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Encore: Signs and Iconicity with Dr. Tirtha Mukhopadhyay - Rock Art 108
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Dr. Tirtha Mukhopadhyay joins Alan to talk about iconicity in rock. This is a fascinating discussion about some of the deep meanings and uses of rock art.
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Transcript
Introduction and Mission of California Rock Art Foundation
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. Hello out there in archaeology podcast land. This is Dr. Alan Garfinkel. I'm the president and founder of the California Rock Art Foundation. And what we do is we identify, evaluate, manage and conserve rock art both in Alta, California and in Baja, California.
00:00:21
Speaker
We conduct field trips, we have trainings, exercise, we do research, and in every way possible we try to preserve, protect, and coordinate treasures of Alta and Baja California rock art, of which there are many, and diverse. We also work closely with Native Americans and partner with them to recognize and protect sacred sites.
00:00:42
Speaker
So for more info about the fabulous California Rock Art Foundation, you can go to carockart.org. Also, i'm I'm open to give me a call, 805-312-2261. We would welcome sponsorship or underwriting helping us to defray the costs of our podcasts and also membership in California Rock Art Foundation. And of course, donations since we are a 501c3 nonprofit scientific and educational corporation. God bless everyone out there in podcast land.
00:01:16
Speaker
You're listening to the Rock Art Podcast. Join us every week for fascinating tales of rock art, adventure, and archaeology. Find our contact info in the show notes and send us your suggestions.
Emotive Potential of Rock Art with Dr. Tirtha Mukhabadai
00:01:34
Speaker
Hey gang, it's Dr. Alan Garfinkel, Rock Art Podcast, episode 108. We're bringing back the big man, Tirtha, Dr. Tirtha Mukhabadai from Guanajuato University, and it's a deep dive into the mysteries of what makes rock art tick, what is iconicity, what is shamanism, animism, totemism, and why is rock art so emotionally appealing?
00:02:07
Speaker
Hello out there in archaeology podcast land. This is episode 108, and we're talking to Dr. Tirtha-Lukohabideh all the way from Guanajuato University in the wonderful country of Mexico. And we're going to talk about iconicity.
00:02:24
Speaker
the sacred and the emotive potential of rock art. Doctor, are you there for us? Yes, I'm right here for you, Alan. Thank you once again for inviting me to talk on your podcast. And I'm really excited to look forward to talking to you. This is the first time we get to see each other. We get a video with it. This is exciting. Yeah. So we have a remarkable book coming out, don't we?
Symbolism in Rock Art: Iconicity and Indexical Semiotics
00:02:51
Speaker
Yes, of course. It just got published. And it's called The Iconicity of the Uto Aztecans. Wow. What a, what a mouthful. What the heck is Iconicity? Yes, Iconicity. It's an ambitious title, but we did, we have been working a long time on this project and I guess we have defined Iconicity well enough for the reader. We hope the reader finds The notion of Iconis is it interesting, the fact the icons, iconic tokens, symbols or codes, however you might want to call it, are carried through generations of people who share the same linguistic and same cognitive
00:03:40
Speaker
environment to negotiate and it's continuous cultural historical tradition of symbolism and expressions and you know self appraisal. If I use the terms indexical semiotics, what does that mean? Indexical semiotics. Right. You know, as, as we have discussed it already in the book at sufficient length and the index is a far more basic terminology for the visual representation or a visual sign. So if we begin with the question, and the character of the sign, what does a sign mean? What does a visual
00:04:26
Speaker
symbol mean we begin with that we begin discussing the index value, the indexical property of of the visual sign. So it's the basic visual sign. The index refers to something concrete.
00:04:44
Speaker
yeah for For instance, it might be an animal form. Right. right It's an emblem. It's a hallmark. but It's a meaning of a meaning. There's something powerful here that's a symbol that you can grasp and see and sense and taste, but it has a power greater than it has on the first appearance. There's much, much more to it. yeah Right. Yes, we can put it that way, that ah that the index is the portal and we begin to understand the significance of the image through the index, through the indexical, upfront indexical form of the visual sign. But then we go try to go beyond that. We try to transcend the indexical properties in order to detect, to understand
00:05:30
Speaker
to even institutionalize some of the meanings, the deeper cultural meanings that are inherent in that symbol, the way it used to communicate to people who made those representations on the rocks in the first place. Let's give our audience something concrete. We've we've thrown a lot of words around. Give them some examples ah of some of the the ah the icons that we might deal with when we're dealing with various
Cultural Significance of Mesoamerican Symbols
00:05:59
Speaker
cultures. Yes. or we can
00:06:02
Speaker
Think of, to begin with, if we refer to some of the yeah Mesoamerican symbolism, one of the most important and most concrete symbols that comes to mind is that of the serpent. The snake and the snake index is something which we have been dealing with.
