Note: I have not been trained in any First Peoples techniques. The following is a commentary based on a publicly available film and the techniques I have been trained in. Do NOT assume the film is necessarily accurate and portrayed contextually correctly - especially given the era during which this was recorded.
I recently watched Parts 15 and 16 of a 1960s ethnographic film about First Peoples living close-to-traditional lives in what is described as “the Australian Western Desert” (described as “an area of over 1.3 million square kilometres, embracing a large part of central Western Australia and extending into the Northern Territory and South Australia”), which was commissioned by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS), now the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).
This is part of a series now available (excluding some parts which had included secret men’s business - and one clearly labelled part is about carnism) through Australia's National Film and Sound Archives (NFSA) at https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/people-of-the-australian-western-desert - teachers notes’ are available at https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/assets/files/People_Aust_West_Des_TN.pdf.
From the available information:
- Part 15 Mamu (8 Minutes) Two men of the Western Desert chase a mamu or evil spirit out of camp. Both men are “mapantjara” - men who have the power to remove powerful bones or stones from their stomachs and use them for medicine and dealing with the spirits. They chase the mamu away by removing bones from their stomachs and hitting these along and into the ground with their spear-throwers.
- Part 16 Headache (5 Minutes) A man of the Western Desert who is a “mapantjara” or healer operates on another man who has a headache. He takes powerful bones from his stomach and pushes these into his patient’s head. He then sucks at the back of the patient’s head to draw out the sickness.
What I saw was clearly fairly standard or widely used shamanic techniques - especially the drawing out of negative energy (pain, in this instance) stuff by the breath - i.e., sucking.
In addition, there is a clear reference to what is known elsewhere as the third eye.
Intrigued by this, I started researching and found https://www.anthropologyfromtheshed.com/articles.
That site reported that men and women were indeed using non-physical healing techniques, including psychic surgery.
I’m not surprised, because of what I have come across regarding First Peoples’ healing in other areas of my life, but I am surprised there is film of some of this.
One thing that was particularly interesting was the references to “maparnpa” (bones) being stored in the stomach. These clearly had an impact, based on the grimaces of pain.
In my terminology, this seems to be the storing of astral objects (thought forms) in a chakra for later use. That is not the same as using projections from chakra, which I was taught, as the projections are always linked or connected. The “bones” are perhaps more like the protective/clearing objects I store in my auric sheath - but more like a crystal or other natural energy transmitting object than a defensive sigil.
I will have to think more about all this.
Incidentally, I am not surprised by the grimaces of pain by the man being worked on. I worked on clearing a heart meridian blockage in a friend in the 80s, a blockage that was based on many years of emotional pain, and she described the pain as worse than child birth (she had two children).
By the way, this all continues to the current day - the film “In My Blood It Runs” is about a child who is also a healer.
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Finally, remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, and to mind our Mӕgan.
