Stamps senior Megan Mullholland explores the stories behind museum objects as they relate to human superstition using web media optimized for tablets! As Megan finishes up her Senior Integrative Project, we pulled her away from her computer to answer a few questions about her interactive project, titled āTime (and Space) Enough at Last.ā
Interested in the overlap of engineering and story telling? Illustration and user interaction? Click here to read more about Megan and her work!
Join us for the opening reception of Medium Rare: 2015 IPĀ ExhibitionĀ this Friday, April 17th starting at 6pm.
The heart scarab, named for its placement on a mummyās throat, torso, or in the chest cavity with the heart, was superficially, meant to prevent the heart, from being removed upon mummification. Ā
The Ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the seat of reason and judgment and that without the heart scarab, the heart would ātattleā on its owner, owning up to incidents of poor judgment and wrong-doing during the weighing of the heart ceremony in the world of the dead.
The inscription that was supposed to protect the deceased was from The Book of the Dead, and (in short) read:
āO my heart which I received from my motherā¦
do not stand up against me as a witness!
ā¦
Do not create opposition against me among the assessors!
Do not tip the scales against me
in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance!ā
The weighing was overseen by Maat and Thoth...Ā
To pass the test and continue on the path to a happy afterlife, the heart must balance the other side of the scale filled with only a feather.
If the heart fails, it is fed to the beast that the Egyptians called Ammut, The Devourer.
Ah yes, this is an āincantation bowlā - or more crudely stately, a āDemon Bowl.ā
Back in what you classify as the 5th-8th century AD, humans from many different religious backgrounds were moving into an small area of the Sassanid empire, which is I believe called Iraq today on your modern land-charts.
Though the rabbis and priests tried to dismiss other religions, this practice was still very popular, because humans are rightfully afraid of demons.
Legend has it that when our High Magistrate expelled demons from our planetary system about half an eon ago, they descended upon yoursā¦
By the way, the demon you see here is an owl-headed lilith - an obnoxious, nasty thing.
Where was Iā¦ ah yes, the Mandaean priest or your sorcerer of choice would write the incantation on any ordinary, earthenware bowl and say it aloud. This would bind the demon, and then the bowl would be buried face down in the ground under the threshold of the protected dwelling.
This fad was so widespread that some humans were swindled! Some bowls donāt even have writing on them - just squiggles left by a āsorcererā as he assured his dim client that the incantation would work. After he was paid, of course.
Fads come back though - even bad ones. Who knows, maybe you can start a trend with a plastic bowl and fashion yourself as a sorcerer who wields a permanent writing utensil.
TEXT FOR TEMPLE GUARDIAN
Pay close attention to this one, if youād rather not be haunted by your enemies (or your elders) for all eternity.
Got your attention? Good.
Temple guardians made with Sancai (ātricolorā) glaze are only found in tombs from the Tang Dynasty in China, which lasted from the 7th to 10th century. The dripping, fluid designs betray the raw power of these guardians but their creation was actually very simple.
A transparent glaze or wax-resist was used, and then the liquideous lead based glazes were splashed on or painted while the object was on a slanted surface, to encourage the colors to run and blot.
Now ordinarily, you would think that these fearsome tomb guardians would be used to keep trespassers out, and you would only be partially correct. These grotesque creatures, these āqitou', were intended to keep the deceased spirits in their place!
The guardians came in sets of four and were typically buried with other figurines, which were used as an alternative to actually burying servants and wives with the deceased;
unsurprisingly, an practice with waning support for various reasons.
But now that you humans donāt have the good sense to use them anymore or to leave them in their tombs...
(Iāve heard that they are a status symbol among your higher classes who let their art collect dust instead of studying it),
...vengeful spirits roam wherever they please. Now that you know how to make them, I do believe you have centuries of catching up to do.
CRASH
His Crash (image The Roswell Daily Record)
I do believe my little earthly jaunt caused quite a stirā¦
I hadnāt even planned to stay on earth all that long and ended up banished here!
(Being seen by humans is punishable by death, you know - a law agreed upon by my superiors, and yours!)
Before they sent me on my mandated mission - which will remain classified - I tried to warn them that Iām a scholar, not a piloted!
And not a land-eer either, Iām afraid;
As I suspected, my style of landing left something to be desiredā¦
And Iād say ābetter luck next time,ā as the locals do, but it doesnāt look like there will be a ānext timeā as Iāve officially been banished for the trouble Iāve caused. Memory-wiping is expensive, especially with humanityās gluttonous obsession with its main ingredient, corn syrup.
