])U Md�r I W H1// <43 H1�hi Jew Jn• Terrace c; T LUCIA. .Id 4007 �MY.Ers- Drysdale R. 0-v Cape 1 <0 �11 King Edward R Eylandt J (P le { York Prin N.Kimb �0 cess Ch arlotte Bay JJ J J Peninsula Kalumbur,:u -{.__ Wal.cott • C ooktown Inlet 1r Dampier's Lan by Broome S.W.Kimberley E. Kimberley Hooker Ck. La Grange Great Sandy Desert NORTHERN TERRITORY Port Hedland • Yuendumu , Papanya 0ga Boulia ,r>- Haasts Bluff • ,_e':lo . Alice Springs IY, Woorabin Gibson Oesert Hermannsburg• da, �igalong pe ter I QU tn"' "'= EENSLAND 1v1"' nn ''� • Ayre's Rock nn " "' r ---- ----------------------------L- T omk i nson Ra. Musgrave Ra. Everard Ra Warburton Ra. WESTERN AUSTRALIA Fraser Is. Oodnadatta · Laverton SOUTH AUSTRALIA Victoria Desert New Norcia !) Perth N EW SOUT H WALES Great Australian Bight Port �ackson �f.jer l. W. llill (lr14), t:D, 1.\ Censultlf . nt 1\n·hlk.. l �st Tl·l: ( 117} .171-'l.lS Aboriginal Men of High Degree Studiesin Sodetyand Culture General Editors: Jeremy Beckett and Grant Harman Previous titles in series From Past4 to Pt�vlova: A Comp��rlltivt Study ofIlllli1111 Smlm m Sydney & Griffith by Rina Huber Aboriginal Men of High Degree SECOND EDITION A. P. Elkin THEUNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLANDLffiRARY SOCIALSCIENCES AND HUMANITIES LIBRARY University of Queensland Press First edition 1945 Second edition © University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, Queensland, 1977 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no p�rt may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publishers Printed and bound by Academy Press Pty Ltd, Brisbane Distributed in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean by Prentice-Hall International, International Book Distributors Ltd, 66 Wood Land End, Hemel Hempstead, Herts., England. Natitmlll Library of Australia Elkin, Adolphus Peter, 1891-. Aboriginal men of high degree. Index. ISBN 0 7022 1017 X. [ 1 . ] Aborigines, Australian-Medicine. 2. Medicine-man. [3.] Aborigines, Australian­ Religion and mythology. [4.] Aborigines, Australian-Rites and ceremonies. 5. Shamanism­ Australia. I. Title. 610.994 Contents viii Maps ix Preface xvii Introduaion to Second Edition xx Introduaion to First Edition PART 1 THE PERSONALITY, MAK­ ING AND POWERS OF ABORIGINAL MEN OF HIGH DEGREE 3 Chapter 1 Aboriainal Men of Hiah Dearee: Their Personality and Makin9 3 Aboriginal Life-A Progress in Knowledge 5 The Problems of Daily Life 7 The Personality of Medicine-Men 9 Medicine-Men, Outstanding Personalities! I 2 Medidne-Men are Normal 15 How is the Doctor Selected or "Called"? 17 The making of Medicine-men: Taking the high degree 18 Uncircumcision Regions 20 Circumcision Regions 28 Distribution of "Abdominal Operation" 28 Mummification Pattern of Ritual 29 Origin of the Ritual 30 Medicine-Man Making, A Pre-Enactment of Magical Killing 32 Medicine-Man's Power Supernatural vi Contents 37 Chapter 2 Tht Powers of Mtdidne-Men 3 7 Suptmormal Powers 38 Sorcery and its cure 38 Sorcery-An Explanation of Illness and Death 39 Psychic Aspects of Pointing and other forms of Sorcery 39 The Doctor and the Patient 42 Thought Transference 46 Clairvoyance and Mind-Reading 49 The Strong eye 49 The Medidne-Man as "Dttective" and Coroner 52 Psychic displays 52 Wa/kin g on Fire 53 The Use of Magic Cord 54 Mysterious Disappearing and Re-appearing 55 Creating Illusions 55 Fast Travelling 56 Meditation 57 Comparison with Tibet 58 Psychic Terrors 60 RitUill Cannibalism 60 Rapid Travelling on "Foot". 61 Telepathy 64 Aboriginal Secret Cults and Religion are Oriental 66 Condusion 11 PART 2 THE MAKING AND POWERS-A SURVEY 73 Chapter J Tht Uncircumcision Rtgions 73 Plan of survey 7 4 South of the Mu"ay 79 The Coast of Ntw South Wales 81 The Wtsttm Districts of NtwSouth Wales 93 Easttm and Northtm Quemsland 96 Tht South-westtm Corner (Wtsttm Australia) Contents vii 1 o 1 Chapter 4 The Circumcision Resions I 0 I South Australia and the Neighbouring Regionof Western Australia I 09 North-centralAustralian and North-western Queensland 116 Far North-western Queensland I 17 Amhem Land 123 The Kimberley Division, North-west Australia. 135 PART J ABORIGINAL MEN OF HIGH DEGREE IN A CHANGING WORLD 137 Chapter 5 Mystic Experience: Essential Qualification for Men of Hish Desree 138 The High Degree: Northern New South Wales 141 The High Degree: Northern Kimberley, W.A. 145 The High Degree: South-West Kimberley, W.A. 150 Chapter 6 Animistic and Masical Causes of Ill- ness 154 Black and White Medicine: Parallel and Complementary 158 Doctor-Man in Health Services 162 Men of High Degree: Their Passing? 