When one meets the Malays, he thinks at first that they are never nervous. They are always smiling, always busy with something, and they are so patient that we can't understand it at all. In temperament they are quite opposite of the wild and insidious Papuans, who live farther east. But still every man gets nervous from time to time, every nation and every race does. They all know about misery, anger, pain and rage. It's just a matter of whether they show it like Papuans, let it half-erupt, like we do, or suppress it, like the Malays. They are commanded by the custom of smiling, but in their hearts they also suffer. They suppress anger, collect it and pile it up - until it breaks them.

For many years, pain can accumulate in a Malay, maybe even all his life. As a camel carries a burden, so he carries the burden of his feelings. As long as he can. Until it becomes too much. Until the patient camel breaks under the last straw. It can be a tiny insult, which clenches his jaw and makes him foam at the mouth. Amok! Amok! The gong in the guardhouse thunders wildly and quickly: Trrrr! Prrr! Yes! - "Run, who knows!"

The Malay word amok, which means "attack of uncontrolled anger", entered the English language as an expression to run amok, which means a sudden, unexpected attack of madness, or a situation that suddenly, inexplicably goes wrong.

There he is, already running: a small brown man with a sickle or a knife in his hand. He waves his weapon in a wide circle, with insane speed, but he hits accurately and deadly. The buffalo, grazing calmly, falls to its knees with its gut out; a woman, a dog, two men and one child are left dead in his trail. Amok! Amok! Where is the wooden pitchfork from the watchtower? A long pole with two prongs, with which he could be stopped. Where is it? And who would dare take it? From a distance they throw stones at him as he runs; now he stabs at the coconut palm, and will not separate from it, furious that there is no blood flowing from it. Amok! Amok! This kind of lunatic can kill many people. Until he collapses in spasms. Or until others reach for the rifle and shoot him down. Amok-runner can be killed by anyone.

Sometimes it's not just nerves and accumulated, repressed anger. Sometimes it is malaria tropica with forty and a half degrees and delirium. And sometimes, a mutual suggestion. So sit two, three in company, hungry, worried, limp. One says, "We're going to die." "We all have to die," another joins him. - "We will die" - "To die" - "We must die" - "To die" - "To die!" - To die!" Or to run. Running is better than dying!

From Surabaya to Flores I wanted to sail on the “De Clerk”. And then I didn’t have time, so I took the next steamer. So I missed the amok, a Malay from Timor who got crazy while sailing on the "De Clerk". That is why I am not recounting it from my experience, but recounting what a passenger from "De Clerk", a Dutch supervisor, whom I met on Flores, told me.

'At one o'clock in the afternoon we were attacked by that sailor in his twenties, a native of Timor, an almost weak boy. We sat on the back deck for lunch: the captain, the chief helmsman, the first officer and three passengers, and talked about the war. In general. The first machinist said that war was a crime because no one was allowed to kill their neighbor, and then the Timor man came out of the kitchen with his head thrown back, rolling his eyes and with a knife in his hand. The knife was red. We later saw that he had already stabbed a Javanese cook and a Malay passenger under the deck. He flew across the deck, and the assistant helmsman, not knowing exactly what had happened, wanted to grab him by the shoulder. Amok! The second helmsman is called Buteling. Or rather, he was. When he was later taken ashore, he was unconscious, with three terrible stab wounds to his chest. The Malay stabbed him with lightning speed. Like a snake. Captain Van der Meyden noticed this from the front, understood what it was about, and got up from his chair on time. But the Malay had already thrust a knife into his shoulder. The fourth officer, Clerq, pounced on him from the side and stumbled back with an open gash on his arm. Now the first machinist and the first officer started chasing after him. The machinist took an the iron bar and fell a little behind.

Amok Syndrome is also included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV TR).

So the first officer reached him alone, hit him in the lower back with his knee, knocked him down and waved his knife at him. But the Malay turned around, pulled the first officer's knife through his fist, and cut four of the officer’s fingers, through the tendons all the way to his wrist. He wont have much use of that hand in the future, the first officer. Now the chief machinist Bit Zegfeld, he is a strong fat man. One who spoke about war and said that one should not kill. He hit the Malay on the head with an iron rod and knocked him down. That blow would smash the ox's skull, but it only stunned the Malay, because he jerked his head at the last minute, so the rod only grazed him. The main thing is that they caught him and tied him up, and now he's in jail.

"Isn't he in a madhouse?" I asked. "He should be put there, because in this case he did what he did due to insanity, not because he wanted to commit a crime. He was suffering from malaria.” “But when he stabbed the cook, he was still conscious.""And why did he blow up in the first place?" "Because the cook had denied him a cup of coffee."

That was the last straw, under which the smile of that Malay from Timor turned into rage. A trifle thing. A cup of coffee. You wont give it to me? Amok! Amok! Two dead and four mortally wounded…

But who knows what kind of burden that last straw fell on?

-

Flores Island, Indonesia, 1929.

Our whole environment is marked by their presence.

It is obvious that all the Berber motifs cannot fit together in such a small work as this one.

Currently the meaning of the symbols has not been our concern. We have, however, noted the very close relation of the basic elements composing the Berber motifs and the Lybic-Tifinagh alphabet. The older the patterns, the more obvious the resemblance.

When a drawing evolves, it becomes a symbol; at the height of its evolution, it becomes part of a writing system.

So far, the research in Berber motifs has been incomplete, but it seems to us as that the peoples of the Mediterranean basin as much as those of the interior of the African continent (N'si bidi of Nigeria and even the Afro-Cuban Anafurauana) could to be, for the most part, the owners of the meanings of the Berber symbols that the major religions are trying to erase from North Africa.

