FW: Comments on recent additions

[BURTON John]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bryant Allen [mailto:bryant.allen at anu.edu.au]
> Sent: Thursday, 4 April 2002 9:30 AM
> To: BURTON John
> Subject: RE: Comments on recent additions
> 
> 'belo' is in everyday usage in the East Sepik, meaning 
> "midday". Its orgin 
> is the striking of a 'bell', usually an empty gas cylinder or 
> bomb casing, 
> to signal a mid-day break in work on the plantations.
> 
> 'glasman' is also, and is a witch doctor who tries to sustain 
> life and cure 
> illness, as opposed to a sorcerer who tries to cause illness 
> and to kill. 
> The word is derived from the ability of the glasman to look 
> into a person, 
> or the ground, to see the source of the sickness or evil or 
> some other 
> thing not apparent to normal people. In 1971 when I pulled 
> out my Suunto 
> compass, I immediately attracted the attention of the old 
> kago chappies, 
> who asked if they could look through it too. They used the 
> term 'glasim 
> graun' because you looked through the nice silvery compass. 
> They hoped they 
> might be able to see the underworld where their dead 
> ancestors and the kago 
> were waiting to be discovered. Years before during the height 
> of their 
> powers they had been able to do that, but a spell in jail had 
> blunted their 
> skills.
> 
> Cheers,
> Bryant
>