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Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

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Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#111

Post by rsynnott »

nemo44x wrote: post #28
tengwar2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen an estimate that it was only about 1920 that Western medical intervention had a positive effect on average. In other words, you would generally end up worse off by visiting the doctor before then. And yet medical treatment clearly carried on as a continuous tradition throughout all of history.

Besides being dirty I imagine how people thought of “healthcare” was very different. In that most people didn’t see a doctor until things were bad so they’re naturally worse afterwards. “Preventative medicine” is a recent idea.

Eh. Predecessors to toothpaste have been around for _7000 years_. At _least_.

> Since 5000 BC, the Egyptians made a tooth powder, which consisted of powdered ashes of ox hooves, myrrh, powdered and burnt eggshells, and pumice.

(Obviously, there have been improvements since.)

But seriously, preventative medicine, in _some_ form, has been around for a while. It mostly didn't work very well or at all, but the idea of doing stuff to avoid becoming sick/getting sicker isn't new.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#112

Post by TeaBrain »

whatwhaaaaat wrote: post #97
InitialLastName wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The similarity between the EoG and Genesis flood stories can probably be laid to the fact that the first major human societies were built around flood plains of rivers in regions that have otherwise stable climates. When your society spends centuries in that situation, floods are the single most important natural event that happens to you. If would be shocking if they didn't feature prominently in your stories.

Why do we think peoples of the past would be unable to distinguish between a normal river flooding and a “world ending” flood? What about the ~450 feet of sea level rise in the last 15k years?

These people's "world" would have been a relatively small area.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#113

Post by mistercheph »

whatwhaaaaat wrote: post #97
InitialLastName wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The similarity between the EoG and Genesis flood stories can probably be laid to the fact that the first major human societies were built around flood plains of rivers in regions that have otherwise stable climates. When your society spends centuries in that situation, floods are the single most important natural event that happens to you. If would be shocking if they didn't feature prominently in your stories.

Why do we think peoples of the past would be unable to distinguish between a normal river flooding and a “world ending” flood? What about the ~450 feet of sea level rise in the last 15k years?

The whole premise of our present civilization is that every one before us was a nose picking drooler, and that we have more to say to the past then the past has to tell us about ourselves.

We lack the collective self consciousness to see ourselves through the eyes of the people of other times, thinking through what it means to be understood through artifact, and the distortions it produces.

The closest we come is prophesying that future generations will blame us for the destruction of the natural world and climate of earth. That is a thin mask for our age's narcissistic fixation with producing myths of its own apocalyptic world-ending power.

The people of the future probably won't think of us as bad, evil doers, that destroyed the natural world for future generations with no care but for ourselves and our consumption, if they are anything like us, they will more likely think of us as having one hand digging for gold where the sun don't shine while the other stuffs hot, fresh cheeseburgers into mouth, unibrow freshly dripping with sweat.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#114

Post by dyauspitr »

utkarsh858 wrote: post #100

In India, there is a custom of passing ancient knowledge through poetic verses. Every poetic verses is sung in a specific 'meter'. If there is a discrepancy in recitation then remembering and passing knowledge 'letter by letter' can not succeed. Many of the verses are thousands of years old. I read some describing an ancient extinct river ~7000 years ago, later rediscovered through satellite imagery (don't know the r…

The river is the Sarasvati.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#115

Post by jjtheblunt »

angstrom wrote: post #79
popol12 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_(game)

My three-year-old daughter plays this with cat. It's a cross-species thing that is possibly part of mammalian brain development in origin. The cat is less than one year old. Our 17 year old cat does not engage in this at all and hisses at the kitten for even trying to start a game of tag. This makes me wonder if that origin is more related to predator/prey.

Predator vs prey i thought too

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#116

Post by RandomCitizen12 »

utkarsh858 wrote: post #100

In India, there is a custom of passing ancient knowledge through poetic verses. Every poetic verses is sung in a specific 'meter'. If there is a discrepancy in recitation then remembering and passing knowledge 'letter by letter' can not succeed. Many of the verses are thousands of years old. I read some describing an ancient extinct river ~7000 years ago, later rediscovered through satellite imagery (don't know the r…

That's an interesting way to do a checksum

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#117

Post by ajkjk »

swatcoder wrote: post #99
liquidpele wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh.. no?

An ideology can be seen as a collection of rituals in action, reasoning, and rhetoric situated among core beliefs about what life is, what the world is, and what's important to them. And each ideology has a specific history of events, founders, and later elaborators that shape what these rituals and beliefs are. Many ideologies reject deities or are at least ambivalent about them, but they're not really operationally…

I don't think anybody else would describe an ideology as a collection of rituals.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#118

Post by notjtrig »

rhelz wrote: post #108

Kinda sad that the ritual was a way to curse somebody. 12,000 years of hurting each other. Side Node: computer programing is kinda cool. It is a set of incantations which actually does work. EDIT: Hello, all you down-voters and people who say I should read the article before commenting :-) I to, don't like it when people just start commenting without reading the article. I also don't like it when people take what a p…

>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.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#119

Post by armoredkitten »

rhelz wrote: post #108

Kinda sad that the ritual was a way to curse somebody. 12,000 years of hurting each other. Side Node: computer programing is kinda cool. It is a set of incantations which actually does work. EDIT: Hello, all you down-voters and people who say I should read the article before commenting :-) I to, don't like it when people just start commenting without reading the article. I also don't like it when people take what a p…

Where are you getting that from? The article states it was a healing ritual -- the ritual was something done to someone who was already sick. Presumably...to make them better. I have no idea where you got the idea that it was intended as a curse.

Re: Aboriginal ritual passed down over 12,000 years, cave find shows

#120

Post by swatcoder »

utkarsh858 wrote: post #100

In India, there is a custom of passing ancient knowledge through poetic verses. Every poetic verses is sung in a specific 'meter'. If there is a discrepancy in recitation then remembering and passing knowledge 'letter by letter' can not succeed. Many of the verses are thousands of years old. I read some describing an ancient extinct river ~7000 years ago, later rediscovered through satellite imagery (don't know the r…

Yeah, in language that suits HN, formal poetic structure amounts to error correction in oral tradition.

It dramatically narrows the possibilities of what idea or word or sound or whatever could fit in any particular place in the verse, making it easier to memorize and accurately recite. Clever (and some blundering) poets and changes in language still set up these recitations to evolve away from whatever they originally were, but the original seeds linger a long, long time.

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