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(Note: In Old Irish transcriptions, "7" is standard notation for the character the scribes put for "ocus," meaning: "and.")
Proinsias Mac Cana argues convincingly that certain figures in Irish tales of kingship relate to ancient Celtic goddesses.184 While I would agree with this, there are certain points in the tales that seem to indicate the woman concerned is not purely the goddess of the land, but also a woman, possibly a shaman. One example is the way in which the widowed queen, Mór Muman, persists in mourning her first husband after his death, causing her second husband to reproach her.185
This does not seem like the unfeeling territorial goddess, as people sometimes view Queen Medb, with one man in the shadow of the other. (Not necessarily an accurate view - but that is another issue.) It seems rather, like a woman, fulfilling a priestly or shamanic function as a representative of the goddess, who nonetheless, has personal feelings about the matter. In addition, her initial derangement has a strong relationship to shamanic initiatory illness, as does that of Mis.
If the shaman acts as an oracle for a deity, they are not considered an actor playing a part, but are considered to become the deity.186 This can lead to confusion for modern readers as they try to understand what is going on. The fairy folk also seem to be portrayed as somewhere between gods and humans, as at the end of the Serglige, where Fand seems to have physical form so that everyone can see her, but in this case, Manannán does not. Yet, in the tale of Mongan's conception, he fights in battle and sires a child.187 In later folklore, people with shamanic abilities were sometimes viewed as incarnate members of the síd.188
The presence of shamans in Celtic culture may go some way to explaining all the confusion. Of course, there may be other explanations, such as Christian scribes being unsure how "divinely" to portray the old Celtic gods.
While Eliade felt the shamanic journey was the only central feature, and possession unnecessary to the shaman, research among many shamanic cultures suggests that this, too, is a central practice in the shaman's reportoire more often than not.189 This includes the Tungus who gave us the word "shaman" itself. It is also true in some cultures that the shaman is viewed as the living embodiment of the god, not just intermittently during possession trance.190
If the shaman can be seen as the living embodiment of certain deities or cosmic forces, what significance might the shaman's illness and restoration have? Aisling poetry191 is of particular significance to this issue.
In aisling poetry, the Goddess of the land is often represented as a deranged and suffering madwoman like Mis. This illustrates that the land of Ireland is in a bad way. The cosmos has been thrown out of order. From a political view, poets such as Aodhagán Ó Rathaille tie their depictions to the Jacobite cause.192 There is, of course, also a close link between the welfare of the divine monarch and the well being of the land, and the marriage of the king to the goddess of the land. In these poems, the land is in a bad way because she does not have the right spouse. "...Banba is in pain without consort, wedded though she be."193
She is described in one poem as the "brightness of brightness,"194 also as a spéir-bhean, or "sky-woman."195 She can transmit knowledge, and things the poet fears to reveal. When frightened by mention of the Virgin Mary, she retreats to the fairy mansion of Luachair.196 In another poem she is described as being reduced to a state where "...the hair of her head falls down in heavy showers! Streams of blood gush forth in torrents from her eyes! Her whole visage is of the appearance of black coal! Her limbs are shrunken, bound and tortured!"197
The only thing that can restore her is what restored Mis, her right spouse; in this case, a fit ruler for Ireland. Here we have ideas of sovereignty, the goddess of the land, and a deranged, yet spiritually powerful figure, all bound up together.
In some ways, the hoped for restoration of the madwoman in the poems is that of a restoration of cosmic order. In some respects, this is what the restoration of the hamatsa represents to the Kwakiutl.
The Kwakiutl and Celtic societies have some similarities. Each are tribal, and there is an enormous stress in both on generosity. As the Irish kings were obligated to give great feasts, so the Kwakiutl chief must give great potlatches, and wealth and prestige were measured by how much you could afford to give away.198 Consequently, untempered voracity is one of the worse vices thinkable. I believe in both of these societies figures such as Mis and the hamatsa helped the people come to terms with life's harsh realities in very particular ways.
The ceremonies that are used to return the shaman to the world are often elaborate. Amongst the Kwakiutl, in particular, the cannibal dance takes up an enormous amount of time, energy, resources, and sacrifice, to the point of the flesh offerings given by the participants.
We see community involvement in the healing of both Cú Chulainn and Óengus. In the case of Mis, Dubh Ruis is the only one physically present, yet the communities' interest in her is indicated by the fact that the king wants her saved, despite her depredations.
There are stages to this ordering process. In the Lebor Gabála Érenn, we find the land being divided up in different ways, by different immigrants, which the Rees' have spoken of as possibly representing different stages of spiritual and societal development.199
In a Kwakiutl myth of the "first time", there is hunger and enmity in the land. The parents of Transformer, the order bringing divine figure, will not even feed him and their other son. This illustrates the Kwakiutl prime vice of greed. Likewise, a lack of generosity was regarded as a sufficiently severe vice to deprive Bres of the kingship of the Tuatha Dé Danann in the Cath Maige Tuireadh.200
In the Kwakiutl myth, Transformer then goes forth to set things right in the world.201 He sets up rules for meals, reincarnation, and the continual interchange between this and the other world. Before he does this, there is no harmony between the worlds. Without the organising power of the spirits, the Kwakiutl lived in a world of undependable resources, and constant hunger.202
A very important aspect of this tale is that before Transformer, there is helplessness. Hunger and passion govern humans, and they have no certain way of obtaining food. Untempered voracity reigns. After Transformer, there is at least an idea of how the universe works and a workable system of exchange with the spirits.
