actions and influences in our lives, which stretch beyond the control of humans.  Mythology is present in our every thought and action; our story has already been told; all we have to do is open our eyes to see beyond physical reality. 

“I wept because I did not belong to anyone / I was not owned / not with mate / but I smiled too knowing this because I new my life was still / unwrapped / I would in time / find one to call my own / mine to disappear in  / to be … “ (119).  The final passages in The Lesser Blessed are Larry’s confirmation of his journey through the three stages of mythology.  Patricide, seduction, and storytelling are three major themes which are laced between every word in Larry’s story; they each serve a function deeply rooted in Greek mythology.  The story of Nicholas in The Magus is a vivid account of how mythology has the power to abduct any human being and change their life forever.  Robert Calasso perfectly wrote the single most important thing about mythology: “…myth is the precedent behind every action, its invisible, ever-present lining” (383).  Mythology is not something to be taken lightly; mythology can help us understand our own lives.  The gods have the power of abduction and can take us to unimaginable places; disregarding mythology and the existence of gods and heroes only makes the road of trials more terrifying.  Humans repeat the actions of past heroes and men every day.  Only knowledge and awareness of mythology in your own life can prevent one from pulling an Oedipus and killing your own father and marrying your mom. 

Works Cited

Calasso, Roberto. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. New York: Knopf, 1993.       Print.

Eliade, Mircea. "HESIOD'S THEOGONY AND COSMOGONY - Myths of Creation and of                        Origin - Myths of the Creation of the World - Mircea Eliade, "From Primitives                  to Zen"" From Primitives To Zen. Nebulous Cargo Productions, 1996. Web. 30           Nov. 2011. <http://www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-      zen/059.html>.

Fowles, John. The Magus: a Revised Version. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978. Print.

Van, Camp Richard. The Lesser Blessed. Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & Molntyre, 2004.    Print.

The Dead

Conchis tells Nicholas that the dead live by love.  Lily had died from working at a hospital during an epidemic.  This makes me think of stories that involve hauntings and people seeing loved ones in the form of ghosts.  In Native American myths of the Dogrib people, it is believed that if a person holds on to a loved one's possession who has passed on, they will see their ghosts.  The only way to stop the dead from haunting the living in this scenario is to burn the belongings of the dead.  In the book The Lesser Blessed, the protagonist, Larry, tells a story of the dead which is identical.  The Lesser Blessed is highly mythological and I am going to be explaining this novel's mythological connections in my final paper.

The magus-elect

What does it mean to be 'elect'

Conchis is of the elect; he considers himself to be psychic.  Conchis continues to tell Nicholas that he is of the elect.  Although Nicholas refutes the idea of being part of the elect and of having psychic qualities, he ponders the idea.

What does it mean to be 'elect'.  I believe some of us choose to perceive the world around us in a special way.  Although I am not psychic, I believe that being 'elect' has something to do with perception and an attitude towards the world.  The elect try to lift the veil from our own eyes.  Nicholas, at first, does not recognize the veil that has been placed over his narcissistic eyes.  But as we read on, Nicholas begins to lift his veil and see things he has never seen before.

10/27 Notes

10/27/11

The Great Pan- He was a half goat half man.  Great Pan is dead, the myths are gone, and the gods have all turned into a row of statues.  But in mythology, when one system ends, another one begins.  ‘It always starts with a woman and a swan.  Bird meets the woman and impregnates her.  She gives birth to Helen: the start of the Trojan War and the whole mythological world.  But Yates is right; another bird will come along and impregnate another woman. 

·      Mary is visited by a divine being in the form of the bird.  The Immaculate Conception.  Every 2000 years a bird impregnates a woman, but the problem is, those 2000 years have gone by.

·      We have now entered the third phase.  William Butler Yeats: ‘The Second Coming’

·       THE SECOND COMING

·           Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

·           Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

·           The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

What B+D were saying: It is not the thing that is sacred; it is sacred if you believe it is sacred.  The strength of belief creates the thing.   

Holy Stone! Do not think that the stone is holy in itself; it is holy because it has been thought to be holy.  To the initiated, these are holy things. 

The world is charged with the Grandeur of God.  Gerard Manley Hopkins.  Gave MSU our motto and sprung rhythm. 