00:06:21
Speaker
for a long time. Now the snake index is visible in not just in the very prominent and intelligible astic iconography. The snake index appears in very yeah rudimentary or vestigial outlier forms in the more fringe culture rock art specimens where you may just have a zig-zagging line.
00:06:46
Speaker
you know, those wave formations in in rock art, on vessels, on clay pots, which would be used to store water in a very desiccated environment. and We know it also appears on textiles, on basketry, you know, as a diagonal or a triangle itself. In all those decorative and sacred and you know cultural paraphernalia that that defines a culture the beliefs of that culture, and it's it's really great to see how that particular index might evolve into more concrete forms.
00:07:24
Speaker
like a basic snake index in the utopian speaking peoples in their visual expressions and their cultural artifacts grows into the great. If we jump to the cultures ah of let's say the desert west, yes there's another symbol that I would call an indexical animal and one that really interfingers for thousands upon thousands of years and it looks like a big horned sheep.
00:07:51
Speaker
Am I correct? Of course, the bighorn sheep is is one of the chief valorized indexical animal that we have. and And it's just the sheep is the index animal. It's a zoomorphic index. It's an animal index, but it can it it really transports us to the world of the Aztec, Utah, Aztecan symbolism, the American desert west symbolism, which suggests that the sheep is food, that the sheep is ah sustenance, that the sheep can
00:08:24
Speaker
be divine because it's it's a form in which the divine comes to us. we What we do is we continue to attribute significance to it. And this was a very crucial point to which I wanted to draw attention to in today's conversation, if you would allow me.
Emotive Qualities and Mystery of Rock Art
00:08:41
Speaker
Alan, the the fact that that the that supernatural attribution to visual indexes, this brings us to the to the point where we begin to ask, what's the relationship between a visual index and the emotive symbolic meaning that the visual object represents? In other words, can we explain this ah indexical sign in terms of referentiality? We cannot do that because there are so many
00:09:15
Speaker
interspersed non-referential elements in that visual index. It's a symbol of fertility, it's a symbol of giving, it's a symbol of provisions, and it is ultimately a ah symbol of a faith, of a belief that in in the universe, and in nature, that there will there is a protector, there is and there' is an animal master.
00:09:42
Speaker
so my My question would be, really, for myself, for research personnel who have been investigating this notion of the relationship between an index and its symbolic value, is whether there is a very concrete theater, a concrete connection between the visual index and the symbol.
00:10:08
Speaker
ki know ah let Let me try to clarify myself, make myself more clear. I believe, I'm now beginning to believe that this that the sacred feeling that is inherent in a visual index is not necessarily physically or manifestly related to the visual symbol, to the visual index at all.
00:10:35
Speaker
This is why I say this is because when you consider the human-like gods, the anthropomorphs and the providers and and the pregnant bighorn sheep, for example, it's easier to understand what the symbol ultimately represents, a divinity, a provider spirit. But when it comes to the geometricals, they are more simpler. They're simpler. They're more elemental. They're scarce. so They're minimalist.
00:11:04
Speaker
And the only reason that these geometrical symbols, they may be more complex as in sand paintings, for example, ah more meaningful. But yes even when they appear on the rock, they continue to create that experience of wonder and beauty and something something very sacred.
00:11:27
Speaker
even if we are not conditioned, we feel that it's it's it's it creates ah kind of a very specific kind of experience for us in that setting. There's something very mysterious and compelling about the image.
00:11:43
Speaker
Sometimes we can't put our finger on it. Exactly. We don't know exactly why we're feeling the way we're feeling, but we do know this there's something intense there. There's a tug. It's a tether. and say how do How do you put this? It's some sort of a There's an unction, that's that's a good word, that that that is calling us to a deeper understanding of what this symbol means. And we I think we get a feeling that it's something something grander than ourselves and has a transcendental quality. How's that?