Helplessness and lack of control also characterises the initial stage of shamanic initiatory illness as well as schizophrenia.203 This trauma is brought about by what is felt by the sufferer to be inadequate behaviour or helplessness in the face of life situations that are "culturally acknowledged as crucially important."204 The inability to control a traumatic life situation is what Mis experiences in the death of her father, as we have already seen.
If we look at it more deeply, however, we will see that in a larger sense, we must all face death and chaos in life. The sense of order can be shattered at any moment by disease, death, or injury. The person diagnosed as psychotic will generally exhibit nothing that any human does not exhibit under extreme and prolonged threat.205 This threat, precipitated by trauma of some sort, may be seen as the actual state of being we are all in, just perceived with greater intensity and emotional resonance by the schizophrenic or the shamanic candidate. However, the shaman does more than observe, he acts as mediator.
I believe the shaman figure, in all these instances, may represent a microcosm of the creation process itself. Eliade writes that "The total crisis of the future shaman, sometimes leading to complete disintegration of the personality and to madness, can be valuated not only as an initiatory death, but also as a symbolic return to the precosmogonic chaos, to the amorphous and indescribable state that precedes any cosmogony..."206
Amongst the Kwakiutl, the winter ceremonial is seen as a time when time stops, when the events that brought about creation are re-enacted in both spiritual and physical dimensions.207 The shaman during this time, as the wild cannibal figure, goes through the stages of creation. He is fully absorbed in chaos. He is mad, forsaking all laws of human conduct, becoming one with the devouring power of the abyss.
Likewise, Mis devours humans and animals brutally and indiscriminately, as the forces of destruction and death come to all, forsaking all laws of man, but also not being limited by them. For example, she can fly and run with incredible speed. By tearing down all limitations, she moves beyond the limits of the rest of humanity. This seems to be considered valuable, as the king wants her returned to the world, not just killed. Yet if these powers remain sunk in the chaotic state, she remains a danger to all around her. We see the same thing with Cú Chulainn, when his warrior heat, so useful in battle, must be quenched lest he turn on friend as well as foe. Wildness tamed and harnessed yields its healing power. In South America, the Wild Woman of the Forest deity became Our Lady of Remedies.208
Tamed and returned to society both the hamatsa, symbolically in the ritual and as an eminent member of his society, and Mis, in bearing four children and being multi-talented, are seen as embodying creative forces in the end.
This shows that the shamanic candidate, to become a shaman, must go through the creation process fully, emerging from chaos. The shaman must be healed. He or she must return from the primal chaos, bringing its potency with them, but at the same time, harnessing that power to the good of the society.
Because of this, I believe that one way of viewing the shamanic candidate is as a guarantor of the creation process. The shaman, in repeating the creation journey, from chaos to order, shows that order still flows out of the primal creative and destructive chaos. By becoming the vehicle for the continued interchange between spirit and humanity, they show that the exchange is still working. In a way, the shaman may be seen as a living demonstration of a "covenant" between the other world and this one.
We may see a reflection of this concept in the use of the word comairche in the Serglige Con Culainn. In the scene I referred to earlier, when Cú Chulainn is still in a catatonic state and the fairy man comes to speak with him, he says "Inid i lobrai 7 i n-ingás dano atá, is móo de as chomairche airthiu."209 Which I translate, (erring on the side of literalness to make my point), as "When it is in weakness and sickness from wounds that he is, all the more is [the] guarantee on account of him."
This might be interpreted as an idea that the worse off the shamanic candidate is in his distress, the more powerfully his recovery represents the restoration of order. Even while in his distress, the candidate is the repository for enormous power. Thus in this case, the fairy man says even in his current state, Cú Chulainn is more a guarantor for Ulster than ever before.
In this manner, although Cú Chulainn does not gain the obvious powers of Mis and Óengus, the very act of his illness, and the affirmation it gives the community, might be seen as a sufficient gift. The other issue is the fact that Cú Chulainn is already perceived as being possessed of numerous gifts. It might be a question of "What do you give the man who has everything?"
When the initiated shaman passes through the fires of his or her personal and spiritual torment to a place of power, and through a spiritual and possibly physical mating, to a place of union and love, they demonstrate the power of the spirits to heal. Even Silverman, not a great booster of the shaman, says their personality is far different from that of the schizophrenic in at least one important way: they are "remarkably resilient."
By this resilience, the shaman demonstrates the power of the human soul to emerge from adversity and helplessness in the face of the fearsome and chaotic realities of life as a co-creator with those same sacred powers. By doing so, I believe the shaman may well represent first a covenant, then an intermediary, between the community and the forces of creation. I think this idea underlies these Celtic tales as it does other tales from recognised shamanic cultures like the Kwakiutl.
I will end with a quote that I think sums up this view quite well:
Footnotes
184 Mac Cana, 1955-56 |
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