16 3 The Desert: a Rampartfo r Indigenous Culture 166 A New Type: Blackfellow-Doctor-Whitefdlow 170 Medicine-men: The Psychotherapeutic Role 171 Medidne-men and the invisible I 72 The Order: Resurgence 176 Inter-tribal conference of medicine-men! 183 Index Maps Australia showing various areas mentioned in text front milpaptr and xxiii The Aboriginal Tribe of Australia back mdpaptr andxxiv Preface In 1944 Professor A. P. Elkin gave the John Murtagh Macrossan Memorial Lectures at the University of Queensland. These lectures along with two more chapters appea red in the fo llowing year as Aboriginal Men of High Degree. Published under wa rtime stringencies, the ed ition was a small one which, nevertheless, circulated widely, becoming a major source fo r-among others-Mircea Eliade. 1 It has, however, been unobtainable fo r many yea rs, and, despite the expa nsion of Aboriginal studies, it remains the only substantial work on what might be call­ ed the Aboriginal occult. With interest in the field now reviving its publication is timely, the more so since the author, now Professor Emeritus, has written a new sec­ tion. Elkin's subject is the medicine man. But this term, with its connotations of chicanery and gullibility, scarcely con­ veys the importance such figures hold for Aborigines. The "clever man", as some English speakers call him, acquired wonderful powers through direct contact with the beings of the Dreamtime: the rainbow serpent; the sky gods; the spirits of the dead. He has come to this state through a long and rigorous apprenticeship and an initiation of ter­ ro rs and ordeals beyond those that ordinary men undergo. He is what Elkin calls a man of high deg ree and his ex­ periences have changed him utterl y. He has died and come alive again; his ent ra ils have been taken out and replaced ; he has been swallowed by the rainbow serpent and x Preface regurgitated ; magic crystals have been put in his body; he has acquired an animal fa mil iar that dwells within him. As a result of such experiences, the medicine man can fly and travel over the ground at great speed ; he ca n an­ ticipate events and knows what is happening in fa raway places. He can cure and kill mysteriously. He can make rain. He can ascend to the sky world on a magic cord that emanates from his testicles. He can roll in the fire without hurt; appear and disappear at will. The man of high degree is not peculiar to Australia, of cou rse. He is kindred to Ca rlos Castaneda's brujoDon Juan, and other Amerindian "men of power".2 The author himself draws parallels with the lamas of Tibet, an­ ticipating Eliade's work on shamanism.3 Eliade shows that it is not just the general phenomenon but numerous specific features that are to be found alike in Australia and Central Asia. But while Elkin believes that Aboriginal religion "belongs" to the Orient, not to the West, and al­ lows the possibility of an historical connection, he is not incl ined to the wide-ranging generalizations of com­ parative religion. His overriding purpose is to understand the Australian Aborigines. Elkin will not allow the medicine men to be dismissed as fra uds and humbugs; nor will he have them reduced to something else. He has been as unsympathetic to explana­ tions in terms of the subconscious mind as he now is to the sea rch for unconscious structures. He finds the notion that shamans are psychologica lly unstable eq ually inapplicable to Australia. Medicine men are part of the mainstream of Aboriginal society and cultu re, despite their absorption in the esoteric. The rigours of their "professional" training and the many ritual observances that surround its practice are, he thinks, enough to deter the mere eccentric and the confidence man. It is, of course, always easier to explain away the occult than to explain it, and the difficultiesar e acute in the pre­ sent case. For a start, we are almost wholly dependent on Preface xi what the Aborigines tell us. Neither the author nor anyone else has tried, like Castaneda, to become the sorcerer's ap­ prentice, and few whites can bear witness to the feats that are said to be performed. Elkin relays what he has been told, with the caution that one is probably never told everything.• But he wants the accounts to be taken seriously and approached with sympathetic under­ standing.5 Bolder than most anthropologists, Elkin is prepa red to enterta in the possibility that med icine men really have powers not understandable in terms of the rational and the academic. At one point he suggests that mass hypnosis may be the explanation fo r an extraord inary event. But he discla ims any special knowledge in this field, and thirty­ one years later we are not much closer to an answer.6 We ;, might also talk in terms of "hal lucinations experienced during "abnormal states" such as trance.