Class 4/12

 

For class on April 12, 2022, we started class talking about what is a Shaman. A shaman as we saw in the movie with the Sami people in Norway, and the Head of the Cow, is that they are a healer in their community. But we agreed that they live outside of the circle, outside the village. This reminds me of my research on Witches (wise women). They lived on the outskirts of the village. What shape are most villages? A circle! Healers live outside the orchestra, outside of the village, never really in but still apart. Is this why maybe they are allowed to make the Kora? Because they live outside. 

Then we talked about how with the prophets there are physical signs that they were moved by something holy. Sigh if I remember correctly from Dr. Gardner’s class wasn't there a flaming heart associated with Jeremiah? And Ezekial was bonkers. He only ate a weird beard, lay in the middle of the road and cooked his food in poop. Wild. 

Strange holy men, living in muck. Didn’t a lesser-known ancient Greek philosopher live in a barrel? Yes, Diogenes of Sinope, the cynic. Is there something about more “enlightened” people living strangely because they know more than us? Or know a technique? Are they holy or persecuted? 

This fits into our investigations of studying the primal religions through a filter to try to understand what life was like. Diogenes doesn’t fit because he was in a literate society. But you get the picture. 

We met the Head of the Cow in 1530. I needed to contextualize the time. The Spanish inquisition was still going on. And shocked people because they didn't expect it! (hehe). This is just a generation after the Reconquista.  Spain is still very much Catholic. Martin Luther surprised people with the counter-reformation. The time I have studied with Dr. Gardner. I saw a parallel to Alvar Nunez, who experiences religion … very bodily. Counter-Reformation was all about feeling and human experiences. Think Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, by Bernini. The girl looks like she is having an orgasm, and people wink at each other and think it's dirty. But as my favorite art historian says, “how do you show the experience of being young and feeling the great love of God? And put that in sculpture?”  Think of The dark night of the soul written by John of the Cross, a poem about a mystical union with God. Head of the Cow is a product of his time, when the power moves him to heal he jerks his body and looks like he is spasming (and grunting like he's going to poop??) 

We pick up the video right when he is at his lowest point, his rebirth. He is in the fetal position, after a failed attempt at escape. He then realizes that Indians are not “Mala Cosas” but people that God created. Then he decides to help the Shaman, and he is seen as an equal. 

Cow head spends the majority of this movie far too naked for me, and why is everyone covered in mud all the time?

The Shaman finds someone to help, and during the ritual, Alvar puts his hand on the eye of the man to heal, and miraculously he is healed. We see and power flows upon him and through him through his hand and into the giant. Just like a story we learned about where a woman touched Jesus’s robe and power flew out of him and into her. Important Alvar doesn’t understand the Indian language and they don’t understand him, all the understanding he gets is (para?) lingual. The language we have around language i.e. gestures and nonverbal language, and body language. 

We learned so much in this class period, so many things are flowing in my head. Do you experience religion with your body if language is taken away?