We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2011
THE ATNINGA OR AVENGING PARTY
Any death which is not clearly due to a wound received during a fight, or to an accident–that is, any death due to what we call “ natural causes ”–is a mystery to the native because he has no conception of illness as due to disease. He has to find some satisfactory explanation, and has come to the conclusion that any such death, or any illness, is the result of evil magic of some kind. The culprit who is guilty of putting this evil into the patient may be either a human being or one of the spirits. Only a medicine man who is himself very strong in magic has the slightest chance of treating successfully a patient suffering from the evil magic of a spirit. There is however a better chance of recovery if the cause of illness be a poison bone or stick implanted in the body by a human being. If the medicine man be successful, the recovered patient ascertains who it was who “ gave him the bone ” and retaliates when he feels able to do so. If death results–that is, if the evil magic be too potent for the medicine man–then, sooner or later, the relatives discover who placed the magic in the dead man's body and an avenging party, called “ Atninga ” by the Arunta natives, is organised.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
