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Chapter 1: Humanity - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Newborns as sacred and pure, emerging directly from Po, and undergoing ceremonies that diminished this power to a safe level, including bloodletting
      - Tattoo used as desanctification rite to prevent harm to others
        
        Centered on buttocks; may have been used as Janus figures
        
        Marked by small tattoo as arm as desanctified and therefore safe for others to be around once process has finishes
      - “Tahitian practice was both defined by a religious order and by idiosyncrasies.” (58)
      - In Marquesan culture, there are two levels of afterlife (one that is gloomy and occupied by spirits of commoners, and the other ruled over by goddess Opuu and inhabited by spirits of those who had high rank). Opuu was said to dislike tattoos and spirits would tear apart any spirits bearing them when trying to enter her domain, so it became a custom for the relatives of a deceased man to rub off his tattoos after his death over the course of months.
        
        “The life cycle was...not a natural process; rather, the human had to be actively made and unmade.” (60)
      - “In the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, body arts were similarly vital to the creation of the adult human, but in the context of initiation ceremonies intended to rupture the bonds between sons and mothers, in the creation of young adult men.” (60)
        
        Took form of ritual scarification of boys grant initiation to adulthood, followed by around six weeks of other ordeals. Was accompanied by acquirement of secret names, then boys were allowed to leave men’s house once elders decided it was finished. Studied by anthropologist named Bateson.
        “During the period of crisis and forced maturation, the initiate suffers great pain and acquires secret and sacred knowledge” (65
      - Hain was ritual conducted by Selk’nam and Haush of Tierra del Fuego
        
        “At the core of the Hain was the deception, or rather the ostensible deception, of women. The great secret taught to initiates was that the beings who terrified them during various rites were simply masked men. The ideology was that women, who had originally ruled and oppressed men, could be kept in their place only if they believed in and feared the spirits.” (64)
      - Ritual surrounding circumcision in Kenya
        
        “ Among the Kikuyu of Kenya, circumcision took place in the context of a cycle of ceremonies known as irua, featruing body-painting and dance, in which the initiates carried specially decorated shields designed to complement and underscore the vigorous linear designs on their bodies.” (64)
      - Purpose of initiation rites in various cultures:
        
        Aim is not to beautify the body”
        
        “For the initiate him or herself, scarifications or other modifications are expression of what the body and the person have undergone of the self’s distance from what it was” (65)
        
        The purpose of body art was tro transform the inner being of individual’s identity” (65)