The shapes of the symbols, just like their meaning, have evolved in time and space but remain, once stripped of all sophistication and embellishment, a subject worthy of research. The research to which this collection will make, we hope, its modest contribution.

The lack of fast memory media, like paper, explains why lybic-tifinagh writing could not evolve. The great variety of slow memory media such as pottery and tapestry explains why the Berbers kept the symmetry of their writing, which ended up in the world of decoration. This bilateral or rayed symmetry is copied from nature.

If among the Tuareg the tifinagh writing is still used today, it is because they have a fast medium without memory, which is the desert sand in which they teach their children to write.

The rock paintings and engravings constitute a slow memory medium par excellence.

If the Berbers were perhaps the first to invent writing, on the other hand they did not invent literature, because they had not been able to invent the best of fast memory mediums: paper. But this is another story, because our Atlantis has yet to be built.

When a drawing evolves, it becomes a symbol; at the height of its evolution, it becomes part of a writing system. When the symbol is confined to slow domestic memory media, such as pottery or tapestry, a world ruled by women, it becomes a motif. The beauty of the sign represented by symmetry, repetition and flourishes relegates meaning to the background. The meaning of the sign remains present nevertheless, becoming a code that only women can understand, erasing the border between the real and the imaginary. Magic and superstitions find their outlet there.

The explanation of this essentially feminine symbolism must be taken care of by women researchers in order to obtain the most objective information possible.

For reasons of economy, so that everyone, and especially craftsmen, can acquire this work, we have limited ourselves to black-and-white print. The conventional colors, limited by the palette offered by nature, are of decreasing importance: red ocher, black, kaolin white and yellow ocher. These colors are still used today. 

If among the Tuareg the tifinagh writing is still used today, it is because they have a fast medium without memory, which is the desert sand in which they teach their children to write.

—
Adapted from the publication Motifs berbers by Rachid Sadeg, published by Bibliothèque centrale d’Alger, 1991.
Translated from French by The Travel Club.

Codex Zouche-Nuttall is a pre-Columbian document created between 1200 and 1521 on the territory of today's Mexico. It was discovered in San Marco Monastery in Florence in 1854, from where it was bought five years later by John Temple Leader and sent to his friend Robert Curzon, the 14th Baron of Zouche. A facsimile version with a preface by Zelia Nuttall was published in 1902, by Harvard University. The Baron of Zouche loaned the document to the British Museum in 1876, which later purchased it.

Codex Zouche-Nuttall consists of 47 plates made of deer skin, painted on both sides. It contains two stories: on the obverse side, the history of the most important centers of the Mixtec kingdom is painted, while on the reverse there are stories about the origin, marriages and political and military successes of Mixtec ruler known as Eight Deer Jaguar Claw. Zelia Nuttall (1857-1933) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist, a specialist in pre-Astec cultures and pre-Columbian manuscripts. In the foreword to the facsimile version of Codex Zouche-Nuttall of 1902, she explains how this document came about:

Like the nine other Mexican Codices in existence, which constitute the finest remaining specimens of native pictography, the present one is painted on prepared deer skin, the strips of which are glued together, at intervals, and form a long, folded band. The surfaces of both sides of the skin are covered with a thick layer of white substance which presents a smooth, slightly glazed surface. On this the artist first drew the outlines of his figures in black, and subsequently filled these in with color. A careful study of the original reveals that the artist prepared small quantities of each color at a time, and that he did not always succeed in obtainin exactly the same shade twice. The scheme of color on the obverse is, moreover, different from that on the reverse, which presents a greater profusion of detail. The paints employed were so fine and skilfully prepared, that for nearly four centuries they have preserved, undimmed, their exquisite beauty and delicacy. According to Bustamante, the native artists purposely witheld from their Conquerors the secret of the knowledge they had attained, through centuries of experience, of manufacturing beautiful and lasting colors from vegetable and mineral substances.

In Mandaean legends, as well as in those of India and Persia, one finds perpetual reference to wandering dervishes, the wanderers who set out in search of intellectual and spiritual peace.

*

In the following pages an attempt is made to relate what the author has seen, heard, and observed of the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran. of Iraq and Iran. Observations were made over a number of years and furnish a considerable body of new evidence as to their customs, beliefs, cults, and magic. This evidence, we submit, is useful, not only to the student of anthropology, folk-lore, and ethnology, but to students of the history of religions, for the Mandaeans are what the doctor calls a case of arrested development. Their cults, which are regarded by them as more sacred than their books, and older, have been tenaciously retained; their ritual, in all its detail, most carefully preserved by a priesthood who regard a slip in procedure as a deadly sin. Segregated since the coming of Islam from those amongst whom they dwell by peculiarities of cult, custom, language, and religion, they have kept intact and inviolate the heritage which they had from their fathers.

Mandaeans do not adore the heavenly bodies, but they believe that stars and planets contain animating principles, spirits subservient and obedient to Melka d Nhura (the King of Light), and that the lives of men are governed by their influences. With these controlling spirits are their doubles of darkness. In the sun-boat stands the beneficent Shamish with symbols of fertility and vegetation, but with him is his baleful aspect, Adona, as well as guardian spirits of light. The Mandaeans invoke spirits of light only, not those of darkness. All Mandaean priests are at the same time astrologers.

In the sun-boat stands the beneficent Shamish with symbols of fertility and vegetation, but with him is his baleful aspect, Adona, as well as guardian spirits of light.