Ah well.
Being banished among your favorite treasures with eternity to spend studying them isnāt really punishment though, is it?
EXPOSITION
Calm yourself, human.
Youāve stumbled upon something that many others have passed by far too often. What brings you to Roswell, New Mexico in the middle of summer is none of my business,
but what brings you to my storefront is mine entirely.
You felt yourself drawn here, did you not?
Your feet seemed to move of their own accord, across the pavement until you stopped with your nose pressed to the glass of the front door.
Well by now, Iāve all but spelled it out in Enochian. I have been gracious enough to possess your mind.
Iām feeling your brain trying to resist this, but whyā¦?
No, no no this is a good thing! Youāll thank me for it! Iāve been searching for a compatible host-mind since 1947.
You now have access to my psychometric abilities. Why humans havenāt figured out how to access this part of their brain and instead utilize it to store and catalogue terabytes of television program trivia is a mystery to meā¦
As I was saying, In this space, when you touch certain objects you will be able to see their stories and histories.
If i didnāt have control over what objects would do this, youād be seeing the history of the toothpick I used yesterday. Not quite as interesting. So! I guess this will be a bit of a hunt for you.
Enjoy your time poking around my collection, and in the meantime, Iāll be deciding whether or not to erase your memory.
And one final thing - since evolutionarily, humans lack the basic perceptive skills to glean all relevant information from a single vision, if you [ROTATE YOUR DEVICE] you will be able to hear my voice speaking about the ālarger pictureā as the humans say.
***CUT:Ah, yes! My psychometric abilities and my human collection, which resides ā!
Iām sensing a hypothalamus overreacting on your endā¦ OH. DO. PLEASE. CALM. DOWN. Iām going to need to forcibly calm that hypothalamus or your kidneys are liable to jump out of your body.
As, I was saying:
By āHuman collectionā I didnāt mean a ācollection of humansā - my pitiable skills in that area got me fired in the first place - i mean a collection of humanityās creations! Ā
QUETZAL
So The Resplendent Quetzal caught your eye? Iām not surprised. There is no empirical measurement of how long humans have been staring at shiny things just out of their reachā¦
But this bird is one of the first.
The Resplendent Quetzal, which still roams the skies to this day (though in much smaller numbers), was the inspiration for the Mayan and Aztec āfeathered serpentā god, Quetzalcoatl.
This god was associated with the sky, corn and wind; as the male quetzal spirals up toward the sky, his tail flares out behind him, like a snake - see a connection yet?
If not, let me spell it out for you: QuetzalcĆ³atl comes from the Nahuatl word āquetzal,' meaning ātail feather of the quetzal bird.ā
These birds were prized for their connection to the god, which turns into a fun game of āwhich came first: the quetzal or the Quetzalcoatl?ā Their long feathers were especially prized, but killing such a glorious bird was punishable by death, so the birds were caught and were released after having their tail-feathers plucked.
Only members of the highest classes were allowed to wear these feathers, but even commoners used them as currency. In fact, the official currency of Guatemala is called the Quetzal; And before you fancy going out and catching yourself some money, I presume that feathers are typically not accepted there anymore. Ā
ALIEN STORIES SLIDES
RE: Where Do We Come From? Does Space Have Anything to do with it?
I just love slides, donāt you?
Tactile media is so much more exciting than digital screens - weāve had the most advanced technology for centuries and my kind bypassed all kinds of analogue media entirely. Itās a shameā¦
The noise this device makes!
So earthly, so uncivilized.
Nothing sleek about it at all!
Itās glorious.
Thereās something touching about something someone composed in a moment, with no way of fixing it or changing it afterward.
This particular set of slides is from a human who was just on the verge of discovering the origins of humanity. Of course, the Magistrate couldnāt let him live to spread that sort of knowledge, but I managed to save his findings just before they de-atomitized him.
His little notes were adorable, but I wasnāt able to keep those, so all I have are his slides.
Iām not sure how all humans havenāt pieced it all together yet. Humans CLEARLY are not native to earth.
Your terrible spine problems suggest that a climate with lower gravity would be more suitable; t
he fact that you sunburn so easily (while other native animals, such as lizards, do not) indicates that you were not meant to be constantly exposed to sun.
