For me this couple of hours before dawn is the best time of day – the stars are at their brightest, the air is cool and clear, the Pied Butcherbirds get an early start on the morning chorus with their mellifluous calls and all the pleasures of the day wait ahead.

In two previous posts here I have explored the work of the Warlpiri artist Alma Nungarrayi Granites and the wonderful work in the exhibition of paintings by people of the Wajarri Yamatji language group from Western Australia’s Murchison region and their exhibition entitled “Ilgarijiri – things belonging to the sky“. Both of those posts illustrate the importance of the Seven Sisters – the Pleiades – in Aboriginal cosmology.

I want to wander through a few further links that I’ve found that reveal what I suspect is just small part of the enormous body of knowledge that Australian Aboriginal people have of our night skies and the wonderful things that live there.

As I’ve said previously – and this may arise from 2009 being the International Year of Astronomy – there seems to be a greater willingness to engage with, or a broader interest in, Indigenous Astronomical Knowledge among the mainstream astronomical science community than there is in many other scientific disciplines – and this could include my own area of interest of ornithology.

But back to the stars!

Questacon provides a popular entry point for the general public to a variety of areas of Australian scientific enquiry and research and has a page dedicated to Aboriginal Astronomy, from which this story of Barnimbir (Venus) the Morning Star from the Yolngu language group of north-east Arnhem land comes:

One day a yam leaf was blown across the warm waters of the sea, north of Australia. It floated from the east, from where the Sun and Morning Star came. A man named Yaolngur found the leaf. The yam plant was very special to him and he decided to travel to the country where it came from – the land of the Morning Star.

He made a very large canoe and told his wives to collect great numbers of water lily bulbs for food and fill many coconut shells with water for drink during his long journey. He rested that night in his home camp and early next morning he set out. He paddled for seven days, sometimes sleeping on small islands, sometimes sleeping at sea. On the last night of his journey he paddled and paddled – he could hear waves crashing on the rocks. Then the sky lit up, the Morning Star rose in the sky and Yaolngur saw land.

He had arrived at the home of the Morning Star. The island was the home of the spirits, home of the Mokois. He had arrived at the island of the dead. Because he was in a strange land, he wanted to make himself strong. By rubbing the sweat from his armpits onto his arms, legs and chest, he made himself powerful. He also rubbed his sweat in his spear thrower.

Carrying his weapons, he went to seek the Morning Star. He had only walked a short way when he saw the ghosts – so many in number that they stood shoulder to shoulder so many that there didn’t seem room for any more. The spirits looked at the decoration of sea gull feathers on his spear thrower and recognised him as a friend. He sang and danced and then said, “I want to see Barnimbir, the Morning Star.”

He walked and found the old woman Marlumbu, who kept the star. At first she didn’t want to it to him, but he sang magic songs and he assured her that he only wanted to see if it was the same as the one his group used in their Morning Star ceremony. Marlumbu took it out and showed him the parts made from seagull feathers and jungle yams. Yaolngur was pleased the Morning Star was the same as his people used.

He handed the Morning Star back to Marlumbu, who released it into the sky. She controlled the flight of Barumbu by holding the string and allowing the Star to travel all over the islands. She cried out directions to the Star to tell it where to travel. Suddenly the string started to hum. It was the sign that the Sun was coming up.

You can find more of the stories if the rich heritage of Aboriginal astronomical observation and story telling at the Questacon Aboriginal Astronomy site.

These stories can also be found in Questacon’s book The Emu in the Sky, a collection of Aboriginal astronomy stories from all around Australia that is available from Questacon for the bargain price of $AU4.30.

The Emu in the sky

Another widespread story is the popular and widespread story of the “Emu in the Sky“.

As this page at Wikipedia notes, the Emu in the Sky story is a:

…tradition that is widespread in Australia…a ‘constellation’ that is defined by dark nebulas (opaque clouds of dust and gas in outer space) that are visible against the milky way background, rather than by stars. The Emu’s head is the very dark Coalsack nebula, next to the Southern Cross; the body and legs are other dark clouds trailing out along the Milky Way to Scorpius.