The great alluvial plains of the Tigris and Euphrates lie between the Far East and Near East and in constant contact with both. From earliest times, highroads have run from the uplands of Iran, from the steppes of Asia, from the deserts of Arabia, from the plains of India, through what is now modern Iraq, to the Mediterranean seaboard. From the first its inhabitants have been subject to influences from all quarters of the civilized globe and ruled by race after race. There could be no better forcing ground for syncretistic thought. Babylonia and the kingdoms of Persia and Media offered natural conditions favourable to the growth of religious conceptions compromising between ancient traditions and cults, and ideas which had travelled from the old civilization of China by way of the Vedic philosophers of India ideas whichspiritualized, revived, and inspired man's belief in the immortality of the soul, its origin in the Divine Being, and the existence of beneficent ancestral spirits. Moreover, in the five centuries before Christ, there was a steady infiltration of Jewish, Egyptian, Phoenician, and Greeki nfluences into Babylonia. Before the Captivities, Jewish communities of traders and bankers established themselves in the land of the two rivers, while mercenaries and merchants passed to and fro between the Far East and the seaboards of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Greece.

Speculation in the West is mostly conducted from a chair: the adventurer into the realms of thought goes no farther than the laboratory or the study. In the East, seekers after truth were peripatetic : their intellectual vagabondage was physical as well.

The soldier and the merchant, though they contributed as intermediaries in the exchange of ideas, could never, however, have been more than passive 'carriers' of religious thought. In Mandaean legends, as well as in those of India and Persia, one finds perpetual reference to wandering dervishes, the wanderers who, like Hirmiz Shah in the Mandaean story, like Gautama the Buddha in India, or, in medieval times, Guru Nanak, set out in search of intellectual and spiritual peace. Speculation in the West is mostly conducted from a chair: the adventurer into the realms of thought goes no farther than the laboratory or the study. In the East, seekers after truth were peripatetic : their intellectual vagabondage was physical as well. It is certain that where the merchant penetrated, religious wanderers followed; travelling philosophers, ranging from China to India, Baluchistan, and Persia, and from Persia and Iraq to the Mediterranean, using the passes of Kurdistan and the waterways of Iraq.

The Oriental loves metaphysical argument and seeks it: the higher his type, the more addicted he is to this form of mental exercise, and the readier to listen to the opinions of a guest. The result, a leaven of unorthodoxy amongst the intellectual, eventually spread to the masses, first, possibly, as secret heresies, and then as new forms of religion. Here lies the importance of the Mandaeans. Extremely tenacious, while adopting the new at some far distant syncretistic period, they also conserved the old so religiously and faithfully that one can disentangle the threads here and there, and point to this as Babylonian, to that as Mazdean, to this as belonging to a time when animal flesh was forbidden, to that as suggesting a phase when zealous reformers endeavoured to purge out some ancient and inherent beliefs. At such a period as the last-named, the scattered religious writings of the Mandaeans were gathered together and edited. One may surmise that the editors and collectors were refugees, sophisticated priests who, returning to peaceful communities in Lower Iraq, were scandalized at their incorrigible paganism. The emended writings breathe reform and denunciation.

The core or nucleus, of the Mandaean religion, through all vicissitudes and changes, is the ancient worship of the principles of life and fertility. The Great Life is a personification of the creative and sustaining force of the universe, but the personification is slight, and spoken of always in the impersonal plural, it remains mystery and abstraction. The symbol of the Great Life is 'living water', that is flowing water, or yardna. This is entirely natural in a land where all life, human, animal, and vegetable, clings to the banks of the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates. It follows that one of the central rites is immersion in flowing water.

The second great vivifying power is light, which is repres ented by personifications of light (Melka d Nhura and the battalions of melki or light spirits), who bestow such light-gifts as health, strength, virtue, and justice. In the ethical system of the Mandaeans, as in that of the Zoroastrians, cleanliness, health of body, and ritual obedience must be accompanied by purity of mind, health of conscience, and obedience to moral laws. This dual application was characteristic of the cults of Anu and Eain Sumerian times and Bel and Ea in Babylonian times, so that, if Mandaean thought originated or ripened under Iranian and Far Eastern influences, it had roots in a soil where similar ideals were already familiar and where ablution cults and fertility rites had long been in practice.

The third great essential of the religion is the belief in the immortality of the soul, and its close relationship with the souls of its ancestors, immediate and divine. Ritual meals are eaten in proxy for the dead ; and the souls of the dead, strengthened and helped, give assistance and comfort to the souls of the living.

The appellation 'Subba' (singular Subbi) is a colloquial form which this people accept as referring to their principal cult, immersion; but the more formal name of their race and religion, used by themselves, is Mandai, or Mandaeans. Arab authors have sometimes confounded the Mandaeans with the Majus, or Magians, and not without reason, since

the cults are similar. Travellers in the East were wont to refer to them as 'Christians of St. John', and Europeans who have come to Iraq since the Great War know them as 'the Amarah silverworkers'. As the community is small and peace-loving, with no political aspirations, it has no place in history beyond the occasional mention of its existence, and the record that some of the most brilliant scholars of the early Moslem Caliphate were of its way of thought.

Today, the principal centres of the Subba are in Southern Iraq, in the The Mandaeans (or Subba) of Iraq and Iran marsh districts and on the lower reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris ; in the towns of Amarah, Nasoriyah, Basrah, at the junction of the two rivers at Qurnah, at Qal'at Salih, Halfayah, and Suq-ash-Shuyukh. Groups of them are found in the more northerly towns of Iraq: Kut, Baghdad, Diwaniyah, Kirkuk, and Mosul all have Subbi communities of varying size. The skill of the Subba as craftsmen takes them far afield, and Subbi silver-shops exist in Beyrut, Damascus, and Alexandria. In Persia the Mandaeans were once numerous in the province of Khuzistan, but their numbers have diminished, and the settlements in Muhammerah and Ahwaz along the banks of the Karun river are not so prosperous or so healthy as those in Iraq.