00:12:18
Speaker
Yes, very very well said, Alan. You've just been able to describe for me, for example, when the experience that we have when we look at these matte patterns the matpatrons for example and there are matpatrons the chakras the mandalas however way we call it in all this vast spread of religions across the world from from central asia to saveria and into
00:12:51
Speaker
consistent with a prehistoric migration with of the haplogroups, as they have been described in the literature, that there is this ah common ground of belief and this common sense of of of creating beauty out of simple patterns, simple ah circles and geometrical shapes, and they're all there for our contemplation.
00:13:17
Speaker
Isn't it something very strange and wonderful at the same time and very difficult to explain? Yet there's something else implied. yeah And there's something else implied is when you have a circle, when you have a net ah network, when you have some sort of a conduit.
00:13:34
Speaker
It's leading somewhere. It's entwining you. It's bringing you into another ah level of of environment or thinking or assassination yes um some sort of other, it's it's got an otherworldly feeling to it. Yes.
00:13:53
Speaker
I mean, these are attractors. These are great attractors. And and we visit rock art sites and we have a decorative ah chakra in our home and on the wall. And ah we don't know why, but but they have a certain effect on us. Yeah. Why do people to this very day buy those little spider things that are the Indian things, that that's a it's it's got a web or a nest and they hang it in their car?
00:14:23
Speaker
Why? Right. Yes. it's It's not just the shape of it. It's not just the the way it looks, but it makes us look at itself in a way which is different. You know, this is why ah we could call this this phenomenon in the human mind the rock art way of saying things. Right. You said you called it the archaeology of emotions. Yes.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yes. Which was surprising. I'd never heard those terms joined in in and ever. So that was really quite quite it's striking. the archaeology of and of emotions. And so I think I mentioned this too to Chris Webster when i had when i when he was interviewing me ah for my last discussion with him. And I said that there are these images on rocks that appear to be these figures that are leaping or growing or somehow coming out of cracks in the rocks, right? right And they're large. And they're obviously something of importance.
00:15:28
Speaker
They're beautiful. They're aesthetically pleasing. Yes. and they they They make you feel contented. They make you feel whole. Yes. Pleasant. Yes. Yes. Aesthetically pleasing. Yes. and That's really beautiful. That's really interesting. Someone did a beautiful job of ensconcing that image in just the right way on that. And what do we see off to the left, just under that, is a very small creature.
00:15:58
Speaker
with their hands like this opening to the sky in a supplicant posture. Well, it's obviously obviously that's that's explaining or further explicating or or elucidating what's going on here. That little being is entreating this larger and image for help, for healing, for blessings, for reassurance, all those things that we want as human beings.
00:16:29
Speaker
Does that make any sense? Oh, yes. that's That's where it leads to. I mean, so we are not just dealing with an index. We are dealing with an animated and inter-animated property within that index, which is affecting us in a very strange way. And it it might even be that this it is it is this very primordial sense of someone and not just some thing, but and not just some level of ah experience that we would
Indigenous Perspectives in Rock Art Interpretation
00:17:03
Speaker
call it, that there is someone coming there and you know taking the seat yeah and and and and then offering its ah deep bonding, deep bond of friendship to us. yes that's good that's that's like That's a good juncture to yeah to ah catch you on the flip-flop, gang.
00:17:26
Speaker
Welcome back, gang. This is segment two of the Rock Art podcast with Tirtha Mukherabadai, and we're talking about and indexical thinking. We're talking about semiotics. We're talking about the way of seeing and the way of understanding rock art and dealing with the concept of iconicity. Tirtha, why don't we continue there? Yes, the rock art, like any other great art in different contexts, and humanity has continued to be continue to produce rock artists in all ages of art, I guess, if we can call it that way. but and And, you know, the phrase that we were just tossing around was the rock art way of seeing. And and it's of immense significance, because the rock art way of of seeing prompts us
00:18:15
Speaker
to question the positivist way of looking at things and even the whole western notion of self-seeing things and the discourse that we have associated with way the with the appreciation of arts ah for several centuries now. I mean it's not wrong, it's just a different way of looking at things.
