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These are spirits that were once revered as gods in the South pacific island culture. There's an article on Fortean Times.com, which includes an interesting eyewitness account:
"...Fifteen-year-old Tahiatohiupoko Hita (sometimes known by his obligatory Western nickname of ‘Martin’) used to be just like most contemporary Marquesans: modern, staunchly Catholic and unbelieving of Polynesian legends and superstitions – largely because he didn’t know them..."
"...without consciously knowing why, Martin looked upwards to a nearby cliff face and noticed a small cave he’d never seen before. Suddenly, an enormous black cat bounded from the opening, landing silently only two metres from where Martin and his horse were now frozen to the spot."
"...the relative told Martin about the tupapau, ancestral spirits that can take many forms, both animal and human. The hillside cave, it turned out, was an almost forgotten ancient burial site. Foreign archæologists had never violated it, and so the spirits were still strong. Martin was a lucky boy, the old woman exclaimed; sometimes the Tupapau do bad things to people."
So that's what the encounters are often like (though not always cats; sometimes dogs or pigs as the article says). What I'm interested in is that here we see a manifestation of a spirit long forgotten by the community. Do you have any ideas about "forgotten" entities kept alive by language?
"The word (Tupapau) itself, common in both the Marquesan and Tahitian tongues, can mean ‘spirit’ or ‘cadaver’ in its original Austronesian form which, Suggs states, “is the most widely distributed (pre-European) language on Earth …from Madagascar to Easter Island.” Along with the language...many of the religious underpinnings of the culture survive..." |
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