Like the followers of other secret religions, the Mandaeans, when talking to people of another faith, accentuate small points of resemblance between their beliefs and those of their hearers. To inquirers they will say, 'John is our prophet like Jesus' (or 'Muhammad', as the case may be) 'is yours'. I soon found that John the Baptist (Yuhana, or Yahya Yuhana) could not with accuracy be described as 'their prophet' ; indeed, at one time I was tempted to believe that he was an importation from the Christians. I became gradually convinced, however, that he was not a mere accretion, and that he had real connexion with the original Nasurai, which was an early name given to the sect. Mandaeans do not pretend that either their religion or baptismal cult originated with John; the most that is claimed for him is that he was a great teacher, performing baptisms in the exercise of his function as priest, and that certain changes, such as the diminution of prayer-times from five to three a day, were due tohim. According to Mandaean teaching, he was a Nasurai; that is, an adept in the faith, skilled in the white magic of the priests and concerned largely with the healing of men's bodies as well as their souls. By virtue of his nasirutha, iron could not cut him, nor fire burn him, nor water drown him, claims made to-day by the Rifa'i darawish.

Jesus too, according to Mandaean theologians, was a Nasurai, but he was a rebel, a heretic, who led men astray, betrayed secret doctrines, and made religion easier (i.e. flouted the difficult and elaborate rules about purification). The references to Christ (Yshu Mshiha) are, in fact, entirely polemical, and for the most part refer to the practices of Byzantine Christianity which awake horror in Mandaeans, such as the use of 'cut-off' (i.e. not flowing) water for baptism, and the celibacy of monks and nuns. The Haran Gawaitha (D.C. 9) mentions the establishment of Christian communities on Mount Sinai. In the cults, Jesus and John are both unmentioned.

Jesus too, according to Mandaean theologians, was a Nasurai, but he was a rebel, a heretic, who led men astray, betrayed secret doctrines, and made religion easier

During the British occupation and the early days of the mandate, as one walked between the Subbi silver-shops in River Street, Baghdad, one sometimes saw a board announcing the proprietor to be a 'St. John Christian', but these, now that Iraq has a national government, have disappeared.

*

The religious writings of the Mandaeans have never been printed. Down through the centuries, priestly scribes who derived part of their income from such labours copied them by hand for pious Mandaeans who believed the possession of holy books ensured for them protection from evil in this world and the next. Few laymen could, or can, read or write Mandaean ; literacy is mostly confined tothe priestly class. Laymen have complained to me, 'The priests will not teach us to read or write (Mandaean)'. The reason is a practical one : if laymen knew these arts, the priest's prestige would suffer; moreover, writing of talismans and charms would cease to be a priestly monopoly. Mandaeans have nothing to compare with the Gospels which, in their claim to recount the life and teachings of Jesus, have a certain unity, or of Manichaean books containing the actual doctrines of Mani. The Mandaean religion has no 'founder', indeed, from the critical standpoint, few religions can be said to have 'founders' or to be 'new'.

*

In the year 1622, a Carmelite father, R. P. Ignatius, was despatched by the propaganda in Rome to the Nestorians of Mesopotamia. Whilst in Basrah, he met with members of a sect who, as is their custom when dealing with Christians, told him that their prophet was St. John the Baptist. From them he obtained a roll illustrated by curious drawings of beings which they described as angels or demons. On his return to Rome, Ignatius published a treaatise in Latin about this interesting group of "heretics" whose ceremonies were at once like and unlike those of Oriental Christians, and whose creed was so "strangely perverted and pagan".

The roll found its way into the Museo Borgiano in Rome, where Julius Euting was it in 1879. Euting was deeply interested and persuaded a friend, Dr. B. Pfortner, to photograph the manuscript. This photograph was published in Strasbourg in 1904, under the title "Mandaischer Diwan nach photographischer Aufnahme, von Dr. B. Pfoertner mitgeteilt von Julius Euting". It was not translated.

Early in my dealings with Mandalean priests in the marhes of Lower Iraq, I was shown a copy of Diwan Abatur and after long negotiations, it was arranged that I should have the roll that I had seen after its owner had copied it for himself. The copy was made with skill and care, and the original sent to me. Judging by the paper and other indications, my roll, D.C. 8 of my collection, is about the same date as the manuscript taken to Rome by Ignatius. Neither the Borgian manuscript nor mine is dated, although each has a long list of copyists, showing that the text was an ancient one. A considerable part of the beginning is missing from the Roman roll, but I have been able to compare the remainder of the Borgian manuscript with my own. I discovered no other copy of the text in Iraq, although, of course, other priests may have concealed possession of a copy since, in spide of the inferior and childish quality of the composition and mistakes due to constant recopying, it is looked upon as a precious and holy book.

The illustrations, archaic and suggestive of a Cubist form of art, are identical in both manuscripts. The Subba are clever artists and craftsmen, but tradition dictates that representation of celestial and infernal beings must follow a certain pattern. Drawings like these in the Diwan Abatur are found in the ritual rolls, so that we have here no childish inability to portray a subject, but deliberate convention of a very individual order. A Subbi smith who drew naturalistic pictures for engraving on his silverwork, when asked by me to draw pictures of some celestial beings, produced similar odd geometrical-looking designs.

Eskimos live around the Arctic Ocean, mainly in Greenland, Alaska and northern Canada. They are of Mongolian origin, which can be easily seen by their physiognomy: they are short, have a highly developed upper part of the head, small eyes, yellow-brown skin color and black hair. There are not many of them, barely fifty thousand, since the population in those parts is very small due to large deposits of snow and ice.

