Monday, May 7, 2012

Jaime de Angulo, Shaman Songs


Go away, big fly, go away!
Don't bother me, big fly.
I am dreaming.






Busy bee flying back to crowded hive,
You are no totem for shaman seeking power!
I am looking for a locust in the grass,
A locust whirring in the sunlight.






i will go the mountain to-night!
he will come, he will come!
he will scare me.






I climb the mountain
I am looking for a crater lake
Don't anybody follow me, I am in trouble
I must sing my bitterness to the lake,
Alone.






Coyote, my power, come!
Through the wind I call you
Through the rain, in the storm,
I, a young man, am calling you
Answer what's in my heart.






I am talking to the lake.
I am talking to all in the lake.
I am not a human being.






I am a head rolling down the hill.
I am a head calling for my power.






I run down the mountain.
I come from the lake
My power is a howling wind.






By the dark pool at sunset
the puma waits.
The shadows rise, clutching the night
i dare not go back.

1 comment:

  1. Jaime de Angulo, quoted by Bob Callahan: "The Wanderer, man or woman, shuns camps and villages, remains in wild, lonely places, on the tops of mountains, in the bottoms of canyons. Whenever anyone approaches, he runs away, throws sticks and rocks at his friends and relatives. They will spy on him, waiting for his condition to improve. They find him performing antics of behavior, running and jumping, with shouts and songs, and breaking branches, hurling rocks at trees.

    "Wandering is something that may unfortunately befall any man or woman, and it can take many, many forms. It may end up in complete loss of soul, and lingering death. When an Indian becomes convinced that he has lost his shadow he will let himself die out of sheer hopelessness. Or it may result in temporary madness. The Indian never courts pain. It would never enter his head to imagine that by making himself miserable and pitiful in the eyes of the Powers he might gain their sympathy and aid. This is not his conception at all. To him, the mysterious powers, the Tinihowis, (we might call them genii) are whimsical spirits living in the woods and entirely indifferent to the affairs of the Pit River Valley. In order to gain their friendship, in order to approach them without scaring them away it is necessary to become wild oneself, it is necessary to lose one's own humanhood and become as wild as possible, as crazy as possible. Haunt lonely, desolate places. Act like a madman, throw rocks about, yell and dance like a maniac, run away when anybody comes. Climb awful mountains, climb down the rim of crater lakes, jump into the silent cold water, spend all night there. Of course, one suffers cold and hunger in such an experience, but it is only a necessary and inevitable accompaniment of getting wild. When you have become quite wild, then perhaps some of the wild things will come to take a look at you, and one of them perhaps take a fancy to you, not because you are suffering and cold, but simply because he happens to like your looks. When this happens the wandering is over, and the Indian becomes a shaman."

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