Plus, humans are constantly sick because their body clocks are set for a 25 hour day instead of an earthly 24 hours. How much more evidence do you NEED to conclude that humans clearly evolved under different circumstances on a distant planet?
And the banishment shouldnāt be a mystery either. Yours is a violent lot. Not much to be done about that either since it doesnāt look like youāve made much progress on this planetā¦ After the humans were banished along with demons and other nuisances, my species evolved separately and since my kind is the more powerful of the two weāve taken it upon ourselves toā¦
well if you donāt want to be de-atomitized, I should probably stop there.
MASK
Iām be-grieved to have lost so many other masks from the African continent in the crashā¦ Not only are they aesthetically striking, a selection are actually able to invoke spirits, such as this one.
This particular society of humans from the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, called themselves Bembe;
They further divided themselves into a number of fraternities and secret societiesā¦
Such congregations seem like a commonality among humans, Iāve noticedā¦ today more prominent in this country among premature humans, but I can assure youāve Iāve found no artifacts of worth in the cultures of those societies.
But I digress, forgive me.
Among the Bembe, there were the Batee Brotherhood of Sorcerers, the Banya Brotherhood of healersā¦ these societies were either of professional or religious nature. Religious societies were closely associated with the Spirits of Nature.
One such secret society, specifically a hunting cult, called the Kalunga (which, not coincidentally, also happens to be the name of the land of the dead), was devoted to appeasing the forest spirit, Alunga.
When embodied by the wearer of the mask, Alunga manifests itself with the attributes of owls, and other masters of darkness. This particular mask is also painted with snakes, a symbol of creation and seen as a mediator between the land of the living and the dead.
Though its main use was in the groupās ceremonies and rituals, outside of this context, the mask and the power of the spirit behind it was used to instill terror in uninitiated onlookers and to assert power in the public sphere.
Which, now that I think about it, is not a bad strategyā¦
HEART SCARABS
Iām surprised you spotted this one since humans have disappointingly dull senses, and are especially ālacking in the department of vision,ā as you say. Imagine not being able to see the full spectrum of colors! How dull the universe must look to you.
In any case, this heart scarab should look somewhere on the visual scale of green to you; Thatās what the Egyptian Book of the Dead instructedā¦
Technically it was also requested that the heart scarab be mounted in gold as well, but I think a tomb robber snapped off the shiny bit and left the best part for me.
Why is possessing this rock carved into the shape of a dung beetle with an inscription on the back infinitely better than the frankly useless metal that humans crave above all others?
The heart scarab, named for its placement on a mummyās throat, torso, or in the chest cavity with the heart, was superficially, meant to prevent the heart, from being removed upon mummification. Ā
The Ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the seat of reason and judgment and that without the heart scarab, the heart would ātattleā (an archaic but charming word, donāt you think?) on its owner, owning up to incidents of poor judgment and wrong-doing during the weighing of the heart ceremony in the world of the dead.
The inscription that was supposed to protect the deceased was from The Book of the Dead, and (in short) read:
āO my heart which I received from my mother...
do not stand up against me as a witness!
...
Do not create opposition against me among the assessors!
Do not tip the scales against me
in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance!ā
To this day, the weighing of the conscience is overseen by beings the Ancient Egyptians named Maat and Thoth, among othersā¦
To pass the test and continue on the path to a happy afterlife, the heart must balance the other side of the scale filled with only a feather.
If the heart fails, it is fed to the beast that the Egyptians called Ammut, The Devourer.
This is one of the more accurate accounts, but typically, human ideas of the existence of consciousness after its freedom from the bounds of the corporeal are just fascinating, arenāt they?