Eskimos live a nomadic life, in groups of a patriarchal character; during the summer they live in huts made of fur and leather, and in the winter, which lasts eight months or more, they crawl into dugouts and spend long cold nights there - nights which turn into infinity. Their main occupation is hunting and fishing (they hunt mostly seals, polar bears, reindeer, and various species of fish), and they seek and find happiness and joy in such a harsh climate. Horrific winds, avalanches, blizzards that very often sweep away entire settlements in a short time - this is the nature of this northern region, whose nature is very cruel and unjust, and many of them, those living more towards the North, do not even know about the existence of greenery and trees.

Wooden maps made by Eskimoes, representing coastal relief. Such maps are small and easily portable, light and waterproof. Since they can be read by touch, they can also be used in complete darkness. If they accidentally fall into the water, they remain floating on the surface.

For the Eskimos, life goes on at the same pace; they, like all nations on Earth, have their joys and their sorrows. Many, not without reason, consider them to be the happiest people on the globe. What makes them especially happy is the non-existence of private property. Their social life has, therefore, gone far in comparison with the spiritual, cultural one. Therefore, their feelings of value are different from ours: what is valuable to us, even precious, is of no value to them - and vice versa. Mark Twain parodies this in his story "The Esquimaux Maiden's Romance". In that story, a young Eskimo woman talks about the valuable and precious possesions of her father, and lists everything that is insignificant for the rest of the world, while the things we might consider precious - fur, for example - she sees as worthless and without value.

Eskimo wooden maps representing coastal relief. Such maps are small and portable, light and waterproof. Since they can be read by touch, they can also be used in complete darkness. If they accidentally fall into the water, they remain floating on the surface. 

Since there is no private property, everyone participates in the distribution of goods; everyone has their share. When someone kills a seal, it is not his property, but it is divided into equal parts among the whole community, and then they eat in groups, with joy and highly developed social games. It is a kind of unwritten law, which has been maintained in this part of the world since ancient times.

Because, as it is known, happiness and material and spiritual culture do not match, they do not go together.

In terms of the poetic imagery, Eskimo poetry is very poor, which is quite understandable, because the language is also quite poor compared to advanced European languages, but probably one of the most difficult in the world. It is poor because their lives are tied to a poor environment, because they do not know what the inhabitants of the rest of the world know, since they are surrounded only by snow and ice. It is understandable then that they do not have words for many of our things and concepts, since they do not come into contact with them.

As the reader will see from this little book, Eskimo poetry is quite simple and often devoid of stronger poetic figures, but, as such, it is not without its charms. It conjures up a special world for us, a remote world which we can hardly comprehend. Like all poetry, it, therefore, expresses the unique living conditions of its makers, but also the character of this strange people who enjoy it, and which mitigates their hard life, making them happy - perhaps the happiest people in the world. Because, as it is known, happiness and material and spiritual culture do not match, they do not go together.

Spring

I was outside in my kayak,
I was at sea in my kayak,
I rowed in my kayak,
I rowed very lightly,
Amosivik Fjord.

There was ice on the water here,
There was also a seagull on the water,
Who turned his head in all directions,
Not noticing me rowing.
Suddenly only his tail remained,
And then nothing.

He sank, but not because of me:
One huge head was on the water,
The head of a large hairy seal.
A big head with huge eyes,
And her mustache shines,
And drops of water fall from them.

And the seal passed slowly
beside me.
But I didn't throw a harpoon!
Why?
Maybe out of pity?

Maybe because the weather was nice,
and because the seal was playing with the sun,
just like me.

the girl was purified with smoke, painted red, and dressed in a black costume

During the time preceding the sacrifice she was treated with kindness and respect, but it was forbidden to give her any article of clothing. Only the leader of the war party and the chief of the Morning Star village could touch her after her dedication. A man who broke this rule was thought to have offered himself in her place and if he died before the time of the sacrifice she would be released.

The ceremonies preceding the sacrifice occupied four days, the victim being killed on the morning of the fifth. The rites performed during the first three days are not fully known, but apparently consisted in the singing of songs relating the exploits of the Morning Star and in the offering of smoke and dried meat to the Morning Star bundle. At the origin of the skidi pawnee sacrifice beginning of the ceremony the girl was purified with smoke, painted red, and dressed in a black costume which was kept in the Morning Star bundle between sacrifices. Her captor was also dressed in a costume from this bundle and throughout the ceremony the two seem to have personified respectively the Evening and Morning Stars. A fire of four logs laid with their points together and their ends extending toward the four directions was kept burning during the four days. About sunset of the fourth day the spectators were excluded from the lodge while the officiating priest drew four circles on the floor, one for each of the four world quarters. They were then readmitted and the priests sang a song descriptive of the journey of the Morning Star in search of the Evening Star while one of the priests danced about the lodge with a war club and obliterated the circles. The priests then began to sing a long series of songs believed to have been given by the Evening Star. As each song was finished a tally stick, taken from a bunch kept in the Morning Star bundle, was laid down, Dr. G. A. Dorsey (6) concludes that the idea underlying this part of the ritual was that the girl at first belonged to the world of human affairs but that, as each song was sung, she became farther removed from it until, when the last tally was laid down, she had been won from the people like a stake in a game and belonged to the supernatural powers. When the songs were finished, one of the priests undressed the girl, painted the right half of her body red and the left half black, and redressed her. The whole assembly then set out for the place of sacrifice.

House of the Skidi Pawnee people.

