Today is Kaamatan

[Warren Stupidity]

The Rituals of Tadau Kaamatan ( Harvest Festival )

One of the main and permanent fixture of the annual Sabah Fest is the Tadau Kaamatan or Harvest Festival celebrations at the end of May. The most easily-recognizable features of this celebration is the general merry-making, cultural performances, traditional sports, and of course, the Unduk Ngadau ( Harvest Festival Queen ) pageant.

The Tadau Kaamatan however has its antecedents in religious beliefs and traditional rituals of the indigenous Kadazan-Dusun people which are directly connected to rice planting and harvesting. If one is to delve deeper into the observance of this festival, one must understand the several rituals involved and their significance.

The Kadazan-Dusuns believe that in the days of yore the people suffered a great famine. Their God ( Kinoingan ) took pity upon them, and sacrificed his daughter, Huminodun, by cutting her into small pieces. Her flesh was sown over the land and from these sprang the first rice plants. Thus the Kadazan-Dusun community believes that the transfigured sacrifice of Huminodun is embodied as the spirit of rice known as Bambazon / Bambarayon. The Kaamatan ( Harvest ) Festival is therefore celebrated to fulfill the five major purposes :

•Home-coming of Bambazon to the Tangkob ( Large rice storage container )


•To restore Bambazon which was lost during careless harvesting and processing of rice through the Magavau ritual ceremony


•To feed the Bambazon with special food (rice wine, fermented rice ( tandut ), eggs, salt and feathers of a slaughtered chicken


•Friendship and merry-making feast.

http://www.e-borneo.com/insideborneo/leisure0205.shtml

[rug]

1. It's also Mel Blanc's birthday.

[edhopper]

2. Is that a religious event?

[rug]

3. It's commentary.

[edhopper]

4. Are you belittling the

religious beliefs of the people of Borneo?
Do you think their holy days are not as important as Christian's.


I am assuming Warren's post was in response to Justin's about Ascension.

[cleanhippie]

5. Come on, ed, you know it's ok to mock others' beliefs.

Just as long as it's not the non-believers doing it.

[rug]

7. You miss the point once again.

[rug]

6. No, I'm mocking Warren's attempt to mock Justin and Christian beliefs.

Mockery warrents mockery.

[Heddi]

8. Calling another poster a "maroon" is an antiquated term with racist roots

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroon_(people)
Maroons (from the Latin-American Spanish word cimarrón: "feral animal, fugitive, runaway", lit. "living on mountaintops"; from Spanish cima: "top, summit&quot were African refugees that escaped slavery in the Americas and formed independent settlements. The term can also be applied to their descendants.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=maroon&allowed_in_frame=0


"put ashore on a desolate island or coast," 1724 (implied in marooning), earlier "to be lost in the wild" (1690s); from maron (n.) "fugitive black slave in the jungles of W.Indies and Dutch Guyana" (1660s), earlier symeron (1620s), from French marron, said to be a corruption of Spanish cimmaron "wild, untamed,"

Certainly you weren't attempting to doubly insult another DU'er---by calling them a maroon (play on 'moron,') or even worse, using a racist term to insult them.

Tsk tsk. It's a shame you chose such an ugly word to use to make, uh, whatever point you were making.

[rug]

9. Take it up with Mel.

I see you recced the mocking call out of another DUer. Always the high road.

[Starboard Tack]

10. Or, of course, it could be a color.

But I'm sure Mel used it in the following sense.
A term of derision often uttered by Bugs Bunny when referring to an interaction with a dopey adversary. It is a mispronunciation of the word "Moron". Quite apt in this context.
But you knew that, didn't you? Just couldn't resist the chance to smear another DUer, huh? Nothing ugly about that, right?

[okasha]

11. She also reitereated

one of her soulmates' accusation that la moi sapphique is a homophobe. Not a whole lot of attachment to the truth displayed here.

[Brettongarcia]

12. It's thought that these myths of "rebirth" in the spring, are the root of Christian resurrection

Many ancient myths describe the basic idea of agriculture, agronomy: you take cuttings or seeds of plants, put them in the ground, and they rise up, to give life in the spring.

"Dead" plants, seeds, come back to life.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. I was wondering if anyone would pickup on this aspect.

Apparently there is a long discussion I can't see, but I suspect that nothing of interest is contained therein.

[trotsky]

14. I suspect your suspicions are correct. n/t

[LostOne4Ever]

16. Personally I prefer the myth of Persephone myself

And again plenty of overlaps one can explore. Her going to the underworld can represent death and her return to her mother Demeter represents rebirth.

And it also contains the theme of eating the forbidden fruit. A parallel to Adam and Eve maybe?

Hard to be sure with how all these ancient myths and religions did have a lot of influence on one another. Some speculating that the demigod Perseus might have had a relation with the Persian people, or how the concept of Heaven and Hell were borrowed from the Zoroastrians.

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. Ouroboros

Ouroboros:

The first known appearance of the ouroboros motif is in the Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld, an ancient Egyptian funerary text in KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun, in the 14th century BC. The text concerns the actions of the god Ra and his union with Osiris in the underworld. In an illustration from this text, two serpents, holding their tails in their mouths, coil around the head and feet of an enormous god, who may represent the unified Ra-Osiris. Both serpents are manifestations of the deity Mehen, who in other funerary texts protects Ra in his underworld journey. The whole divine figure represents the beginning and the end of time.[2]

The ouroboros appears elsewhere in Egyptian sources, where, like many Egyptian serpent deities, it represents the formless disorder that surrounds the orderly world and is involved in that world's periodic renewal.[3] The symbol persisted in Egypt into Roman times, when it frequently appeared on magical talismans, sometimes in combination with other magical emblems.[4] The 4th-century AD Latin commentator Servius was aware of the Egyptian use of the symbol, noting that the image of a snake biting its tail represents the cyclical nature of the year.[5]

Osiris dies and is resurrected. The Nile recedes, only to flood again. The old dies to make way for the new. All of this 14 centuries before mankind is allegedly redeemed by the blood of Christ.

Not a terribly original tale, to say the least.