**ALUNGA MASK - **Bembe, Democratic Rep. of CongoĀ
Iām be-grieved to have lost so many other masks from the African continent in the crashā¦ Not only are they aesthetically striking, a selection are actually able to invoke spirits, such as this one. This particular mask is from the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This particular society of humans called themselves Bembe, and further divided themselves into a number of fraternities and secret societies - such congregations seem like a commonality among humans, Iāve noticedā¦ today more prominent in North America, but I can assure youāve Iāve Ā found no artifacts of worth from those societies. But I digress - There was the Batee Brotherhood of Sorcerers, the Banya Brotherhood of healersā¦ these societies were either of professional or religious nature. Religious societies were closely associated with the Spirits of Nature. One such secret society, specifically a hunting cult, called the Kalunga (which, not coincidentally, also happens to be the name of the land of the dead), was devoted to appeasing the forest spirit, Alunga. When embodied by the wearer of the mask, Alunga manifests itself with the attributes of owls, and other masters of darkness. This particular mask is also painted with snakes, a symbol of creation and seen as a mediator between the land of the living and the dead. Though its main use was in the groupās ceremonies and rituals, outside of this context, the mask and the power of the spirit behind it was used to instill terror in uninitiated onlookers and to assert power in the public sphere. Which, now that I think about it, is not a bad strategyā¦
well this is progress - The first bit ties in with the using of the mask to intrigue and instill fear in others; the second bit has the owl connection and the third depicts the embodiment of the tree spirit
Iām surprised you spotted this one since humans have disappointingly dull senses, and are especially ālacking in the department of vision,ā as you say. Imagine not being able to see the full spectrum of colors! How dull the universe must look to you.Ā
In any case, this heart scarab should look somewhere on the visual scale of green to you; Thatās what the Egyptian Book of the Dead instructed - technically it was also requested that the heart scarab be mounted in gold as well, but I think a tomb robber snapped off the shiny bit and left the best part for me.Ā
Why is possessing this rock carved into the shape of a dung beetle infinitely better than a shiny bit of metal?Ā
The heart scarab, named for its placement on a mummyās throat, torso, or in the chest cavity with the heart, was superficially, meant to prevent the heart, from being removed upon mummification.Ā
Whatās so great about that, and why keep the heart inside the body in the first place, you ask?Ā
Well, the Ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the seat of reason and judgment; and without the heart scarab, the heart wouldĀ ātattleā (an archaic but charming word, donāt you think?) on its owner, owning up to incidents of poor judgment and wrongdoing during the weighing of the heart ceremony in the world of the dead.Ā
The inscription in The Book of the Dead was as follows:Ā
āO my heart which I received from my mother,
my heart which I received from my mother,
my heart of my different ages,
do not stand up against me as a witness!
Do not create opposition against me among the assessors!
Do not tip the scales against me
in the presence of the Keeper of the Balance!
You are my soul which is in my body,
the god Khnum who makes my limbs sound.
When you go forth to the Hereafter,
my name shall not stink to the courtiers
who create people on his behalf.
Do not tell lies about me
in the presence of the Great God! ā
To this day, the weighing of the conscience is overseen by what the Ancient Egyptians named Maat and Thoth, among others... After the heart passes the test, balancing the other side of the scale filled with only a feather, the deceased is fully reborn, sometimes opting to transform into a new form, such as a heron, with the aide of the heart scarab, which is a symbol of rebirth.Ā
Human ideas of the existence of consciousness after its freedom from the bounds of the corporeal are just adorable.Ā
Iām be-grieved to have lost so many other masks from the African continent in the crash... Not only are they aesthetically striking, a selection are actually able to invoke spirits, such as this one.
This particular mask is from the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This particular society of humans called themselves Bembe, and further divided themselves into a number of fraternities and secret societies - such congregations seem like a commonality among humans, Iāve noticed... today more prominent in North America, but I can assure youāve Iāve Ā found no artifacts of worth from those societies.
But I digress - There was the Batee Brotherhood of Sorcerers, the Banya Brotherhood of healersā¦ these societies were either of professional or religious nature. Religious societies were closely associated with the Spirits of Nature.
One such secret society, specifically a hunting cult, called the Kalunga (which, not coincidentally, also happens to be the name of the land of the dead), was devoted to appeasing the forest spirit, Alunga. When embodied by the wearer of the mask, Alunga manifests itself with the attributes of owls, and other masters of darkness. This particular mask is also painted with snakes, a symbol of creation and seen as a mediator between the land of the living and the dead.
Though its main use was in the groupās ceremonies and rituals, outside of this context, the mask and the power of the spirit behind it was used to instill terror in uninitiated onlookers and to assert power in the public sphere.
Which, now that I think about it, is not a bad strategy...
I was wasting too much time looking for everything:Ā
TEXT FOR TEMPLE GUARDIAN
Pay close attention to this one, if you'd rather not be haunted byyour enemies (or your elders) for all eternity.
Got your attention? Good.