At the place of sacrifice a scaffold had been erected on the afternoon of the fourth day, the selection of the site, cutting of the timber for the scaffold, etc., being attended by special ceremonies. The scaffold consisted of two uprights and five cross-pieces, four below and one above. The two uprights symbolized night and day, the four lower bars the four directions, and the upper bar the sky. Below the scaffold was a pit lined with white feathers which symbolized the Evening Star’s garden in the west, the source of all animal and plant life. Two men led the girl from the lodge to the scaffold by thongs fastened around her wrists. She was kept in ignorance of her fate as long as possible and it was thought an especially good omen if she mounted the scaffold willingly. The men leading her removed her clothing and tied her hands to the upper bar and her feet to the highest of the four lower bars. The procession was timed so that she would be left alone on the scaffold at the moment the Morning Star rose. When the Morning Star appeared, two men came from the east with flaming brands and touched her lightly in the arm pits and groins. Four other men then touched her with war clubs. The man who had captured her then ran forward with the bow from the Skull bundle and a sacred arrow and shot her through the heart while another man struck her on the head with the war club from the Morning Star bundle. The officiating priest then opened her breast with a flint knife and smeared his face with the blood while her captor caught the falling blood on dried meat. All the male members of the tribe then pressed forward and shot arrows into the body. They then circled the scaffold four times and dispersed. The priests remained. One of them pulled out the arrows and laid them in four piles about the scaffold. The body was taken down and laid on the ground with the head to the east, and the blood-soaked meat was burned under the scaffold as an offering to all the gods. Finally, songs were sung describing the eating of the body by various animals and its final turning into earth. Dorsey (4, p. 67) says: ‘‘There is reason to believe that an abbreviated form of the ceremony was held each winter in December, at which time the ritual only was sung and the smoke offering performed.’’

The earthly beings were primarily the guardians of the medicine-men while the heavenly beings were the guardians of the whole people.

Wissler and Spinden (7) have pointed out that the Morning Star sacrifice has a number of features in common with the human sacrifices of the Aztec and suggest that its presence among the Pawnee may be due to diffusion from Mexico. The principal resemblances to the Mexican practices lie in the association of the sacrifice with a worship of the heavenly bodies, the impersonation of a deity by the victim, and in parts of the actual procedure. An analysis of the Pawnee ceremony shows that although some of its features were probably of foreign origin its underlying concepts and most of its ritual were in perfect accord with the general body of Skidi beliefs and practices. The Pawnee recognized a great number of both heavenly and earthly beings. The attributes and powers of these beings were more clearly defined than was usually the case among the Plains tribes and the most important of them deserve to be classed as gods. The earthly beings were primarily the guardians of the medicine-men while the heavenly beings were the guardians of the whole people and the rivers of most of the village and tribal sacred bundles. Nearly all the heavenly beings were identified with stars. Although our data on the other Caddoan tribes are rather scanty, stars figure largely in the mythology of all those for which we have information and it seems probable that a worship of the heavenly bodies was common to all the peoples of this origin of the skidi pawnee sacrifice  stock. It was such a basic feature of Pawnee religion that if its presence was due to diffusion from Mexico this diffusion must have occurred at a very ancient time. The impersonation of a diety by the victim in the Morning Star ceremony is suggestive of one of the Mexican practices, but the resemblance is not very close. In the Mexican rites cited by Wissler and Spinden (7, p. 54) the victims were sacrificed to the deities whom they had impersonated. In the Pawnee rite there was a double impersonation, the captor taking the part of the Morning Star and the girl of the Evening Star. The victim was not offered to the deity whom she had impersonated but to another being who had conquered that deity. Impersonations of deities occurred in other Pawnee ceremonies as well. Dorsey (6) says: ‘‘A man who has offered seven eagles to the heavenly deities may furnish a robe and other accessories used in a certain ceremony when one of the greatest of the heavenly beings, Paruxti, becomes represented in the bundles. He then becomes the earthly representative of that deity for the season. During all this season he neither cuts his hair nor his nails; he wears only a buffalo robe; in short, conducts himself as Paruxti did when he visited the earth.’’ The Morning Star ceremony was plainly a re-enactment of the conquest of the Evening Star by the Morning Star and, as such, was quite in agreement with the general pattern of Skidi ceremonies.

A Skidi Pawnee "winter count" calendar made on buffalo hide, tracking winters from 1800/1801 to 1870/1871.

Dorsey (op. cit.) says: ‘‘In theory the Skidi Pawnee ceremonies all have as their object the performance either through drama or through ritual of the acts which were performed in the mythologic age. The ritual is a formal method restating the acts of the supernatural beings in early times, and by this recitation of a ritual the deities of the heavens have their attention redirected toward the people on the one hand; on the other hand, people are reminded of the deeds which were done for them by the heavenly beings. The relationship between man and the supernatural world is renewed with the result that the supernatural beings, being pleased at the attention, which is usually in the form of sacrifical rites, bestowed upon them, continue their protection over the people.’’

