Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Ad Borsboom
- Contents
- Maradjiri and Mamurrng: Ad Borsboom and Me
- Conversations with Mostapha: Learning about Islamic Law in a Bookshop in Rabat
- Education in Eighteenth Century Polynesia
- From Knowledge to Consciousness: Teachers, Teachings, and the Transmission of Healing
- When ‘Natives’ Use What Anthropologists Wrote: The Case of Dutch Rif Berbers
- The Experience of the Elders: Learning Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Netherlands
- On Hermeneutics, Ad’s Antennas and the Wholly Other
- Bontius in Batavia: Early Steps in Intercultural Communication
- Ceremonies of Learning and Status in Jordan
- Al Amien: A Modern Variant of an Age-Old Educational Institution
- Yolngu and Anthropological Learning Styles in Ritual Contexts
- Learning to Be White in Guadeloupe
- Learning from ‘the Other’, Writing about ‘the Other’
- Maori Styles of Teaching and Learning
- Tutorials as Integration into a Study Environment
- The Transmission of Kinship Knowledge
- Fieldwork in Manus, Papua New Guinea: On Change, Exchange and Anthropological Knowledge
- Bodily Learning: The Case of Pilgrimage by Foot to Santiago de Compostela
- Just Humming: The Consequence of the Decline of Learning Contexts among the Warlpiri
- A Note on Observation
- Fragments of Transmission of Kamoro Culture (South-West Coast, West Papua), Culled from Fieldnotes, 1952-1954
- Getting Answers May Take Some Time… The Kugaaruk (Pelly Bay) Workshop on the Transfer of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit from Elders to Youths, June 20 - 27, 2004
- Conflict in the Classroom: Values and Educational Success
- The Teachings of Tokunupei
- Consulting the Old Lady
- A Chain of Transitional Rites: Teachings beyond Boundaries
- ‘That Tour Guide – Im Gotta Know Everything’: Tourism as a Stage for Teaching ‘Culture’ in Aboriginal Australia
- The Old Fashioned Funeral: Transmission of Cultural Knowledge
From Knowledge to Consciousness: Teachers, Teachings, and the Transmission of Healing
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 January 2021
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Ad Borsboom
- Contents
- Maradjiri and Mamurrng: Ad Borsboom and Me
- Conversations with Mostapha: Learning about Islamic Law in a Bookshop in Rabat
- Education in Eighteenth Century Polynesia
- From Knowledge to Consciousness: Teachers, Teachings, and the Transmission of Healing
- When ‘Natives’ Use What Anthropologists Wrote: The Case of Dutch Rif Berbers
- The Experience of the Elders: Learning Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Netherlands
- On Hermeneutics, Ad’s Antennas and the Wholly Other
- Bontius in Batavia: Early Steps in Intercultural Communication
- Ceremonies of Learning and Status in Jordan
- Al Amien: A Modern Variant of an Age-Old Educational Institution
- Yolngu and Anthropological Learning Styles in Ritual Contexts
- Learning to Be White in Guadeloupe
- Learning from ‘the Other’, Writing about ‘the Other’
- Maori Styles of Teaching and Learning
- Tutorials as Integration into a Study Environment
- The Transmission of Kinship Knowledge
- Fieldwork in Manus, Papua New Guinea: On Change, Exchange and Anthropological Knowledge
- Bodily Learning: The Case of Pilgrimage by Foot to Santiago de Compostela
- Just Humming: The Consequence of the Decline of Learning Contexts among the Warlpiri
- A Note on Observation
- Fragments of Transmission of Kamoro Culture (South-West Coast, West Papua), Culled from Fieldnotes, 1952-1954
- Getting Answers May Take Some Time… The Kugaaruk (Pelly Bay) Workshop on the Transfer of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit from Elders to Youths, June 20 - 27, 2004
- Conflict in the Classroom: Values and Educational Success
- The Teachings of Tokunupei
- Consulting the Old Lady
- A Chain of Transitional Rites: Teachings beyond Boundaries
- ‘That Tour Guide – Im Gotta Know Everything’: Tourism as a Stage for Teaching ‘Culture’ in Aboriginal Australia
- The Old Fashioned Funeral: Transmission of Cultural Knowledge
Summary
‘Anthropology is not for whimpers!’ was the opening line of Ad Borsboom's heart-warming laudation at my PhD ceremony. With these words Ad transmitted his final teachings to me and referred to my anthropological fieldwork in the interior of the Bird's Head of West Papua. For 13 months, I lived in the village of Ayawasi to conduct research on healing knowledge and rituals in the context of religious change. It was Ad who taught me the love for the Pacific region through his vivid lectures and made me want to conduct my field research in a Pacific culture. Back at the university again, it was Ad who created the possibility for me to turn my data into a doctoral thesis: his confidence in me and my research made him persistent in finding funds for a PhD position. With commitment and enthusiasm he guided me towards the completion of my thesis.
In Papua, I found a teacher in the person of Maria Baru, one of the most renowned healers in the region of Ayawasi. With wisdom and guidance, she took me under her wing as her student and initiated me into healing knowledge and secrets. She was dedicated to her task of giving me a ‘full understanding’ of former and contemporary healing performances and knowledge, in the realm of both indigenous and Christian healing. My journey through the world of healing exposed a rich variety of healing rituals and knowledge. I was taught that the transmission of healing knowledge occurred through initiation, dreaming, and a state equal to meditation, by which ancestors reveal messages and ways to heal by transmitting healing methods and secret formulas. Through initiation, dreaming and meditation the essence of their culture is revealed and transferred. These teach ings behold healing in such a way that it brings and restores balances in peoples lives, both physical as well as spiritual. Within the process of religious change, local people searched for ways to restore and maintain balances in their lives, in which the teachings evolved from knowledge to consciousness.
Transmitting Indigenous Healing Knowledge
Let me take you on a short voyage through the teachings of Maria Baru in relation to some elementary parts of the process I referred to above.
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- Information
- Cultural Styles of Knowledge TransmissionEssays in Honour of Ad Borsboom, pp. 32 - 37Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2009