Temple guardians made with Sancai (ātricolorā) glaze are only found in tombs from the Tang Dynasty in China, which lasted from the 7th to 10th century. The dripping, fluid designs betray the raw power of these guardians but their creation was actually very simple. A transparent glaze or wax-resist was used, and then the liquideous lead based glazes were splashed on or painted while the object was on a slanted surface, to encourage the colors to run and blot.
Now ordinarily, you would think that these fearsome tomb guardians would be used to keep trespassers out, and you would only be partially correct. These grotesque creatures, these qitou, were intended to keep the deceased spirits in their place! The guardians came in sets of four and were typically buried with other figurines, which were used as an alternative to actually burying servants and wives with the deceased; unsurprisingly, an practice with waning support for various reasons.
But now that you humans donāt have the good sense to use them anymore or to leave them in their tombs (I've heard that they are a status symbol among your higher classes who let their art collect dust instead of studying it), vengeful spirits roam wherever they please. Now that you know how to make them, I do believe you have centuries of catching up to do.
CRASH
His Crash (image The Roswell Daily Record)
I do believe my little earthly jaunt caused quite a stir - I hadnāt even planned to stay on earth all that long and ended up banished here! Being seen by humans is punishable by death, you know! I told my superiors, Iām a scholar, not a piloteer! And not a land-eer either, Iām
afraid; So unfortunately my style of landing left something to be desired; And I'd say 'better luck next time,' as the locals do, but it doesn't look like there will be a 'next time.' But being banished among your favorite treasures with eternity to spend studying them isnāt really punishment is it?
INCANTATION BOWL
Ah yes, this is an āincantation bowlā; or if youāre more excitable, you can call it a āDemon Bowl.ā Back in what you classify as the 5th-8th century AD, humans from many different religious backgrounds were moving into an small area of the Sassanid empire, which is I believe called Iraq today on your modern land-charts.
Though the rabbis and priests tried to dismiss other religions, this practice was still very popular, because humans are rightfully afraid of demons. Legend has it that when our High Magistrate expelled demons from our planetary system about half an eon ago, they descended upon yours... The demon you see here is an owl-headed lilith - an obnoxious, nasty thing.
Where was I... ah yes, the Mandaean priest or your sorcerer of choice would write the incantation on any ordinary, earthenware bowl and say the incantation aloud. This would bind the demon, and then the bowl would be buried face down in the ground under the threshold of the protected dwelling.
This fad was so widespread that some humans were swindled! Some bowls donāt even have writing on them - just squiggles left by a āsorcererā as he assured his dim client that the incantation would work. After he was paid, of course.
Fads come back though - even bad ones. Who knows, maybe you can start a trend with a plastic bowl and fashion yourself as a sorcerer who wields a permanent writing utensil.
EXPOSITION
Calm yourself, human.
Youāve stumbled upon something that many others have passed by far too often. What brings you to Roswell, New Mexico in the middle of summer is none of my business, but what brings you to my storefront is mine entirely.
You felt yourself drawn here, did you not? Your feet seemed to move of their own accord, across the pavement until you stopped with your nose pressed to the glass of the front door.
Well by now, Iāve all but spelled it out in Enochian. I have been gracious enough to possess your mind.
Iām feeling your brain trying to resist this, but whyā¦?
Oh, calm down.
No, no no this is a good thing! Youāll thank me for it! Iāve been searching for a compatible mind since 1947.
You now have access to my psychometric abilities. Why humans havenāt figured out how to access this part of their brain and instead utilize it to store and catalogue terabytes of television program trivia is a mystery to meā¦
Ah, yes! My psychometric abilities and my human collection, which resides ā!
Iām sensing a hypothalamus overreacting on your endā¦ OH. DO. PLEASE. CALM. DOWN.
Iām going to need to forcibly calm that hypothalamus or your kidneys are liable to jump out of your body. CALM YOURSELF. THAT WAS AN ATTEMPT AT WORDPLAY IN JEST. A āJOKE."
As, I was saying:
By āHuman collectionā I didnāt mean a ācollection of humansā - my pitiable skills in that area got me fired in the first place - i mean a collection of humanityās objects! Ā
In this space, when you touch certain objects you will be able to see their stories and histories - If i didnāt have control over what objects would do this, youād be seeing the history of the toothpick I used yesterday. Not quite as interesting. So! I guess this will be a bit of a hunt for you.
Enjoy your time poking around my wares, and in the meantime, Iāll be deciding whether or not to erase your memory.