Just north of Sydney, in the Kuringai National Park, are extensive rock engravings of the Guringai people who live there, including representations of the creator-hero Daramulan and his emu-wife. An engraving at Elvina Track shows an emu in the same pose and orientation as the Emu in the Sky. constellation. On autumn evenings, the emu in the sky stands directly over her portrait, just at the time when it’s time to gather emu eggs. To the Wardaman [people], however, the Coalsack is the head of a lawman.

Macquarie University Adjunct Professor Ray Norris runs a website dedicated to Aboriginal Astronomy.

In the overview to the comprehensive site he says:

The southern sky is striking compared to that of the Northern hemisphere, often dominated by the magnificent river of the Milky Way weaving across the zenith, crossed by numerous dust lanes. For those living in Australia before the advent of streetlights, the night sky would be an important and integral part of their understanding of the world. Naturally, they would notice that particular stars or patterns are seen only at certain times of the year. Furthermore, since many chose to travel in the cool of the night, they would quickly find that stars are useful for navigation.

Across Australia are many different rich and vibrant Aboriginal cultures, each with its own astronomy. But there are common threads. Many have stories of a female Sun who warmed the land, and a male Moon who was once a young slim man (the waxing crescent Moon), but grew fat and lazy (the full Moon). But then he broke the law, and was attacked by his people, resulting in his death (the new Moon). After remaining dead for 3 days, he rose again to repeat the cycle, and continues doing so till this day. The Kuwema people in the Northern Territory say that he grows fat at each full moon by devouring the spirits of those who disobey the tribal laws.

Some Aboriginal people use the sky as a calendar to tell them when it’s time to move to a new place and a new food supply. The Boorong people in Victoria know that when the “Mallee-fowl” constellation (Lyra) disappears in October, to “sit with the Sun”, it’s time to start gathering her eggs on Earth. Other groups know that when Orion first appears in the sky, the Dingo puppies are about to be born.

And you can find an interesting introduction to many aspects of Aboriginal astronomy, links to other articles,  audio programs and events at the ABC’s Big Aussie Starhunt page.

Further north in the Northern Territory, the fascinating accounts of the Astronomical knowledge of the Wardaman language group, who have country to the west and south of Katherine in the Northern Territory, are revealed in the book “Dark Sparklers“, written by Hugh Cairns and Bill Harney, with whom I’m doing some work on my project on Aboriginal bird knowledge.

I don’t agree with many of the statements that Hugh Cairns makes about some aspects of the traditional knowledge of the Wardaman people but notwithstanding those and other reservations the book represents the most comprehensive account of the astronomical beliefs of a single Australian Aboriginal language group that I have been able to find. Dark Sparklers also contains many wonderful stories of other aspects of Wardaman knowledge and belief systems.

A Wardaman rock painting

I’ll leave each of you to make up your own mind about Dark Sparklers but encourage you to forward any further information you might have on projects and research being undertaken elsewhere.

And finally, while it is mainly directed at teachers wanting to use Aboriginal astronomical knowledge in the classrooom there is a great educational resource entitled “Astronomy and Australian Indigenous People” prepared by Adele Pring and produced by the South Australian Education Department that is available as a PDF document here.

Don’t let the educational content put you off – it contains a wealth of information about Aboriginal astronomical knowledge from all over the country.

There is a lot more that I haven’t been able to cover here but I’d be happy to extend the discussion and would welcome your suggestions or links to further information.

Junior. Outside Warmun, W.A.

This story by Ashley Hall on last night’s PM program on the ABC referred to a tragic confluence of events and, perhaps, poor road design at an intersection in suburban Melbourne, Victoria:

Roadside memorial sparks distraction debate

A fatal car accident that killed a 21-year-old woman driver in Melbourne’s outer suburbs has ignited a furious debate about the safety of floral roadside memorials.

