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The Folklore Motifs of Melano-Negrid Herbivorous Plant-Gatherers Clickable terms are red on the yellow background |
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Agrarian Folklore of Prehistoric Herbivorous Plant-Gatherers and Vegetal Hoe-Cultivators
(Negrids, Melanids, Amazonids, Caucasoids) |
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Phytototemism: belief in totem ancestors in the reincarnation
of plants, flowers, shrubs and trees Polytheism: cults of many celestial and subterranean deities Chthonism: cults of Mother Earth
and the underworld deities (from Greek χθών (khthṓn, “ground, soil”) Elementalism: belief in four primordial
elements: air, earth, water and fire Naturism: belief in natural elements
of the nature (from Latin natura “nature”)
Hylozoism: belief in the spiritual
nature of matter (from Greek hylos “matter”) |
Phytomorphism: belief in postmortal transformations into plants, shrubs and trees Manism: cults of ancestral spirits of dead
fathers (Latin manes “spirit of the
ancestors”) Bovinism: cults of bovine deities
(bulls, cows, calves) Passionalism: worshiping
martyr gods of corn, death, sacrifice and suffering
Eleotheism: worshiping female goddesses of love and mercy
(from Greek έλεος, éleos “mercy”) Endophagism: the rite of endophagia, eating the dead
body of fathers and ancestors |
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Map 1. The evolutionary
tree of religiogenesis, folklore traditions and
magic cults (from P. Bělíček: The Synthetic Classification of Human Phenotypes and Varieties. Prague 2018, Table 8,
Map p. 24) |
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Religious
Ideas of Melano-Negrid
Plant-Gatherers
Cultures of prehistoric plant-gatherers with pebble-choppers
and hand-axes lack a systematic
designation because their current terms (collectors, gatherers, foragers, strandlopers) do not sufficiently
express their predominantly
vegetalty subsistence and do not delimit them clearly in contradistinction to shell-eaters, insectivores and honey-eaters. One the other
hand, granivores (seed-eaters), graminivores (grass-seed eaters) and rhizovores (root-eaters) are too specific to cover the whole
stock. Preferable terms are vegetalists,
herbalists, plant-gatherers, phytophagues, (pre)agriculturalists and (pre)horticulturalists.
Similar
difficulties cast doubts on the archaeological, anthropological and linguistic
taxonomy. Their linguistic characteristics comprises prefixing classifiers,
prefixed human b-plurals, initial prenasalised
stops mb-, nd-,
ng-, the opposition of voiced and
voiceless stops, that-clauses and actualis/habitualis
opposition in the present-tense morphology. Such tendencies have been
preserved relatively unimpaired in Bantu, Australian, Melanesian, Amazonian (Tupí-Quaraní group), Anatolian (Hatte)
and Godoberi
(Xwarshi, Andi, Gunzib, Chamalal, Bezhita, Hinux) languages.
These families have preserved meaningful residues of ‘Eteo-Negric
languages’, i.e. genuine Negric Bantu languages. Other groups of vegetalist and agriculturalist cultures (Caucasian, North
African and European peasants) were exposed to the Asiatic language
structures of Altaic peoples in the boreal Euroasian
zone, and hence they exhibit a lot of later secondary assimilative
contamination. The
difference between ‘Eteo-Negric languages’
and their impure later mutations is manifested also in folktales, magic, folklore, mythology and rites. Eteo-Negrids have preserved numerous remnants of phytotheism or phytototemism, which unites beliefs in herbal, vegetal
and arboreal ancestors and professes faith in phytothanasis (after-death metamorphosis into plants). On the other hand,
Caucasoid and Europoid peasants complement residues of original phytotheism
with admixtures of Altaic zoomorphic
totemism and developed a hybrid religion of bovine totemism. It indulges in
bull cults, bullfights and bovine deities.