And one final thing - since evolutionarily, humans lack the basic perceptive skills to glean all relevant information from a single vision, if you (rotate your device into portrait mode) you will be able to hear my voice speaking about the ālarger pictureā as the humans say.
QUETZAL
So The Resplendent Quetzal caught your eye? Iām not surprised. There is no empirical measurement of how long humans have been staring at shiny things just out of their reachā¦
But this bird is one of the first.
The Resplendent Quetzal, which still roams the skies to this day (though in much smaller numbers), was the inspiration for the Mayan and Aztec āfeathered serpent,ā Quetzalcoatl, who created the most recent crop of humans by anointing the bones of the ancients with his blood and resurrecting them. This god was also associated with the sky, corn and wind; as the male quetzal spirals up toward the sky, his tail flares out behind him, like a snake - see a connection yet? If not, let me spell it out for you: QuetzalcĆ³atl comes from the Nahuatl word quetzal, meaning ātail feather of the quetzal bird.ā
These birds were prized for their connection to the god, which turns into a fun game of āwhich came first: the quetzal or the Quetzalcoatl?ā Their long feathers were especially prized, but killing such a glorious bird was punishable by death, so the birds were caught and were released after having their tail-feathers plucked.
Only members of the highest classes were allowed to wear these feathers, but even commoners used them as currency. In fact, the official currency of Guatemala is called the Quetzal; And before you fancy going out and catching yourself some money, I presume that feathers are typically not accepted there anymore. Ā
Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. Quetzal. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1996. Print.
RE: Where Do We Come From? Does Space Have Anything to do with it?
I just love slides, donāt you?! Tactile media is so much more exciting than digital screens - weāve had the most advanced technology for centuries and my kind bypassed all kinds of analogue media entirely. Itās a shameā¦ The noise this device makes! So earthly, so uncivilized. Nothing sleek about it at all! Itās glorious. Thereās something touching about something someone composed in a moment, with no way of fixing it or changing it afterward.
This particular set of slides is from a human who was just on the verge of discovering the origins of humanity. Of course, the Magistrate couldnāt let him live to spread that sort of knowledge, but I managed to save his findings just before they de-atomitized him. His little notes were adorable, but I wasnāt able to keep those, so all I have are his slides.
Iām not sure how all humans havenāt pieced it together yet. Humans CLEARLY arenāt native to earth. Your terrible back problems suggest that a climate with lower gravity would be more suitable; the fact that you sunburn so easily (while other native animals such as lizards do not) indicates that you were not meant to be constantly exposed to sun; plus, humans are constantly sick, because their body clocks are set for a 25 hour day instead of an earthly 24 hours. How much more evidence do you NEED to conclude that humans clearly evolved under different circumstances on a distant planet?
And the banishment shouldnāt be a mystery either. Yours is a violent lot. Not much to be done about that either since it doesnāt look like youāve made much progressā¦ Then after the humans were banished along with demons and other nuisances, our species evolved separately and since my kind is the more powerful of the two weāve taken it upon ourselves toā¦
well if you donāt want to be de-atomitized, I should probably stop there.
Iām be-grieved to have lost so many other masks from the African continent in the crash... Not only are they aesthetically striking, a selection are actually able to invoke spirits, such as this one.Ā
This particular mask is from the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This particular society of humans called themselves Bembe, and further divided themselves into a number of fraternities and secret societies - such congregations seem like a commonality among humans, Iāve noticed... today more prominent in North America, but I can assure youāve Iāve Ā found no artifacts of worth from those societies.Ā
But I digress - There was the Batee Brotherhood of Sorcerers, the Banya Brotherhood of healersā¦ these societies were either of professional or religious nature. Religious societies were closely associated with the Spirits of Nature.
One such secret society, specifically a hunting cult, called the Kalunga (which, not coincidentally, also happens to be the name of the land of the dead), was devoted to appeasing the forest spirit, Alunga. When embodied by the wearer of the mask, Alunga manifests itself with the attributes of owls, and other masters of darkness. This particular mask is also painted with snakes, a symbol of creation and seen as a mediator between the land of the living and the dead.
Though its main use was in the groupās ceremonies and rituals, outside of this context, the mask and the power of the spirit behind it was used to instill terror in uninitiated onlookers and to assert power in the public sphere.
Which, now that I think about it, is not a bad strategy...Ā
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