Observations placeholder
A P Elkin - Aboriginal men of high degree - Medicine men can fly
Identifier
003286
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
From Aboriginal Men of High degree - A P Elkin
In many tribes especially in southeast Australia' medicine men "can fly" through space and see what is occurring elsewhere. They might produce magical cord or familiars and travel on or in them or they might pass through the air without such accessories. Normally, however, their bodies do not take part in these journeys; only their spirits do. Indeed, their bodies are sometimes asleep.
A Nyul-Nyul informant told me how he doubted the claim of a medicine man to gain such information, so to test him, he asked him to ascertain when his (the questioner's) white employer was returning. He said that neither he nor the medicine man knew this. The latter went off a short distance and sat under a tree with the moonlight playing through the leaves and produced his "spirit-dogs," which the questioner actually saw. The medicine man sent these familiars on their errand and some little time later told him that as dawn came next morning he would hear the sound of his employer's horse approaching. Sure enough, this came to pass, confounding the unbelief of my informant