Myers Briggs personality test: Thinking, Intuition, Sensing, and Feeling

            -This is all boring stuff

Carl Jung: He gave us the psychological term introvert and extrovert; a follower of Sigmund Froyd. He was interested in typologies of mythology and fantasy.  Psychology: happened to be centered on the person of Psyche.  Eros abducts her and he takes her to this wonderful palace.  (Beauty and the Beast).  Almost all fairytales are about preparing young women for marriage and the wedding night.  Eros kicks her out because she looked at him and Eros abandons her; she is also with child.  Aphrodite gives her all these impossible tasks and some little animals help her (Cinderella).  She is sent down to the underworld to get some Cosmetics from Persephone.  She is put under, Eros gives her a kiss, brings her back to life, marries her… SO, Psyche means SOAL.  The story of Psyche is the story of the soul.  In Greek, the image of the soul is that of a butterfly.  What Plato will call a light-winged, holy-thing.  Psychology is the study of the soul.  The great stories came out of dreams and fantasies.  Jung gave us the four functions of stories.  We need to change the functions back into the stories from whence they came.  The mythological system is a total system where stories do all the work that psychology does today.  The stories are: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition.  And these can be divided into Introverts (S+T) and Extroverts (F+I). 

Stories of thinking process: ZEUS-he thinks it through. UP.

Stories of Sensation: Athena, daughter of Zeus.  Concerned with cities: Athens. She is connected with the whole birth of the city Athens, and it is a grotesque story.  Ejaculation, Semen, Generation of snake-child, and that is how Athens was created.  Connected with the jury system.  OUT.

Stories of Intuition: The secret that goes on between mother and the maiden.  The Great secret of the Eleusinian mysteries. 

Dionysus: The feeling function.  Surrounded by women, stands for everything that is most, liquid, here today and gone tomorrow, mysterious, here today and gone tomorrow, and unspeakable.  Get in touch with your deepest bodily needs.  The whole function of Dionysus is to get you to stop thinking.  Have a drink.  Participate in something that is not you. 

Dionysus is the god of ecstasy:  Means to be out of your body.  She is with the god, god-possessed and enthusiastic.  

Psyche

Here is a picture of the abduction of psyche

The Aztec Funerary Ritual

The Aztec's have a pretty cool fun-for-all:

This is the Aztec's ritual call the 'Straw Death':

A priest would stand before a dead body and pronounce certain words.  We are but a ray of light in this world.  We are not immortal and after we have lived our lives, we will be extended an invitation by the God and Goddess of Hell.  We are invited to the Domain of Darkness, because our absence is eternal.  There is no light or windows, as there was when we were alive.  And do not worry, everyone gets the invitation.   *Preist puts a few drops of water on the head of the body*  The water created from life will lubricate your journey.  *Priest lays some certain papers on the body*  The pages, like the book of the dead papers, will also help the journey.

The Journey:

1. Pass the two dashing mountains
2. Pass the road where the serpant awaits
3. Pass the lair of the Green Lizard (hopefully a dragon)
4. Cross 8 deserts
5. Cross 8 hills
6. Not quite sure what this means: "And behold with what thou canst traverse the place of the winds that drive with obsidian knives.''
7. Now the perils of the Underworld Wary were to be passed and the soul arrives before Mictlantecutli (God of Death).
8. 'whence after four years he should fare onward until, by the aid of his dog, sacrificed at his grave, he should pass over the Ninefold Stream, and thence, hound with master, enter into the eternal house of the dead, Chicomemictlan, the Ninth Hell.'

Although not related to most of the 'Straw Death' ritual, I thought of this when I was reading the last section.

I thought this ritual was very interesting.  The Aztec's seem to have a very detailed perception of the passage to the underworld.  Who knew that living in eternal absence would be such a long and detailed process?

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10/25/11

Rituals: if you do something correctly, everything will be alright.   You need to do the thing exactly as prescribed.  If rituals are not done correctly, the order of the universe will be set off balance.  The world is filled with rituals and if they are not done correctly, things can be very bad.  The insistence on burying people correctly has been vital during human history.  Antigone.  She was Oedipus’ daughter. Antigone believes in the familial law: everyone, even if they are a traitor, deserves a proper burial.

