Shamanism in Northwest Australia

• Published in: Oceania 1994-06, Vol.64 (4), p.277-287
• Main Authors: Lommel, Andreas, Mowaljarlai, David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aboriginal arts; Aboriginal religion; Aborigines; Australia; Balbungu, Allan; Camping; Choirs; Corroborees; Dance; Death; Ethnology; Hunting; Indigenous peoples; Kangaroos; Native peoples; Oceania; Poetry; Poets; Religion, magic, witchcraft; Religions, beliefs, worships; Rites & ceremonies; Shamanism; Shamans; Soul; Spirits; Underworld; Western Australia
• ISSN: 0029-8077; 1834-4461
• DOI: 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1994.tb02472.x

Editors'note: Andreas Lommel was Director of the Staatliche Museum für Völkerkunde in Munich from 1957 to 1977. He last did fieldwork in Australia in 1955 with his wife, Katharine, (Lommel and Lommel, 1989), and first in 1939 when he came to the Kimberley district of Western Australia as a member of an ethnological expedition under the auspices of the Frobenius Institute in Frankfurt-am-Main. Based on this work, he and another member of the Frobenius expedition, Helmut Petri, have produced ethnographic monographs (Lommel 1952, Petri 1954) and many other publications on the Wunambal and Ngarinyin respectively. The following is one of the few yet to have appeared in English. We have chosen to publish it for the unique perspective it offers on a particular, poignant moment behind the frontiers of European settlement of Aboriginal Australia. For another perspective on some of the same matters, we have paired Lommel's memoir with one by one of the Ngarinyin people he met on the trek he describes in it: David Mowaljarlai, who was at that time about ten years old (as recalled in Lommel's foreword to Mowaljarlai and Malnic, 1993). Mowaljarlai is now a leading figure in Aboriginal affairs, and in 1991 was named Aboriginal Australian of the Year. As it happens, Lommel's manuscript reached Oceania just as one of us (A. R.) was about to leave for the Kimberleys to collaborate on a site survey with Mowaljarlai. We informed Lommel of this and suggested that Mowaljarlai be invited to provide further comments and reminiscences about the matters discussed in the paper. Lommel enthusiastically accepted this offer and raised specific points for clarification from Mowaljarlai, which were put to him and two other senior Ngarinyin men in the interview which is transcribed below.