The idea of sacrifice entered into practically all the Pawnee bundle ceremonies and the offering of sacrifices to the heavenly beings was one of the surest roads to the spiritual and social advancement of an individual. Dorsey (op. cit.) says: ‘‘The Morning Star told the people that he gave them bows and arrows with which to kill animals, telling them to get on the right side to shoot so that the arrow would go through the heart. As he had given them fire sticks the animal should be placed on the fire so that the smoke might ascend to the beings in the heavens. In these sacrifices by fire the blaze and smoke carry the prayers to the above, thus the smoke is the prayer bearer. This form of sacrifice was graded, the value ranging all the way from the sacrifice of the first bird shot by a boy with a toy bow to the sacrific of a human maiden to the Morning Star. When about to make such a sacrifice to the heavens, it was customary before using the bow, the instrument of death, to pronounce the name of the Morning Star. This pronounced upon an animal or human being is the dooming to death, or it may be compared to a curse. Apart from the human being who was sacrificed to the Morning Star certain animals were especially sought after for sacrifice. These were various birds, culminating in the eagles, except the white eagle, which was never sacrificed, and certain animals such as the deer, antelope, wild-cat, otter and buffalo, culminating in the sacrifice of a human scalp or human maiden.’’

the offering of sacrifices to the heavenly beings was one of the surest roads to the spiritual and social advancement of an individual

It is plain that no foreign origin need be sought for such features of the Morning Star ceremony as its association with a star cult, the impersonation of a deity by the victim, or the underlying idea of sacrifice. The killing of the victim with a single arrow through the heart was also in accordance with the tribal pattern, for animal victims were supposed to be killed in this way. There are, however, other features of the ceremony which seem at variance with the pattern. Thus, although human sacrifice was only the highest of a long series of graded offerings among the Skidi, there is no proof of its existence, except in the form of scalp sacrifice, among any of the other Pawnee. Animal offerings were brought in dead and offered through fire. The human sacrifice had to be taken alive and was not burned. Moreover, the use of a scaffold, the touching of the living victim with flaming brands and clubs, the opening of the thoracic cavity and offering of blood, and the final shooting with arrows by all the men present find no parallel in the other tribal ceremonies.

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Extract from The Origin of the Skidi Pawnee Sacrifice to the Morning Star by Ralph Linton, American Anthropologist, vol. 28, 457–466, published in 1926.

The municipality of Tešanj is located in the northeastern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and covers an area of ​​223 square kilometers. There are about 40 settlements in the area, with about 38,000 inhabitants. The area is extremely overcrowded. There is an average of about 170 inhabitants per square kilometer. The town itself is located on the slopes of hills and partly in the valley of the river Tešanjka, a right tributary of the Usora. It has about 6,000 inhabitants. Nearby is the village of Oraš-Planje, about ten kilometers away from Tešanj. We went to visit it because Meho Hadžić lives here - probably the oldest resident in our country. He is one hundred and thirty years old!

Meho never smoked or drank alcohol. He fed exclusively on milk, cheese and cream, and when he was with the goats on the pastures, he often sucked their milk, instead of water, which he very rarely drank.

The road that led us down the gentle hills, along the stream that flows through the village, was muddy and uneven. The day was chilly. All that could be heard was the murmur of the stream and the occasional barking of dogs. The wind brought the smell of dried plums. Then came the merry children's voices coming from the dilapidated shacks and small squat houses. In one hut sat an old man with deep wrinkles on his forehead. He had a hat on his head. As we approached, we saw his gaze. His eyes twitched. He wanted to say something. He then took his cane and rose to his skinny legs. He looked for the shoes that stood by the hearth. He got dressed, put on a leather vest and came out to meet us. He sat on a bench, looked around… And then he started talking: “I remember when there were only six houses in this village. Interestingly, there was only one in Teslić at that time. I was more than 30 years old when I was invited to build the Usora-Pribinić railway. It was 1884. A mill was blocking the section of the railway that went towards Teslić. It needed to be torn down. I asked them not to do that. "But, people, you're not going to tear down that mill which brings us bread," I said. We will be hungry. Where are we going to grind our grain ?”

He spoke in a raised voice. He is hard of hearing. And we found out: Meho Hadžić was born in 1848 in the village of Oraš-Planje. He had five brothers: Mahmut, Muja, Ahma, Fehra and Rexha and a sister Fatima. They all died a long time ago. Ahmet's brother is survived by his son Flamo, who is now 68 years old and who also lives in Oraš-Planje. Meho Hadzic's father's name was Arif, and his mother's name was Cura. He has already forgotten them. His wife Ajka died 70 years ago. She was 50 years old. He had a son, Muharrem, with her. Unfortunately, he drowned in the Usora River, at the age of 12. Meho Hadžić was a hired worker for more than a hundred years. He worked on farms, cut wood, and spent most of his time tending goats.

We also talked to Osman Ćorić, who is close to seventy and is a living witness that Meho Hadžić kept goats with his father Meho, who died in 1937. "Meho was about eighty years old when he wandered the hills like a young man and looked after the goats," said Osman. "I remember that he would not return from the pastures for days. He ate goat's milk and cheese there… ”

He got his third teeth 30 years ago.

Meho Hadžić did not serve in the army. He has a congenital defect, a shorter left leg. That is why he still carries a stick today. Meho never smoked or drank alcohol. He fed exclusively on milk, cheese and cream, and when he was with the goats on the pastures, he often sucked their milk, instead of water, which he very rarely drank. He got his third teeth 30 years ago. Interestingly, they are all still good. To prove his strength, he used to be able to lift a kid weighing between 30 and 40 kilograms with his teeth. He always defied the burden of years. He lost the last one of his family members 40 years ago. He was adopted by Mehmed and Rukija Ćorić. They built him a house, and recently installed electricity in it. They feed him, clothe him, buy him firewood. When it is very cold, Mehmed and Rukija get up at night and light a fire for him. They take care of Meho's health.

Until 34 years ago, Meho Hadžić never sought medical help. He was always cheerful and strong. He remains so today. When the weather is fine, he goes out in front of his house, gazing at the clearings and paths he had walked a thousand times. He looks nostalgic. For, time and paths have changed, but his heart has remained the same. Still ticking merrily. He looks as if he would like to get up again, and start roaming around with the goats, as he used to do.