00:18:39
Speaker
and this is this is important because we de-westernize we de-eurascent re-size ourselves with these you know we-positivize ourselves in order to to expect in order to immerse ourselves it's and it's it's an immersive practice when you look at the world a way the way that the native americans have been looking at this at nature for thousands of years at the way the Siberian shamans would would look at I would look at nature, I would look at human destiny. What we're talking about is an indigenous perspectivism. We're talking about dismantling a linear way of thinking or a cartoon Cartesian way of thinking. yes And one one that's more holistic, should it one that's more embracing in yeah the energies of the universe and somehow cosmically entwining with the rock art.
00:19:33
Speaker
and so understanding the world in a much more conceptual, unified, relationship-oriented fashion. How's that? Yes. It's so it's it's all that, and it's more graceful. it's more it It makes you more humble. It makes you more receptive. it It makes you more of a human being rather than more of ah of a warrior.
00:20:02
Speaker
If we think about it from the Judeo-Christian ethic and you look at things scripturally, it says that we're supposed to be masters of the universe. We're supposed to be we're supposed to own the resources and use them and and engineer things for our own benefit. Yes. yes it's It's basically a humanist idea. like That is contradictory to an indigenous perspective, correct?
00:20:27
Speaker
Yes, and that's an that's an alternative. and you know There are various ways and methods. There there are sciences ah associated with this position, with this way of seeing things and the integrity of the process. that The visual object, the art object, the sacred object,
00:20:48
Speaker
It's the way we look at ah the world, we look at deeper levels of being. We could call it for the moment.
00:20:59
Speaker
the the plants that the that nature, flowers, that the hallucinogenic and theogenic properties of plants and flowers and leaves and this, day and they they did they could influence us. They could induce in us those visions.
00:21:18
Speaker
i mean Not necessarily, because hallucinogens can produce very extremely strange, otherworldly, alternated to states of consciousness. But the sacred art is not merely about an altered state of consciousness. And I think even the discussion and in archaeology, which was you know founded in a in a sense by ah by the theorists on entoptics and phosphines and you know the form constants
00:21:49
Speaker
of rock artists, he used to call it. Even then this this the that the argument falls apart and disintegrates when we consider the fact that we are not talking just about an impression, a visual impression, an optical illusion. We are talking about something emotive. We are talking about something that moves us and something that reassures us.
00:22:11
Speaker
and And therefore, this invites us to think of a very different kind of psychology than that of the positivist psychological literatures. So what about the rock art way of seeing things then? The rock art way of seeing things not not not only explains the way we look at rock art and rock art looks at us.
00:22:37
Speaker
It helps us to understand, it helps us to appreciate, to dig into the deep time religious consciousness that might have attended the evolution of post-paleolithic man.
00:22:52
Speaker
Absolutely. that's but You've hit the nail on the head, Tirtha, because you can see that in the rock art. Rock art speaks thanks to those that want to listen or ask better and better questions, and it and it shows us the values, the ethics, the the salient elements of meaning that Indigenous people had about the world.
00:23:17
Speaker
but That's exactly how when they visit their sacred spaces, that the gods, they come to bless them, they come to give them their all their fruits, the products, the abundance they bring with them. And this is what we repeatedly see in ah in all the great religions. In Japan, you have to walk up a hill in order to come and stand You have to purify yourself, for sure wash your hands, wash your feet, to your face and then come and stand in front of that Kami, that Spirit, God, who is there for you and he he and a this this God will then listen to your prayers. it'ss This is exactly the same thing that's happening in in the rock art clusters for the these Native American peoples in their sacred baskets. This will be guiding, this will be ah controlling, conditioning the way we store our grain, the way we hold water, the way we serve food, ah the the sense of community. Everything changes when you look
00:24:35
Speaker
at life and your relationship to another human being, to the others, to to every person, when you're looking at it with the eyes of of the rock art
Symbolism of Deities in Rock Art
00:24:47
Speaker
shaman. When you're looking at it with the with the eyes of God, when you're looking at it as it as as a deity, you're asking, what do you want of me, God? What do you want of me?