Police say the driver may have been distracted by a roadside tribute erected to mark the deaths of four teenagers at the same intersection a couple of weeks ago.

…Acting Inspector Jeff Smith, from the Victoria Police’s major collision unit, says the intersection was covered in flowers and pictures.

“Right on the intersection to have photos and tributes and stories and the like, it distracts drivers from what they’re supposed to be doing, which is looking where they’re going,” he said.

Martin Lacroix. Victoria Highway, N.T.

This issue of the safety of roadside memorials has been around in Australia for some time.

AM spoke to Dr Jennifer Clark, an Associate Professor at the University of New England at Armidale, who has studied roadside tibutes for over 20 years and in 2004 organised a conference on roadside tributes:

Roadside Memorials: a multi-disciplinary approach:

Papers are invited that examine the phenomenon of roadside memorialisation from the perspective of any relevant discipline including, for example, death studies, history, studies in religion, psychology, sociology, roadside studies, road safety, popular culture, studies in grief and mourning and studies in memorial culture. Papers on related topics, especially other forms of public memorialisation, also will be considered. It is intended that the most relevant papers will be submitted for publication as an edited collection.

In 2006 Clark spoke to Geraldine Doogue at ABC Radio’s Compass program:

Roadside memorials are not new. They were there in the ancient world, they’re all through Europe, through South America, through the United States.

…

So the place itself becomes very important. It becomes sacred space, regardless of the fact that this is actually a public roadside. And so we have the appropriation of public space for private mourning. And there is a great debate about whether or not they should be allowed. Emergency service personnel for example or people who have been involved in the crash or people who live near the memorial site often find it very difficult to travel past these memorials constantly day after day and be reminded of the great tragedy.

…

The roadside memorial is particularly important because it indicates to us that there is a new way looking at grief and mourning.
I think the practice itself indicates that there is a movement away from the belief that the church and the state has control over grief and mourning and has control over the ceremonies and rituals associated with death.

…

I think what it really indicates is that people in grief believe that their grief gives them the authority to put up a memorial where they want it to be put. It suggests that there is a very strong sense of the spiritual out there in your community, even though we know that church attendance is declining and that we hear a lot of talk about Australia being a secular society.

And the interesting thing about it I think is that it indicates that in our society people …are looking to express spirituality in their own way and to engage with a spiritual life. And there is a strong sense at these memorials that people making them have a very strong sense that something spiritual is going on while they are there.

Anonymous. Tanami Track, N.T.

The photos are my contribution – in addition to the roadkills that I’ve been photographing over the past several years I’ve recently started shooting the many and varied tributes that I find on my travels.

I’ll put up a post of recent new finds from time to time.

And if you have any particular shots of roadside memorials in your area please feel free to send them on and I’ll post them here for you.

Broken wing. Tanami Track, N.T.

And the last word, well, several words really, goes to the US where the National Memorial Registry has been established to:

The National Memorial Registry, Inc. was created to provide a place for any person to register a memorial or tribute to or on behalf of a person. It is our hope that the amount of people registering their memorial or tribute will be such a substantial amount that we are able to use this membership to affect legislation toward open display of these tributes on public lands. While we do not condone obstruction or cluttering of public parks or scenic views, we would like to have each country recognize the importance of allowing each citizen the right to pay tribute to any person they choose.

The National Memorial Registry, Inc. will work with all jurisdictions that regulate the placement of memorials. We will attempt to gain some consistency in legislation by means of public pressure. We will not condone open contempt for the local customs or legislation but will encourage change by means of legal methods as much as allowed.

It is the intent of National Memorial Registry, Inc. to maintain this database for future generations to access and gain valuable information about their ancestors past.

Roadside grave? Victoria Highway, N.T.

El Hombre Pajaro

Introduction

This is an extract from my recent presentation at the most recent Society of Ethnobiology conference held at Tulane University in New Orleans in early April 2009.