Here is a picture of Antigone: 

Halloween: Halloween as a mythological event.

What we are not familiar with is where all of this came from.  Here is some background: Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)". The name of the festival historically kept by the Gaels and celts in the British Isles which is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".

But Symbols and the artifacts change over time.  Over time Halloween went from a celebration of all souls to the rites of kenosis.  (emptying out; its a Greek word for emptying).  Emptying ourselves of all the things that could have been contagious and evil during the year.  Tote Tage or the day of the dead.  Means that none of the rules that applied to you during the year are not in effect for this day.  NYE-liberation from the rules.  

Nacirema: The original use of the term was in Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, which satirizes anthropological papers on "other" cultures, and the Northern American Culture. Horace Miner wrote the paper and originally published it in the June 1956 edition ofAmerican Anthropologist.

In the paper, Miner describes the Nacirema, a little-known tribe living in North America. The way in which he writes about the curious practices that this group performs distances readers from the fact that the North American group described actually corresponds to modern-day Americans of the mid-1950s. The article sometimes serves as a demonstration of a gestalt shift with relation to sociology.

Some of the popular aspects of Nacirema culture include: latipso ("Hospital" spelled backwards and the 'H' removed) Medicine men and women (doctors, psychiatrists, and pharmacists), a charm-box (medicine cabinet), the mouth-rite ritual (brushing teeth), and a cultural hero known as Notgnihsaw ("Washington" spelled backwards).

Though generally viewed to be on the west coast, there are several places given the name of Nacirema, including certain streets and very old neighborhoods on the east coast.

Growing Pains= Metamorphosis.  

Elusinian Mysteries" http://www.eleusinianmysteries.org/

10-20 Presentations

10/20/11

Smudging ceremony- Taking a bundle of herbs (probably marijuana) and burning them.  Cleansing the energy of the air with smoke.  Different herbs are used for different purposes. 

Blood initiation: Papua New Guinea.  3 step process: 1. Shove cane down your throat, and vomit in the river.  2.  Get sharpened reeds jammed into your nose.  Your tongue gets pricked with a tiny bow.  All of these steps are to rid you of your feminine qualities and influences.  To eliminate from them all their associations of their mother.  Becoming a man. 

The Eliade is filled with Shamanic rituals. 

Me and Sherwood gonna make it rain.

Manhood initiation that takes place in Brazil:  Bullet ants-feel like you got shot if you get bitten.  The ants are packed into a glove, boys put the gloves on, dance around for half an hour.  When they take them off, the results can be severe, but they are a man.  Possible side effects: Brain hemorrhaging. 

Election day, a bizarre ritual. 

Nacirema Tribe: Lauren says it is the word American spelled backwards. 

Human sacrifice to Mayan culture:  The blue man group comes and they chop out the heart of the blue man and roll him down the stairs, like a slinky.  They practice human sacrifice to keep in contacts with the god. 

Seppuku-Japanese Ritual Suicide.  Part of the Samurai Warrior Code.  It takes two to Tango and Seppuku.  Warrior writes a death poem, plunges sword into abdomen, right to left, then up and down.  Samurai companion then cuts off the head of the Seppuku-er. 

Jenny-Mary Month Of May

Corona: Coronis

Day of the Dead: Originally derived from the Aztecs.  In the month of August they celebrated.  Spaniards conquered them and they thought that this was sacrigiligious.  They moved the ceremony to October and only allowed it to last three days.  (Rosemary puts on mask)…

Frozen Dead Guy Day!

Jill Yoder- An Initiation Ritual:  Masons and Eastern stars.  Eastern star is a female version of the Masons.  Show up in a white dress to the temple and have interactions with five weird women.  Da, Ruth, Aster, Martha, and Electa.  Be obedient to men and to be devoted to God.

Another rain making ritual!

Parker: The Bridger Whale, a story of safe passage.  Don't look the wooden whale in the eye.  On your way out, it is customary to salute the whale on your way out.

Vegetarian Festival in Thailand:  No meat, alcohol, or fun.  They want to cleanse their bodies so that they can be closer to the gods.

Chinese New Year.  Celebrated in East and South East asia.  Ten days before chinese new year, everyone is supposed to clean their house to avoid evil spirit (I hope this isnt the only day they clean their house).  Dirt Devil?  

