Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Vaupés Multilingualism And The Substance Of Language, Stephen Hugh-Jones

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

By focusing on ordinary conversational language, relying on a notion of “group” derived from unilineal descent theory, and neglecting mythology and ritual, studies of Vaupés Tukanoan multilingualism have inadvertently tended to reproduce a Western ideology of language as marking national identity and concerned with conveying meaning. This paper suggests that attention to musical, ritual, and shamanic contexts reveals multilingualism in a different light, with ritual speech acts as constitutive of social groups, names as vehicles of reproduction, and breath as a substance-like bodily element and source of vitality. The more esoteric, rhetorical, musical, or visual ornamentation is given to breath, …

How Film Influences And Reflects States Of Consciousness - Through Films Of Julian Sands, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Film, as a multivalent art form, uses archetypal themes and symbols that have the power to affect the consciousness of its viewers. The stories that play out on the screen through plot, setting, character, and the elements of storytelling through film carry rich and deep archetypal meaning for our culture and our psyches. This is how film can impact us on deep, subconscious levels and influence and change our consciousness, for good or ill. A look at two key films with the actor Julian Sands illustrates the way we, as viewers, experience a shift and even transformation in consciousness through …

Book Review: Mythic Imagination Today: The Interpretation Of Mythology And Science By Terry Marks-Tarlow, Ivana Gligoric

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Terry Marks-Tarlow interprets mythology and science as endless curiosity about the workings of the Universe, combing with humans’ creative urges to transform inner and outer worlds. The author perceives mythology as a universal product of the human imagination in interaction with the physical and social world, driven by the urge to communicate with others symbolically and make meaning out of life experiences. Moreover, Marks-Tarlow studied the origins of a human story within the social brain, mythmakers, and myths from multiple cultures. At the same time, she explored how contemporary sciences of chaos, complexity theories, and fractal geometry unite with ancient …

Centaur Mind: A Glimpse Into An Integrative Structure Of Consciousness, Azin Izadifar

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Jean Gebser’s theory of consciousness suggests that we are experiencing a new era in the history of consciousness. Human consciousness moves like a pendulum. The current Integral Structure of Consciousness is not unprecedented, yet we are experiencing it in a multi-layered, deeper, and vaster way. Centaurs are imaginal creatures that first appeared within the Mythical Structure of Consciousness, making a bridge between the unity of the Magical and the duality of Mental structures. In this paper, I view the centaurs through the lenses of mythology and archetypal depth psychology and discuss the critical role of this mythic figure in the …

Patrimony, Publishing, And Politics: Books As Ritual Objects In Northwest Amazonia, Stephen P. Hugh-Jones

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

With particular reference to works by Tukano and Desana authors, this paper examines some of the cultural and historical factors that underlie the unique propensity of indigenous peoples of Northwest Amazonia to publish their narrative histories in books. Jointly written by a knowledgeable elder and a younger literate amanuensis, each book in Coleção Narradores Indígenas do Alto Rio Negro series contains the origin narratives, myths, and recent history of a particular group, told from the point of view of one of its clans. Writing down and thus rescuing oral traditions under threat from the pressures of education, urbanization and other …

The Origin Of Night And The Dance Of Time: Ritual And Material Culture In Northwest Amazonia, Stephen P. Hugh-Jones

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Based on a survey of published material complemented by original fieldwork, this paper shows that Northwest Amazonian Arawakan, Tukanoan and Makuan stories of the Origin of Night form parts of a single, more inclusive myth about the sequential creation of earth, trees, house-frames, roofing leaves, night, song and dance. Here a box of feather ornaments plays a central role as the container of both roofing leaves and night with leaves as feathers, the ornaments of the house-as-person. When placed on the house-frame as thatch, these ornament-leaves shut out the light causing "night." The feather box, a container of bright yellow …

Fire – The Enigma That Continues To Blaze, Sara Kapadia

The STEAM Journal

How did humans first discover fire? What stories do we pass down to explain the discovery of fire?

Analogic Alterity: The Dialogics Of Life Of Amazonian Kichwa Mythology In Comparison With Tupi Guaraní (Mbyá) Creation Stories, Michael Uzendoski

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

No abstract provided.

With An Eye On A Set Of New Eyes: Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Kette Thomas

Journal of Religion & Film

This article focuses on how, Beasts of the Southern Wild, represents both divergence and transgression from paradigmatic structures that determine how certain visual representations are to be used. Specifically, the cinematic detours taken by the filmmakers, Lucy Alibar and Behn Zeitlin, do not lead to alien places for most viewers; on the contrary, ancient myths, legends, heroes and prehistoric references are recalled in total isolation from current social and political discourse. In this way, Beasts of the Southern Wild, effectively, highlights mythological structures operating in contemporary American society. Mircea Eliade, Roger Caillois and G.S. Kirk define mythology as a …

In Search Of The Self: Eastern Versus Western Perspectives, Derek C. Wolter

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

In analyzing a mythological work, a proper understanding of the nature of the self and its relation to the Cosmos is essential. Alan Watts, the late British philosopher, proposed that there were two great myths of the self—myth here not used in the sense of something false, but rather as a way of interpreting oneself and one’s reality. In the West, there is a dualistic conception of the self where there is a clear distinction between creator and created, and Man and the self is viewed as an artifact of creation. In the East, there is a non-dualistic conception of …

Postmodern Trickster Strands In Shamanic Worlds, Jürgen W. Kremer

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This essay explores socio-philosophical meanings of shamanic cultures and practices and

their affirmation and revival. What is their potential significance for humanity’s future? I

argue that shamanism engages humans in practices that put us potentially at the center of

our creativity and creative visioning. The trickster figure, a pervasive indigenous presence,

so often seems pivotal in this process and this pervasively male figure plays an important

part in this regenerative interpretation of postmodernism; in fact, postmodernism can be

understood as trickster. Just like the trickster, the nature of postmodernism is ambiguous.

I explore this ambiguity and suggest that shamanic practices …