00:24:58
Speaker
deity what What are you trying to communicate? How am I supposed to conduct my affairs? And how will this affect me and my family as I try to live an ethical, moral life yes that to reimburses you for what you've given me? When I go and kill an animal, you will show me what to do so I can show respect and acknowledge.
00:25:20
Speaker
when i when I'm able to harvest, when I see the rain and the rain comes. yes And I thank you for that blessing. The deity, the rock art, you know, the Nahuatl word for it, yeah since we are closer to this context, the Nahuatl word for the divine spirit is Teotl, like T-E-O-T Teotl. Teotl,
00:25:45
Speaker
ti oto yes. Teotl and Manglophone pronunciations more like Teotl. So the Teotl is a very interesting kind of presence. So again, going back to or regressing to this idea of the visual index. The Teotl of the index, if we were to call it that, it does not exercise or impose its control over you.
00:26:15
Speaker
it's It's more like a mendicant, it's more like expecting you to help the Teotl out by receiving the Teotl, giving him a space in your heart or in your mind. And that changes the perspective of any yeah conversation on transcendent presences and the symbolism of religions.
00:26:43
Speaker
And it's not a very fiery, fierce, exacting. It's like ah it's the commandments. Now let's think of the commandments. The commandments may be very strict on you, but the idea that that God is love, that God is wherever there is,
00:27:04
Speaker
bonding, friendship, love, the the texture of culture itself. And the texture of culture itself takes on a very different kind of meaning and perspective when we are in union with the presence of these deities and spirits, who are part of ourselves, who are not there in a space which is very far away and very transcendent and very heroic. It's within the fabric of our lives. This is exactly why the rock art visual index. These deities, instead of being distant,
00:27:44
Speaker
are close and yes they're part of they come to the basket they're on the rocks you can touch them you can feel them they're in the baskets they're on the textiles they're in the sky they're on the earth what this leads to therefore is to question in what phase of human evolution did this sense of the presence of deific entities arise in what stage of evolution. I have been looking at it in in ah you know with some interest, it's a vast subject and you need an entire tome of literature to deal with how
00:28:29
Speaker
humans, if they did migrate out of Africa, if the out if you if you subscribe to the out of Africa theory, the first migrations of the LMN haplogroups towards ah towards Asia, to the Near East and and the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean and then more towards the East. And then from there, these different stratus of civilizations that have come into being following these migrations. The presence of the Andatos 110,000 years before, present.
00:29:11
Speaker
the the presence of Neanderthals, the intermixture possible or not. it's In anthropology, there's no real evidence of an intermixture of Homo sapiens with Homo Neanderthalis.
00:29:23
Speaker
but There is evidence of the use of fire. There is ah from uncarbon dated locations of community feasts, communal feasts, getting together, feasting. The idea of food, eating together, sharing, contentment, sitting around the fire or a hearth, these would have to be integral to the phases in which the notion of
00:29:55
Speaker
a provider, protector, animal master. All the ah all the above, yes. The spirit of the rains. The oldest rock art we're now finding can be 110,000 years old, right? With those little scrapes on the rocks where they've got curvilinear meanders and other things like that in caves.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yes, ah yeah of which we don't really understand much, you know. And we think about Neanderthals and those those red blotches yeah and the the scrapes that are on those big, huge hunks of red hematite. Yes, yeah and the and the bones and the fossil records.
00:30:34
Speaker
and ah so So this might be pointing to a period before the Homo neanderthalis and the Homo sapiens and the Homo australopithecine when the humans, like 200, 300,000 years,
00:30:48
Speaker
ah before present when the bipedal prehensile enabled humans were really beginning to… The seeds are being sowed of so of something greater than their individual self. And let's leave it let's leave it there. See you on the flip-flop, gang, for the next segment.
00:31:09
Speaker
We're back, gang. This is your rock art podcast. And we're talking about the meaning of meanings. We're talking about rock art and it's um the archeology of emotions, the iconicity and dealing with how does the indigenous person think and what do these images on stone possibly communicate? What's their emotional value? and but What can we see in she and feel and set from trying to understand them? Dr. Terza, you're back. Yes. What about some of the basic elements of religion that anthropologists have tried to suss out from shamanism, animism, totemism,
00:31:51
Speaker
These are various forms of the same human intuitiveness. It's an intuitive way of you know looking, intuitive methodology, intuitive epistemology. All the extremes are right there. Animism is at the heart of some of this. Yes. And we're thinking about sort of this indigenous ontology. Right. This indigenous way of thinking. Right. It's ah it's an animistic way of thinking. What do we mean by that?