A year earlier, at the Society’s conference at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, I spent some time in the David W. Mullins Library and found something new and totally unexpected – in the pages of the Folklore journal of 1917 I found Mrs Katherine Scoresby Routledge’s article ‘The Bird Cult of Easter Island‘.

The Tangata Manu bird man cult and recent history of Rapa Nui

The Tangata Manu bird-man cult of Orongo, Easter Island (aka Rapa Nui) ended in the late 1880s following the slow decline of the post-contact Easter Island people, the Rapanui, and their culture.

Van Tilburg (2003) – suggests that the Rapanui may have once numbered upwards of 10,000 with a worker caste doing the hard work of food production & resource exploitation and chiefs and priests controlled access to sacred places and use of high-value resources. It is believed that the Rapanui’s arrival dates from perhaps as early as AD 100-300 but certainly from AD 600-800

Rapa Nui is a triangular island a long way from just about anywhere – 3,600 km south-east to Concepcion, Chile, 3,500 km north-east to the Galapagos Islands and 3,400 km east to Rapa Island in French Polynesia. With an area of only 64 square miles, is the world’s most isolated scrap of habitable land and was declared a national park by Chile in 1935, and a world heritage site in 1995

The first European contact with the Rapanui was the Dutch expedition in 1722 led by Admiral Jacob Roggeveen, who left a very bad first impression by killing a dozen Islanders before soon leaving in a hurry. In 1770 a Spanish party from Peru claimed the island for Spain, closely followed by the arrival of the British navigator James Cook who found a decimated, poverty stricken population. The Frenchman La Perouse visited in 1786.

From the early 1800s whalers arrived and left venereal disease and were followed soon after by an American ship captain in 1805 who led the first of a series of slaving raids. A devastating slave raid by Peruvian slavers in 1862 reduced the population to just one hundred and eleven.

The Peruvians carried off about 5,000 people in 15 vessels to work as agricultural laborers in Peru on the guano deposits of the Chincha Islands. Some time afterwards the Peruvian Government was induced to return those who had not succumbed to their treatment and altered conditions of life. Smallpox broke out among these on the return voyage.

In 1864 a Jesuit mission was established on the island, at which time the population numbered about 1,500.

When H. M. S. Topaze visited the island in 1868 there were about 900 Rapa Nui left.

In 1870 the Frenchman Dutroux-Bornier transformed RN into a sheep farm, which led to, in about the year 1875, some 500 were removed to Tahiti under contract to work on the sugar plantations of that island. Dutroux-Bornier was killed by Islanders in 1877. In 1878 the Jesuit missionaries departed from the island, taking with them about 300 of the people, who settled Gambier Archipelago.

When H. M. S. Sappho touched at the island in 1882 it was reported that but 150 of the inhabitants were left. [Cooke reports just over 300 in 1899]

In 1888 the Island was annexed by Chile. This time marked the end of the Tangata-Manu ritual.

The birds of Rapa Nui

Jared Diamond refers to Steadman’s work on Rapa Nui where he found the early Polynesian settlers had feasted on seabirds. For those birds, Rapa Niu’s remoteness and lack of predators made it an ideal haven as a breeding site, at least until humans arrived. The prodigious numbers of seabirds that bred on Rapa Nui included albatross, boobies, frigate birds, fulmars, petrels, prions, shearwaters, storm petrels, terns, and tropic birds. With at least 25 nesting species, Rapa Nui was the richest seabird breeding site in Polynesia and probably in the whole Pacific.

Land birds as well went into early Rapa Nui cooking pots. Steadman has identified bones of at least six species, including barn owls, herons, parrots, and rail. Bird stew would have been seasoned with meat from large numbers of rats, which the Polynesian colonists inadvertently brought with them; Easter Island is the sole known Polynesian island where rat bones outnumber fish bones at archeological sites.

