-:- little vision tricksters -:-
-:- spook functions -:-
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Throughout our survey from Ireland to Australia, we’ve examined a number of different types of spooks which fulfil a wide range of functions in human society. Here is a broad summary of these main functions:
1. Memories of Former People – On Guam, we saw that the Taotao Mona were essentially cultural memories of the pre-Christian inhabitants of the island, while on Flores, the Ebu Gogo may have been memories of the island’s previous inhabitants, the little hominids Homo floresiensis. Similarly, in Ireland the leprechauns were residual memories of such peoples as the Tuatha Dé Danánn who lived long before the Celts.
Thus the spooks fulfil an important function of setting mankind in an environment with a history, of maintaining, no matter how frivolously or anecdotally, a connection with the past and with the former custodians of the land that is now inhabited.
2. Memories of Old Deities – Similarly in Ireland , the Tuatha Dé Danánn themselves were considered Gods by the Celts and as such, spooks can also represent folk memories of the former deities that were worshipped before the native religion changed. We find this also in the stories of the elves in Germanic countries where memories of the Norse Aesir continue. To a certain extent, the Taotao Mona of Guam also fulfil this function.
Again, this function maintains a connection with the past, not merely with the people but with the old gods. It is as if the gods formerly believed to be inhabitant in the environment cannot be washed away entirely lest they become angry and cause calamity. They thus provide a method of residual belief which maintains a local sense of the sacred, especially in regions where a religion centred on a very distant environment (such as Christianity, centred on Jerusalem or Rome , or Islam, centred on Mecca ) currently holds sway in the minds of the people.
3. Ancestor Spirits – Virtually all the spooks encountered in our survey have fulfilled this function to a certain extent. However, it was most overtly expressed in Guam , and with one aspect of the kami of Japan . Again, it provides a connection with the past, but this particular function provides the most intimate connection. Gods may well be gods, and former people may well have been people, but these spooks are my ancestors, who lived in this land.
4. Guardians of the Boundaries – The Taotao Mona of Guam , the leprechauns in Ireland and to a certain extent, the hekura of the Yanomami fulfilled this function in that to wander alone in the forest for long periods of time might well invite the intentions of a malicious sorcerer with his hekura-inspired power. This sociological, moral or psychological function binds people to the culture or village that they live in, and warns them not to stray from the mainstream of life. This is most especially pronounced in Guam , where the Catholic Church actively encouraged the beliefs in the Taotao Mona so as to keep the Chamorro people away from their formerly sacred burial and ritual sites.
5. Sacred Essences – The kami of Japan , the wandjina of Australia and the hekura of the Yanomami all to some extent stand for the absolute concept of sacredness and sacred power. This provided the people with an easily understandable sense of the energies of the world and the sense of the numinous.
6. Makers of Prosperity – Leprechauns, kami (and kamui), hekura and wandjina are all capable of being bringers of riches and prosperity. As the sacred custodians of the land, they can bring rain or cause crops to grow so as to make the people become healthy and fertile.
This notion allows mankind to bargain with the spooks of the land, and as most overtly seen among the Ainu, actively encourage by prayer, worship or even threats, to bring the prosperity desired.
7. Makers of Mischief – Equally the spooks are capable of causing calamity. In Guam, Germany, Japan, and Ireland, the spooks generally cause havoc of their own free will, doing so out of mere spite, mischief, in anger at the lack of ceremonies, because they were disturbed without prior warning, or as with the Ainu, out of their own incompetence or childish refusal to keep up their side of the bargain.
However, among the Yanomami and Wunambal, this mischievous or evil side can be controlled, either by conscious acts of creation (in the Australian case) or by harnessing the spook power to commit acts of havoc and sorcery (as in the Amazonian case).
Either way, the mischief spooks remind mankind of the uncertainties of life and provide explanations for this. On a deeper level, attempts to avoid disaster through prayer and ceremonies is similarly an attempt to neurolinguistically program the mind to seek success.
8. Creator Spirits – The wandjina of the Wunambal people are the creator spirits par excellence. Not merely engaged in a single act of Creation, they continuously create the landscape, aided by mankind who honours them by restoring their images. Also falling into this function are the kami of Japan who created the world, and brought about mankind’s existence.
9. Makers of Magic – Creators, magicians, bringers of prosperity and mischief, all have at their root the concept of the making of magic. It is interesting to note which of the peoples in our survey believe that such magic can be harnessed and which believe that they are at its mercy. Generally, more ‘primitive’ peoples are of the former type, and more ‘civilised’ peoples of the latter. This may therefore have been a historical development.
10. Shamanic Allies – This function is best illustrated among the Yanomami. It is interesting to note a resonance, however, between the two faces of the Yanomami shaman – healer and sorcerer – and the two souls of the Japanese kami.
11. Symbols of Land Ownership – The final function seen in our survey was the very image of the wandjina stating that the landscape is owned by given custodians. Indeed the very act of making or restoring the images is a statement of custodianship and effectively transforms the land into such a place that is owned.
These are useful classifications, but they do not seem to particularly approach the 'reality' - if we may use such a term - of what have throughout this essay been called spooks. We have taken so far a fairly anthropological, or sociological, approach to the beliefs surrounding them. Is it now not possible to take a more spiritual approach and begin to engage with these spooks on their own terms and gain a deeper meaning?
Can we not look at spooks as the very essences of our changing humanity, arising not merely as we begin to comprehend our landscape, but during the very process of us becoming human, and whose deepest function has been to allow mankind to gain increased knowledge of his own evolving brain and nervous system? Can we not view their forms as remnants of that process which is still occurring in our own modern societies?
Whether this kind of evolution occurs in fits-and-starts, or as a continuous, gentle flowing process, the constant presence of spooks throughout the anthropological literature, and their increasingly central function the further 'back' in time we seem to go, appears to lend us an avenue to an understanding not only of our ancient past, but how humanity changed and evolved, and how our evolution 'flipped' so that we lost the main functions of the spooks from our spiritual lives.
(c) Bruce Rimell, June 2005
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