Preagricultural Palaeolithic Customs Preagriculturalists (plant-gatherers, seed foragers, herbivores, granivores). Distribution: India, China, Australoids,
Melanesians (Marquesas, Hawaii), Amazonia (Tupí, Quaraní, Mataco), African Bantu people. Phytotheistic totemism: clansmen live on plants, get born from
plants, their families belong to a species of plants and
after death they transform to plants. Phytogenesis: plants were created from graves of
dead human bodies. Phytothanasis: after (tragic) death humans transform to plants and trees:
Pure phytomorphism remained characteristic only of dark equatorial
races, while the Caucasoid and Europoid (pre)agriculturalists were exposed to the infiltration of Altaic tribes
and under their impact they adopted bovine totemism. Endophagy: consuming dead fathers’ corpse in ashes,
cakes and drinks (Amazonia) out of desire
for physical identification
with the dead ancestors. Endotaphy: keeping dead fathers’ skulls inside their home, in
near-by shrines (New Guinea), close to the head-bench,
under the kitchen floor (Sumer). Marital matrilocal endogamy: girls wed their remote
cousins from the opposite longhouse and let them live with
their offspring at their native
home. Myths:
breaches of matrilocal endogamy, rapes, abductions, murders, tales about young girls
who did not reach lucky marriage and transformed to plants as a result of rape committed by ambushing strangers from other tribes. Deification: the awed spirits of the
dead become supernatural deities, terrestrial spirits descend to underground crevices
and become chthonic gods of the underworld.
Higher arboreal spirits are promoted to celestial gods. Hylotheism (from Greek
hylé ‘matter’, naturistic polytheism): polytheistic cults of primordial elements and agrarian agents (earth, water, sun, air), ancestral
cults of the earliest forbears. The Mother Earth and Father Heaven
are adored as highest divinities, feasts of their sacred
marriage (hieros
gamos). Divine phytogenesis: the origin
of plants explained from martyr corn gods. Divine phytothanasis: gods and
earliest ancestors transform to plants. Rainmaking magic: the rise of
priests rainmakers promising to evocate rain. Offertory magic: drought can be averted only
by sacrificing kingly daughters. Helpful animals: neighbouring clans
are referred to as animals
but owing to friendly and neighbourly relations they act as helpful
assistants of wanderers. Ancestral cult: ancestors and old grandparents
are hallowed as supreme gods. Habitat: the agrarian two-class society (Zweiklassengesellschaft) of
opposite longhouses breaks into four
settled quarters inhabited by phratries symbolising deities of the sun/heat, water/rain,
air/storm, earth/vegetation. Matrilineal marriage: dual endogamy
of two opposite classes breaks down and
gives ground to marriage contracts concluded between different phratries. Matrilineal chieftaincy: chieftaincy is inherited in matrilineal succession from the former chieftain
to his daughter’s husband,
various phratries claim tribal hegemony and aspire to the privileges of chieftaincy, political affairs of hereditary descendancy are settled by ‘Olympic games’ that test the prowess of male pretenders in running, wrestling and bullfighting. |
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Preagricultural Animism Vegetable
species undergo spiritualisation,
their outstanding specimens are recognised as waterside, mountainous or forestal spirits.
Painted hunters and tattooed warriors are feared as supernatural spirits. Foraging hordes bring offerings to spirits of the
dead, ancestral cults enhance respect for male and female councils of elders. Animistic
polytheism: the spirits of the dead and magic deities live in
family relations of pluralistic matriarchy without domination of one male
spirit. Collective punaluan marriage allows sexual promiscuity and adultery resembling Zeus’
proverbial unchastity in the groves of The
Motivic Patterns of the Early
Agriculturalists
Early Neolithic farmers abandoned nomadic
plant-gathering and took to sowing corn into soil spudded by stone hoes.
Their clear cultural patterns appeared only in rain-kings’ theocracies of
Melanesia and Africa, where matriarchal residues survived in the institution
of queen mothers, rain-kings’ marriages with sisters, untouchable divine
kings, symbolic quadripartition of world’s ends, tribal phratries, colours
and totems. A. Bernard wrote that in New
Caledonia ‘the chieftains are gods.
After their death they become gods. Their person is inviolable’ (1895:
291). Tribes were first divided into divine moieties of the Mother Earth and
the Father Heaven, and later extended by adding a younger generation of
deities. This change required splitting off phratries of the Corn God
(Osiris) and the Goddess of Love (Isis) from the former two. This is how the
eastern Papuan Zweiklassenkultur bifurcated into the tribal quadripartition of four phratries symbolising the quadruplet of primordial
elements: the sun (fire), heaven (air), earth (soil) and rain (water). Since
they intermarried and lived in mutual endogamy, their folktales narrate about
young heroes’ journeys and their negotiation with neighbouring phratries.
These clansmen are denoted as ‘helpful animals’ telling the way to the Sun,
the Moon and the Wind. The hero is not allowed to speak directly to these
untouchable and inviolable deities (elderly chieftains), he must consult his
questions with the Queen Mother depicted as their closely related aunt. Extract from Pavel Bělíček: Systematic Poetics II.
Literary Ethnology and Sociology. Prague
2017, pp. 259-263 |
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