Birdlife International (2008)
Number of species: 23
(16 seabirds, 2 shorebirds)
All landbirds introduced
Number of globally threatened species: 2
Number of introduced species: 5

Smithsonian Institution (1967)
11 species of seabirds

Johnson et al (1969)
11 species of seabirds

It was originally believed that the Tangata-Manu Cult was centred on the Frigate Bird Fregata minor but that over time – perhaps because the Sooty Tern – the Manutara, was much more common and economically important – the species at the centre of the cult changed to the Manutara.

Manutara is a bird of the tropical oceans, breeding on islands throughout the equatorial zone. Colloquially, it is known as the Wideawake Tern or just Wideawake. This refers to the incessant calls produced by a colony of these birds, as does the Hawaiian name “ʻewa ʻewa” which roughly means “cacophony”. In most of Polynesia its name is Manutara or similar – literally “tern-bird”…wherever Polynesian seafarers went on their long voyages, they would find these birds, and usually in astounding numbers.The call is a loud piercing ker-wack-a-wack or kvaark.

The speculation about the centrality of the Frigate Bird to the early Tangata-Manu Cult is still unresolved – for example there are a total of 481 Tangata-Manu petroglyphs on Rapa Nui, fifteen of which are identifiable as the Frigate Bird, twenty-four identifiable as the Sooty tern and there are seventy-nine generic bird petroglyphs

The Great Frigatebird is a large seabird, measuring 85-105 cm (33.5-41.5 in) with long pointed wings of 205-230 cm (80.5-90.5 in) and long forked tails. Frigatebirds are light, weighing between 1-1.8 kg (2.2-4 lb), and have the highest ratio of wing area to body mass, and the lowest wing loading of any bird. This has been hypothesized to enable the birds to utilize marine thermals created by small differences between tropical air and water temperatures.

Makemake and the Tangata Manu cult

The Rapanui creator figure was Makemake, whose earthly representative was not a hereditary king but an annually selected Tangata-Manu – birdman. The Tangata-Manu cult was based at the ceremonial village of Orongo – on the 400m-high rim of the Rano Kau volcanic crater. The Tangata-Manu was selected by competition between a number, usually 4, young men, known as the Hopu manu, selected from the worker caste on behalf of their patrons.

At some time in July participants went from the Mataveri area up the crater of Rano Kau – each of the chosen acted in the name of one of four gods associated with the cult – the gods were Makemake, Haua (Makemake’s companion) and their wives Vie Kenatea and Vie Hoa respectively.

The Hopu Manu then had to descend the steep cliffs, swim across a shark infested channel, with the aid of Pora, small reed floats, to the small off-shore island of Motu Nui on which the Manutara nest in large numbers and survive the difficult landing on Motu Nui.

Once on Motu Nui the men remained sheltered in caves (sometimes for weeks or months) and waited be the first to find and return to his patron with the first Manutara (Sooty Tern) egg of the season. During this time the Ivi Atua (high status priests) gathered at Orongo to predict which of the men would be successful. The successful individual would shout the news to those at Orongo and the winner would be announced to the gathered multitude.

The final task would be for the unsuccessful contestants to return to Orongo, the winner allowed to remain in Motu Nui until he felt spiritually prepared to return. On his return he would present the egg to his patron, who had already shaved his head and painted it either white or red
The successful man would be declared Tangata-Manu, would take the egg in his hand and lead a procession back to his homeland. Once in residence there he was tapu (taboo) for the next five months of his year long status, and allowed his nails to grow and wore a headdress of human hair.
The new Tangata-Manu was given a new name, entitled to gifts of food other tributes and went into seclusion for 1 year in a special ceremonial house

Katherine Routledge, Jo Ann van Tilburg and Rapa Nui

Most of the little we now know of the Tangata-Manu cult is due to the work of Mrs Scoresby (Katherine) Routledge and her biographer and Rapa Nui researcher Jo Ann Van Tilburg.

Van Tilburg says that the Tangata-Manu cult, while unique to Rapa Nui, retains some distinct Polynesian references and contains similar natural and mythological elements to Pukapukan beliefs from the Samoic language spoken on the Cook Islands far to the east.

