06-07-2024. The oldest magical ritual in the world.
Although previous excavations of Cloggs Caves—350 km east of Melbourne, Australia—had revealed the existence of two small, palm-sized chimneys, those seemed to be the only significant artifacts at the site in 2020.
However, archaeologists and ethnologists from the Monash Centre for Indigenous Studies recently turned their attention to some wooden sticks protruding from the rock, which were carbon-dated, revealing them to be 12,000 years old, making them true Ice Age relics. Covered in fat (human or animal), they were found stuck in front of the chimneys (almost inside) in a U-shape, with burnt tips, and others had fallen off. Based on the fact that there are no other remains of food or daily life, archaeologist Bruno David postulates that these caves were used exclusively for these rituals, that is, they are sacred caves.
In 1880, ethnologist A. Howitt described the following magical ritual of the mulla-mullung (sorcerers and healers of the Gunai-Kurnai people): they went to these caves to burn the tip of an evergreen plant (casunaria) along with some belongings belonging to another person. The "murrawan" stick was stuck curved into the ground in front of the fire and left to burn amid chanting until it fell of its own weight or ashes. This ritual served both to heal a sick person and to destroy an enemy.
Therefore, we are talking about a ritual that would have been practiced continuously from the Ice Age until at least the 19th century, when Howitt saw and described it. 500 generations would have known and practiced it.
The surviving GunaiKurnai people today maintain a very similar ritual, according to Russell Mullet, a modern-day GunaiKurnai, with the slight difference that the stick is thrown into the fire. This is a pre-colonial remnant of their traditional sorcery and also evidence of the survival of an oral magical tradition dating back 12,000 years. It would be the oldest attested magical ritual in human history.
Here's the news from the Monash University website:
Pietro V. Carracedo Ahumada - pietrocarracedo@gmail.com
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