00:32:21
Speaker
What do we mean, and maybe now we would have to take our departure its with the kind permission of more ah positive positivistically inclined thinkers on this point. What do we mean by animistic intuition is that the human ah being had always had the ability to intuit into the presence of of a master spirit and a friend and a giver. This intuition of the other
00:32:56
Speaker
The intuition of that, you know, that Kami, that Shintoistic Kami, Chiang, as the Chinese Confucians would say it, the Deva, as the Hindu and the Buddhist, the Bodhisattvas, all the Buddhas, the Buddhas are all there, on you know, they are in the bonsai, they're in the springs, and they're in heaven, and in the hearts of man and woman.
Supernatural Belief and Human Well-being
00:33:23
Speaker
this intuitiveness if we call this kind of intuitive process. You know interestingly ah even clinical psychology is ah trying to cope up with this massive faith in the supernatural attributes which are completely illogical, irrational and which do not have any basis in ah and when when we try to analyze how ah the the structure of human experience. But the very so very unexpected
00:34:02
Speaker
element in this question this and and what is what is very unexpected and surprising is that this intuitiveness into the presence of a supernatural entity with supernatural attributes may have a positive effect on well-being and human happiness and it's not necessarily creating a crisis or anxiety? No, it's not not not at all. um Absolutely not. yes and in fact In fact, what they've found is is often people who have deep-seated psychological or physiological or other problems with depression or anxiety or other just overwhelming circumstances
00:34:51
Speaker
When they provide them with altered states of consciousness using some sort of a ah medicant of sorts, yes where they grasp and see and sense the supernatural, yeah it makes them happy. ah it gives them so It gives them something to live for. It shows them another side of the universe. Yes, absolutely fascinating how the ancient civilizations or ancient peoples have been tapping into the resources of herbs and, you know, silo sibbons, the ayahuasca, the peyote, the dhatra. And even independent of these these other psychotropic
00:35:37
Speaker
entities, right? We get there from dancing. We get there from singing. We get there from staying up for days on end and and drumming yeah and humming. And we induce a state of ecstasy. Yes, of happiness, of sharing.
00:35:56
Speaker
ah the communal life and ah this is such a wonderful aspect of human existence and you don't need the silo sib and you don't need them you don't need them but but you could use them you could also use them so and even even you know chemical opioids will create a much tougher crisis for societies. So there's no reason why we should castigate the practice of hallucinogenic, entheogenic substance uses and why the law should not absorb
00:36:39
Speaker
these elements for a better life and for medicinal uses. It's more medicinal. Of course, these are well-known facts, but the one thing that we cannot afford to lose sight of in this process is the emotive core, the core of grace, the core of of being attuned with supernatural attributes or entities who are not distant but who are who are so close to the texture of our lives. A personal connection.
00:37:17
Speaker
yes A supernatural connection, touching, feeling, communicating, the the the essence, feeling a connection and and some sort of a ah a tether to those beings yeah that will allow allow one to be reassured of some sort of largess, right? The attitudes that these beliefs provoke are very redeeming. They do not provoke ah competition, jealousy, fear and so you know, exclusion.
00:37:55
Speaker
right But that's the reason why the earth has been at the center of of human ah groups and bonding. So then this gets us to animism. yeah We're moving up to the next realm, to shamanism. And then we have a we have an intermediary, a leader.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yes, and spends his or her life sort of becoming a a liaison between the supernatural and the who is on the who's intermediary. We could call this this liaison on this ah intermediary who is so either gifted with or who is working on behalf of you to connect you to those entities, making it easier. And that's not like the the priestly control. um i I hate to call it that, but the the fastest
00:38:51
Speaker
priestly cultures are not the same as the shamanic doctors, healers of the indigenous peoples. Exactly. Who are leading of ah more a less sedentary but also more hunter-gatherer form of. Somewhat of a simpler or connected. so So they're not building houses. there There are phases in this process of human prehistory where where humans are moving around on animals or just ah
Shamanism and Spiritual Connection
00:39:23
Speaker
you know moving from place to place in search of pastures and they're carrying their beliefs with them. So, with this shamanistic legacy, you get these individuals who bring down the rain or speak to the ancestors. Yes.