Van Tilburg believes that the goals of the Tangata-Manu cult of Rapa Nui were both secular and spiritual. The spiritual related to fertility & fecundity. The secular varied over time, originally it operated to concentrate power in the Miru traditional elite, later to legitimise the spread of power through competition.

Van Tilburg considers that the ecological basis of the Tangata-Manu cult and the changing relationships over time between the Rapa Nui and the Makohe, the Frigate Bird and the Manutara, the Sooty Tern and the Kahi Aveave, the Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus albacares) and the effect of population pressures, forced changes in hunting techniques and resource availability.

As Van Tilburg says :

“The impact of the Rapa Nui on the bird population through habitat destruction and predation was enormous, and in too many cases, fatal…One of the incomparably sad notes echoing from the carved rocks of Orongo is the fact that the Rapa Nui knew full well that the arrival of the birds meant the arrival of the fish (Yellowfin Tuna). The cult activity they created allowed them access to the birds and birds’ eggs, but the highly desirable, large pelagic fish were unavailable to them without adequate vessels. From the mid-to late AD 1600s on, those vessels were nonexistent without palm wood. It must have been incredibly frustrating, both physically and spiritually, to gather seasonally on the cliffs of Orongo, far above the sea, knowing that the churning depths below were probably filled with the elusive, thrashing bodies of delectable and life-sustaining tuna.”

Katherine Routledge and her husband Scoresby Routledge sailed their purpose-built schooner the Mana from England and stayed on Rapa Nui from March 1914 to August 1915. She published a number of reports in Folklore, The National Geographic and also her popular self-published account The Mysteries of Easter Island. Routledge’s work is valuable both for the quality of her research and that she was the first ethnographer to interview the surviving participants in the last Tangata-Manu ceremonies held in the late 1800s.

Her work has informed much later research – though few other than Van Tilburg have accessed her voluminous records held in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society in London those records show that she “salvaged extremely important, fragmented memories of island traditions that otherwise would have been lost.”

Katherine Routledge’s later years were marked by increasing bouts of mental illness, now suspected to have been a paranoid schizophrenic condition. She died aged 55 years in 1935, never having written her ‘more scientific’ account of her expedition to Rapa Nui.

A typical backroads Mississippi church

I spent quite a few hours of the last week or so driving around the backroads of the Mississippi Delta. The Delta is a leaf-shaped region in western Mississippi, bounded by the Mississippi River and Arkansas state border to the west, a line of bluffs to the east and runs from Vicksburg in southern Mississippi to just outside of Memphis in Tennessee to the north.

The Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University has some excellent resources on life in the Delta and provides, in part, the following information about the history of Black religious practice in the delta:

The Delta is overwhelmingly Protestant, with considerable diversity among congregations and sects. Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian Churches are commonly represented in Delta towns, but so are various evangelical beliefs, ranging from Primitive Baptist through Church of the End Times.

…The older churches in the Black community include the Missionary Baptists (MB) and African Methodist Episcopalians (AME) who trace their origin back to 1788 when they were founded by Freedmen. The Delta also played a critical role in the origin of a derivative of the black Baptist church. Charles Harrison Mason, after meetings on courthouse steps in Jackson and in private homes, established the Church of God in Christ in a gin house in Lexington, Mississippi, Holmes County, in 1897. A small but permanent church was built later that year. Mason had originally been ordained a Missionary Baptist.

The Delta has a rich religious heritage, and is a land where faith- in God, in the future, in grace, and in ultimate redemption – unify all people.

Galilee Missionary Baptist Church

The website USA Church lists 1,182 Missionary baptist churches in rural Mississippi and we found quite a few of those while driving the backroads.

Pentecostal Chuch (sic) of God in Christ

Identifying the denomination, or fact of their function as a church, is only often possible by small signs or foundation stones. Some have more elaborate signage, which can often be quaintly mispelt.