10/18/11 Class notes

Assignment: Make a blog entry on the subject of middles.  Put the story or ritual we have chosen for Thursday.  Research the subject of middles. 

Middles: most teachers deal with the moving of the gods from to the world of the heroes.  Mostly deals with the subject of battle: Achiles. 

Athena: jumped out of Zeus’ head.  Dionysus came from his thigh.  Athena mates with a mortal and she gives birth to Achiles. 

Wars happen to start over the trivial things (pig stuck in the fence).

Big problem in Greek mythology: how am I going to stop my children from overcoming me?  Arestes: How do we get rid of the cyclical violence?  (All the great stories are family stories ex: Hatfield-McCoy Feud).  Arestes comes home to kill his mother because of the family-murder cycle and he does not want to but he has to. 

·      If you killed your mother, you will be faced with the Erinyes: Chthonic (of or related to the underworld) deities of vengeance.  They were born from the drops of Uranus’ blood after Cronus castrated him.  Meanwhile, Aphrodite was born from the crests of sea foam.  The Erinyes are vile and disgusting women. 

Arrestees is plagued by Erinyes.  Etiology: the origin of the modern judicial system.  Arrestees was guilty of killing his mom, but Apollo said that it was not that serious of a crime.  Apollo agrued that the man is the important one because the men provide the seed.   Athena thought that this was relevant because she was a daddy’s girl. 

·      Daddy’s girl.  Archetype-the original pattern or model; a prototype. 

Arrestees was aquitted from the crime of matricide.  The western political system is rooted in patriarch. 

Ask your Senator.  Senator comes from the Latin word Senex: The wise old man or the impotent old man.   

           

Zeus: Zeus also had to overcome cyclical things.  Zeus and Athena do not like circles; they like linear things.  Zeus puts an end to the cyclical business.  He ate their mother.  He had an alliance with a woman named Metis: She was the spouse of Zeus and the mother of Athena.  Zeus ate the mother and ingested wisdom.  Used thoughtfulness and the power of the mind to put an end of the cyclicalism through the adjudication of the court of law. 

Zeus discovered the power of persuasion, wisdom, thought, and cunning; rather than power, like his father. 

Rituals: Things that are done and we do not know why we do them. 

James Joyce: Ulysses.  Ulysses is almost the opposite of Achilles.  Leopold Bloom is anything but Ulysses.  But it is like finding Oz in Bozeman.  Joyce was trying to find a hero for the modern world.  He took his model from Odysseus.  We are all heroes and everyday of our lives is a heroic venture.  Most of our lives are spent with remedial concerns.  Eternal return. 

This Eternal return can also be seen in the film Groundhog’s Day.

OCD: everything has to be done has to be a certain way. 

Eliada: Rituals. 

·      The Eleusinian Mysteries:  What is the real meaning or purpose for these things that we have been doing all our life? 

·      Temenos: a a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct.  This is where the ritual goes on. 

·      Of all the mysteries, these Eleusinian mysteries were held to be the greatest of mysteries.  Something was seen, something was said, and something was done.  What was seen was what made everything work. 

·      Outside of the Temenos, when the thing is said, seen, and done, it is life-transforming. 

Here is the myth that I chose to recite:

Mircea Eliade "From Primitives to Zen":

RAIN-MAKING

AUSTRALIA

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It is universally believed by the tribes of the Karamundi nation, Of the Darling River, that rain can be brought down by the following ceremony. A vein in the arm of one of the men is opened and the blood allowed to drop into a piece of hollow bark until there is a little pool. Into this is put a quantity of gypsum, ground fine, and stirred until it has the consistency of a thick paste. A number of hairs are pulled out of the man's beard and mixed up with this paste, which is then placed between two pieces of bark and put under the surface of the water in some river or lagoon, and kept there by means of pointed stakes driven into the ground. When the mixture is all dissolved away, the blackfellows say that a great cloud will come, bringing rain. From the time that this ceremony takes place until the rain comes, the men are tabooed from their wives, or the charm will be spoiled, and the old men say that if this prohibition were properly respected, rain would come every time that it is done. In a time of drought, when rain is badly wanted, the whole tribe meets and performs this ceremony.