Two slightly burnt, fat-covered sticks discovered inside an Australian cave are evidence of a healing ritual that was passed down unchanged by more than 500 generations of Indigenous people over the last 12,000 years, according to new research.
In the notes, Howitt describes in the late 1880s the rituals of Gunaikurnai medicine men and women called “mulla-mullung”.
One ritual involved tying something that belonged to a sick person to the end of a throwing stick smeared in human or kangaroo fat. The stick was thrust into the ground before a small fire was lit underneath.
“The mulla-mullung would then chant the name of the sick person, and once the stick fell, the charm was complete,” a Monash University statement said.
The sticks used in the ritual were made of casuarina wood, Howitt noted.
Jean-Jacques Delannoy, a French geomorphologist and study co-author, told AFP that “there is no other known gesture whose symbolism has been preserved for such a long time”.
“Australia kept the memory of its first peoples alive thanks to a powerful oral tradition that enabled it to be passed on,” Delannoy said.
4·6 months ago