Most are black-only churches and they are often modest buildings surrounded by cotton or corn fields right up to the boundaries of the church yard or the nearby cemetery. Often they represent all that remains of small hamlets and townships that have long gone – whether though the spread of large scale mechanised farming or population shifts away from rural areas to the larger cities and towns.

Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church

Other Delta churches are larger and have particular attractions, i.e. they have famous people buried there. One of the best examples of a disputed burial in the Delta is of the legendary, in the truest sense of that word, blues guitarist and singer Robert Johnson.

Robert Johnson's burial place, Little Zion, Mississippi

Three Mississippi Delta churches, the Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church outside of Greenwood, Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Morgan City and the Payne Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in nearby Quito have all been claimed as Johnson’s final resting place. Common consensus is that the Missionary Baptist Church at Little Zion is where his remains lie.

True Living Word Temple of Deliverance sign

In terms of modesty, at least with regard to exterior appearance, I can’t go past that of the True Living Word Temple of Deliverance in downtown Cleveland, where I stayed with friends. It is housed in what must have been an industrial building of some kind or other in a past life and is all car park, faded paint and barred windows. I do like that they have a Prophet though.

True Living Word Temple of Deliverance, Cleveland, MS

Many churches are so modest in their upkeep and appointment that they appear abandoned, though even if regular services are no longer held, if there is a  graveyard near these are kept in good condition.

Abandoned church, Highway 61 south of Cleveland

Graveyard at Missionary Baptist church

Notice-board at Margarets - detail

The Reverend H D Dennis Photo: UCM Museum

Margaret’s Grocery and Market is what is commonly called ‘folk’ or ‘vernacular architecture’ in what might be a slurring recognition of its value or relevance to mainstream architecture.

I think that Margarets is one of the finest examples of one man’s fertile imagination I have seen in a long time. For mine it is proof of what can be done with some bright coloured paints, breeze-blocks, dedication and faith and a whole lot of found objects. Margaret’s – now really only a chapel and wonderful exposition of found art and imagination – is just outside the Mississippi delta town of Vicksburg, Mississippi.

It has been a work in progress over many years by Margaret’s husband, the Reverend H. D. Dennis who was born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi in 1916.

A few years ago the Reverend told the folks at the very interesting UCM Museum (Unusual Collections and Mini-town) that:

“…my mother died at birth… she was in the house for six days… the smell would have killed a mule.”

The site has a trailer – the old Grocery and Market – a long verandah and a scattering of signs and sculptures scattered across the front of the block.

Margaret's Grocery and Market

To one side is a jumbled and half-built, half-wrecked and slowly collapsing tower. Behind the tower is an old bus which served, or may still serve, as a Chapel in which the good Reverend preaches.

A glimpse inside...

The Reverend’s wife, Margaret Rogers Dennis, ran the Grocery and Market on the site but that shut down quite a few years ago. The Reverend is getting on in years but is available for some preaching if he is so minded and you catch him at the right time.

Home of the Double-headed Eagle

When we called in last weekend en-route from Baton Rouge in Louisiana to Cleveland in Mississippi the place looked pretty run-down and neglected – the paint on the many signs at the place was faded and hadn’t been touched-up in years.

Like just about anything left exposed and unmaintained in the Delta, it was quickly being overrun by the undeniable fecundity of the woods.

If you want to see some more photos of Margaret’s Grocery and Market in its prime have a look at the UCM Museum site here.

Margaret’s Grocery and Market is almost indescribable – it is at once evidence of an incredibly fertile imagination, a religious shrine, a jumble of thoughts and musings on the nature and power of religion and a work of architectural art. More than anything it is a validation of the freedom of expression in the built environment that is so apparent as you drive around the south – you can build just about anything, anywhere and anyhow here.

The Tower

Coming from a country where you cannot even build a shed without a brace of approvals and licences fom various authorities it is at once surprising and refreshing to see so much freedom of the built expression here.

Not that I’d want to be clambering over too much of the site – the Tower looks like it would collapse in the next big wind – and they do they get some big winds here!