00:39:39
Speaker
or they take the ancestral spirits and they speak to those that are living yes and provide them with a vehicle for their angst and concerns and sorrow, and they transform that time, that period, to allow them to vent and and the grieve.
00:39:59
Speaker
and deal with their problems and and feel better about themselves afterwards. They have dedicated their entire lives to just being a vehicle, you know a receptor, a channel for for these spirits. They're the native doctors and yes and the native native psychologists and psychiatrists. Yes. And that's the the shaman. is you know ah if we Again, if you look at it behaviorally, the shaman is is dedicated. He or she travels,
00:40:35
Speaker
goes through hardships, accepts hardships willingly as an ascetic figure, remains in isolation,
00:40:47
Speaker
in order to come back and so that others can reintegrate with that ah structure of perceptions. And so this is a very interesting phenomenon and the the shaman can thus,
00:41:09
Speaker
you know, we are we really moving or transitioning to to to religious themes, to studies and studies of religious transcendental nature. Now the moving moving up to the highest level, we get to totemism. Now in totemism, what happens occasionally is that it comes full circle because they have an indexical animal, an iconic entity yes that that becomes their totem, that they may see as some sort of an ancestral deity or animal human figure that they believe that they are descended from.
00:41:55
Speaker
you Yes, you have compos composite forms as well. You have an animal-human mixture, you have mixed forms. but But to come back to your main point, Alan, even in this kind of shamanic, tautomic, we can call it assignment. We are assigning us an attribute, a spiritual but personality or identity to an object. yes In everything that the the shamanic religions, the indigenous and original religions of the world have been doing, the reference point is the human ability to view an image of itself
00:42:33
Speaker
with more heightened ah spiritual and supernatural attributes. Someone who is unlike me but who is also not me but not self, not not just as I am but who is like me and who understands me and who is my friend. This elemental friend-mate deity. This is the contribution of the ancient religions. This is the contribution to the religions of the world. And it kind of stagnates with, you may say, for a moment, for a more ambitious way of conducting yourself.
Technology and Indigenous Spirituality Integration
00:43:22
Speaker
It may lead to a denial of technology. But no, technology. Technology is integral to this
00:43:29
Speaker
to this way of saying things because but when you're using an atlatl to hunt, when you're killing an animal in a certain way so as not to give it pain and to to maximize the nutritive value of this gift that you have received from nature.
00:43:47
Speaker
These are integral to this worldview and they do not make you anti-technology. They make you use technology in a way in which you so you begin to see the presence of the deity in the technological equipment itself.
00:44:08
Speaker
And believe me, in this place called Milpa Alta, close to Mexico City, I met this artist who has now, whose works have been exhibited in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and who has not been paid for exhibiting, of course, because he was not quote-unquote famous, but he is like a kind of Nahuatl-speaking shaman, and He got a graduate degree in engineering from from Sheffield, England, and now he uses the small circuits, arduinos and sensors actuators to make puppets of Quetzalcoatl.
00:44:50
Speaker
the snake deed. His name is Fiden Palma and he you can see him, you can look him up on YouTube. But what Palma does, what Palma told me, we were just talking for that entire afternoon over a couple of beers and Palma was telling me that the sensors in in these electronic puppets they do not react in the same way on all locations in all instances of exhibitions and he says this from that same shamanic perspective well that is when when the circuit board the Arduino sensor
00:45:39
Speaker
is reacting to the environment in a way in which it seems that that there is a little, ah title spirit and a Hidden in the sensor. yeah Absolutely. and I think that's a great place to to quit. Okay, gang, there'll be more coming. God bless you. but Thanks for listening. Thank you, Tirtha. And see you on the flip-flop, gang. Bye-bye.
00:46:11
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Rock Art Podcast with Dr. Alan Garfinkel and Chris Webster. Find show notes and contact information at www.arcpodnet dot.com forward slash rock art. Thanks for listening and thanks for sharing this podcast with your family and friends.
00:46:43
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.