--

Arena Magazine, Yugoslavia, 1978

These islands were discovered at the beginning of the sixteenth century by the Portuguese navigator Captain Tristao D'Acuñha, after whom they are named. The same navigator also discovered some other islands in the Indian Ocean, conquered Socotra for the Portuguese and distinguished himself in the battles in India. Today the islands belong to England.

Only the large island that bears the name of the group is inhabited, and very sparsely so; the others remain completely deserted. And even the big island was completely deserted until Napoleon was brought to the Island of St. Helena. At that time, as well as on Ascension Island, a small garrison was stationed here to prevent the emperor's supporters from using the island as a base to organize his escape. After Napoleon's death, the garrison was withdrawn, but three soldiers remained on the island who were used to life on it and liked it. Later, their wives were also brought there, along with a small group of settlers, so a tiny colony was founded on the island, and it still exists to this day. Currently, the colony has 170 people - men, women and children - who, despite all the scarcity of everything needed for life, are satisfied and none of them thinks of leaving the island. Life would be completely impossible if a ship did not come to the island every two to three years to bring the settlers food and other essentials. But since the island, in the middle of the immense ocean, is exposed to raging winds and storms that last longer here than in other ocean regions, it often happens that the ship cannot land and deliver the goods. In such a case, it cruises for a while, for several days and nights, near the island (because it can not lower anchors in raging seas) waiting for the sea to calm enough to be able to take the cargo ashore in boats. If it becomes obvious that the storm will continue for an indefinite period of time, and the ship does not want to wait long, it turns in the direction of South Africa, or in the direction of Europe, where it has to finish its main business, and leaves the desperate population, stranded on the coast of the island, to wait, without means of subsistence, for another ship, which will come after many months.

Women and children on the island of Tristan da Cunha, 1910 (photo in public domain)

Otherwise, the only food that can be had on the island is fish and some potatoes; fish only at rare intervals between storms, and potatoes when the little land for cultivation yields something to share among the inhabitants. When the food left by the ship runs out, the only hope is fishing. All the inhabitants, both old and young, male and female, catch fish either by going out in a boat from the shore to the open sea, or by casting hooks from the shore, or wading in the shallow water. They also collect seashells from the shores, or by scavenging the coastal rocks, they collect eggs from birds, and then share them among themselves in a brotherly manner. But, when the potatoes fail, the fishing does nothing due to their poor fishing gear, and the food reserves brought by the ship are exhausted, famine and diseases quickly spread across the island.

If it were not for the famine, the islanders would, at least according to socialist concepts, be the most satisfied and happiest people in the world. There is no government on the island; neither tax nor surtax is paid, there is no military service, no money, and no inequality in rights or duties. Complete equality and fraternity, common scarcity or abundance, common troubles, dangers and efforts made in the interest of all, mean that there is no envy or disputes of any kind among the inhabitants. And they like it so much, that to the ever-repeated offers of ship captains to sign up whoever wants to transport them to civilized areas, not a single resident of the island has so far signed up. 

Tristan da Cunha 1934, photo from the book.

And yet there is on the island one personage of undisputed authority, whom every inhabitant asks for opinion and advice on every occasion, and who has naturally and imperceptibly distinguished herself as a sort of sovereign of the colony. It is a widow, Frances Repetto, who was married to a settler, originally from Genoa. Everyone on the island listens to her and her son William and she manages everything that is done on the island. When we visited her in her modest house, made from stacked rocks without plaster, with a roof of planks and grass pressed with large rocks and tied with ropes so that the winds wouldn't blow it away, she told us that everyone who lives on the island is happy, contented, loving and helping each other. She, like the other inhabitants of the island, did not even know about the World War, because during the entire war, not a single ship docked there. They also showed us one old woman, ninety-seven years old, Martha Green, who was born on the island and has not left it to this day. Her father was an English soldier who served in the garrison on the island of St. Helena and guarded the entrance to Lonwood, so after the emperor's death he moved to the island of Tristan D'Acuña and started a family there.

The island is rocky, with some arable land and some meadows. There is not a single tree on the island, nor could there be, because it would not be able to withstand the wind. There are some bushes around the residential buildings that the settlers raised as protection against winds and storms. The island is of volcanic origin, with high rocky hills and cliffs rising from the ocean with steep slopes, most of them completely vertical.

On the island there is also a small church made of stacked stones, without a bell tower, and with a bell hung on a pole in front of the building. The Protestant priest Harold Wilde, who willingly agreed to exile on a remote secluded island, serves as priest, teacher, doctor and judge; the latter duty he performs not according to any regulations or common law, but according to common sense and the belief that not a single inhabitant of the island wants even the slightest dispute.

—

Mihailo Petrovic Alas was a Serbian/Yugoslav mathematician and inventor. He was a professor at Belgrade University, an academic, fisherman, writer, publicist, musician, businessman, and traveler. On several scientific expeditions in 1934 and 1935, he visited some of the remotest islands in the Atlantic and Indian ocean, documenting his experiences in a travel journal, later published under the title "Visiting Remote Islands". This excerpt from the book was edited for The Travel Club by Jasna Đurić.

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Tristan da Cunha is an archipelago of islands of volcanic origin, and the main island, with the same name as the entire archipelago, is the remotest inhabited place in the world (from any land). It lies 2,800 km from South Africa, 2,500 km from the island of St. Helena, and 4,000 km from the Falkland-Malvinas Islands. Today, the island has 245 inhabitants. Administratively, it is an overseas territory of Great Britain. There is still no airport on the island, and the only way to get there is a six-day boat trip from South Africa. Ships visit the island every three to four months.