The Tower at Margarets is a magnificent jumble of 4 x 2s, breeze-blocks, lattice and various other bits and pieces – whether it would get you any closer to God is an open question…

And the detail and variety across the whole site is fantastic – here two womens hairclips join some light fittings as part of the decoration for the noticeboard, ten feet away a bunch of funereal and faded plastic flowers set off the entrance way and decorate miscellaneous objects, there a car bonnet is used for a sign, paint fades and rivets holding on the large metal letters used on many of the signs pop and the letters swing in the breeze.

And what signs – overwritten, faded but still powerful – messages replete with layers of meaning and message – some to the faithful and the faithless:

This is the House of Prayer for the Church People to Worship the Lord. Please Read this – Thanks

The Rock

And to the Jew and the Gentile:

The Rock. The House of Prayer for all People to Worship. Christ Read Your Bible and Study Your Bible Jews and Gentiles

and

Jews and Gentiles Is One In Christ Jesus All Is Welcome Denomination Is Not The Church Rev H D D

And to the sinner and the sinned against:

Jesus Said It It Written My House Shall Be Called The House of Prayer For All People To Worship Matthew 21:13

and

Jesus Said The Church of Christ is The Only One He Build Except The Name of Jesus You Can Be Saved

and

Please Go To Church

The Pangolin

East African Notes and Records is another new blog from my East African, via Cambridge in the UK, friend Martin Walsh.

Martin and I share a common interest in east African local bird knowledge, a topic on which he has worked for many years.

Martin has also done a lot of research on many other taxa in east Africa and beyond, including the charismatic and distinctly strange Pangolin – about which I know very little…apart from the occasional and absolutely fascinating anecdote from Martin.

Martin hasn’t posted any of his papers on the Pangolin – an enignmatic creature steeped in mystery and African tradition – but you find one of his articles on this animal here.

In this paper on the  local knowledge and belief systems about the Pangolin in Tanzania in east Africa he discusses the role that Pangolin sightings and behaviour have in local environmental and political events:

In many villages in south-central Tanzania encounters with Ground Pangolins (Manis
temminckii) are treated as highly auspicious events.

In some places these rarely seen creatures take centre stage in communal rituals in which they are asked to divine the future.

Their behaviour in these and other contexts is closely observed, interpreted
and speculated upon by ritual specialists and the general public.

It is used to predict and with hindsight explain major environmental and political episodes (floods,
drought, famine, warfare) as well as more modest incidents in the life of the
community.

Failure to respect the ritual status of pangolins (for example when they
are killed for their scales) or failure of the ritual process itself (which often happens
when they escape from captivity) are also analysed within the same interpretive
framework, and used retrospectively both to explain and lay the blame for misfortune
(Walsh 1995/96; In press).

There are four species of Pangolin found across Africa and the Ground Pangolin, also known as Temminck’s or the Cape Pangolin is found in eastern and southern Africa. Though widespread it is rare and very difficult to find. It is hunted by humans for its scales and for use as jewellery, clothing and as love charms.

It has a very effective defence mechanism – when threatened it rolls into a tight ball, presenting only a hard scaly ball, using the sharp scales on it’s tail to slash at attackers.

The eminent anthropologist Mary Douglas worked with the Lele people of the Congo and wrote about their beliefs about the Pangolin. John Durham summarises Douglas’ understanding of the Pangolin cult thus:

…the pangolin or scaly anteater… is a creature that evades Lele animal categorisation in several ways. It has scales like a fish, but climbs trees; it looks something like a lizard, but is actually a mammal; unlike other small mammals, it produces offspring singly and when threatened rolls itself into a ball rather than running away. Although the creature is normally regarded as totally inedible, members of a Lele pangolin cult celebrate rituals in which they eat it, so as to access the fertility inherent in its anomalous nature and be able to pass that fertility on to their people.

Douglas finds parallels between the Lele pangolin cult and on the one hand shamanism as described by Eliade and on the other hand the Christian understanding of Christ as a ‘voluntary victim’ [p 170] on behalf of humanity.