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52-531: A kurdaitcha , or kurdaitcha man , also spelt gadaidja , cadiche , kadaitcha , karadji , or kaditcha ( Arrernte orthography: kwertatye ), is a type of shaman and traditional executioner amongst the Arrernte people , an Aboriginal group in Central Australia . The name featherfoot is used to denote the same figure by other Aboriginal peoples. The kurdaitcha may be brought in to punish

104-401: A brief piercing chant, that the kurdaitcha chants. Then, he and his fellow hunters return to the village and the kundela is ritually burned. The condemned man may live for several days or even weeks. But, he believes so strongly in the curse that has been uttered, that he will surely die. It is said that the ritual loading of the kundela creates a "spear of thought" which pierces the victim when

156-423: A consonant in fact select the bisyllabic variant. Stress falls on the first nucleus preceded by a consonant, which by this analysis can be stated more uniformly as the second underlying syllable. And the frequentative is formed by reduplicating the final VC syllable of the verb stem; it does not include the final [ə] . Central/Eastern Arrernte orthography does not write word-initial /ə/ , and adds an e to

208-446: A deep interest in understanding the dynamic interrelation between mind and body. Sigmund Freud pursued a deep interest in psychosomatic illnesses following his correspondence with Georg Groddeck who was, at the time, researching the possibility of treating physical disorders through psychological processes. Hélène Michel-Wolfromm applied psychosomatic medicine to the field of gynecology and sexual problems experienced by women. In

260-426: A guilty party by death. The word may also relate to the ritual in which the death is willed by the kurdaitcha man, known also as bone-pointing. The word may also be used by Europeans to refer to the shoes worn by the kurdaitcha, which are woven of feathers and human hair and treated with blood. Among traditional Indigenous Australians there is no such thing as a belief in natural death. All deaths are considered to be

312-459: A kurdaitcha man. They were very scared and danced a corroboree to chase evil spirits away. Anthropologist Ted Strehlow and doctors brought in to investigate said that the deaths were most likely caused by malnutrition and pneumonia , and Strehlow said that Aboriginal belief in "black magic" was in general dying out. Europeans also used the name kurdaitcha (or kadaitcha) to refer to a distinctive type of oval feathered shoes, apparently worn by

364-505: A major factor affecting medical outcomes are areas where psychosomatic medicine has competence. Some physical diseases are believed to have a mental component derived from stresses and strains of everyday living. This has been suggested, for example, of lower back pain and high blood pressure , which some researchers have suggested may be related to stresses in everyday life. The psychosomatic framework additionally sees mental and emotional states as capable of significantly influencing

416-708: A paper entitled "Note on the customs connected with the use of so-called kurdaitcha shoes of Central Australia" in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria . The paper was described as a "...careful piecing together of kurdaitcha revenge technique from accounts obtained from old men in the Charlotte Waters area in 1892". Aboriginal people also began to make kurdaitcha shoes for sale to Europeans, and Spencer and Gillen noted seeing ones that were in fact far too small to have actually been worn. Until

468-520: A psychosomatic component. In the medieval Islamic world the Persian psychologist- physicians Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (d. 934) and Haly Abbas (d. 994) developed an early model of illness that emphasized the interaction of the mind and the body. He proposed that a patient's physiology and psychology can influence one another. Contrary to Hippocrates and Galen , Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi did not believe that mere regulation and modulation of

520-602: A psychosomatic component. A psychosomatic component is often inferred when there are some aspects of the patient's presentation that are unaccounted for by biological factors, or some cases where there is no biological explanation at all. For instance, Helicobacter pylori causes 80% of peptic ulcers . However, most people living with Helicobacter pylori do not develop ulcers, and 20% of patients with ulcers have no H. pylori infection. Therefore, in these cases, psychological factors could still play some role. Similarly, in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), there are abnormalities in

572-470: A sacred place. Although they were permitted to be used more than once, they usually did not last more than one journey. When in use, they were decorated with lines of white and pink down and were said to leave no tracks. Spencer and Gillen noted that the genuine kurdaitcha shoe has a small opening on one side where a dislocated big toe can be inserted. In 1896 Patrick Byrne , a self-taught anthropologist at Charlotte Waters telegraph station, published

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624-456: A stroke, but the largest number presented a day after Tedy Bruschi , a local sports figure, was hospitalized for a stroke. Presumably they began misinterpreting their own harmless symptoms, a group phenomenon now known as Tedy Bruschi syndrome. Robert Adler is credited with coining the term Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) to categorize a new field of study also known as mind-body medicine. The principles of mind-body medicine suggest that our mind and

676-617: Is a dialect cluster in the Arandic language group spoken in parts of the Northern Territory , Australia, by the Arrernte people . Other spelling variations are Arunta or Arrarnta , and all of the dialects have multiple other names. There are about 1,800 speakers of Eastern / Central Arrernte , making this dialect one of the widest spoken of any Indigenous language in Australia, the one usually referred to as Arrernte and

728-499: Is argued to be VC(C), with obligatory codas and no onsets . Underlying phrase-initial /ə/ is realised as zero, except before a rounded consonant where, by a rounding process of general applicability, it is realised as [ʊ] . It is also common for phrases to carry a final [ə] corresponding to no underlying segment. Among the evidence for this analysis is that some suffixes have suppletive variants for monosyllabic and bisyllabic bases. Stems that appear monosyllabic and begin with

780-402: Is assumed that the ritual was faulty in its execution. The phenomenon is recognised as psychosomatic in that death is caused by an emotional response—often fear—to some suggested outside force and is known as " voodoo death ". As this term refers to a specific religion, the medical establishment has suggested that "self-willed death", or "bone-pointing syndrome" is more appropriate. In Australia,

832-423: Is little allophonic variation in different consonantal contexts for the vowels. Instead, the phonemes can be realised by various different articulations in free variation . For example, the phoneme /ə/ can be pronounced [ɪ ~ e ~ ə ~ ʊ] in most contexts. However, it is required to be [ʊ] when phrase-initial before a labialized consonant (see below). The underlying syllable structure of Eastern/Central Arrernte

884-406: Is stuck to their bodies after they coat themselves in human blood and they also don masks of emu feathers. They hunt in pairs or threes and will pursue their quarry for years if necessary, never giving up until the person has been cursed. Once the man is caught, one of the kurdaitcha goes down onto one knee and points the kundela. The victim is said to be frozen with fear and stays to hear the curse,

936-442: Is unusual in that there are only two contrastive vowel phonemes, /a/ and /ə/ . Two-vowel systems are very rare worldwide, but are also found in some Northwest Caucasian languages . It seems that the vowel system derives from an earlier one with more phonemes, but after the development of labialised consonants in the vicinity of round vowels, the vowels lost their roundedness/backness distinction, merging into just two phonemes. There

988-488: Is used when Anmatyerr people when hunting, when talking to the deaf, when somebody passes away and when talking to elders. The Northern Territory Department of Education has a program for teaching Indigenous culture and languages, underpinned by a plan entitled Keeping Indigenous Languages and Cultures Strong – A Plan for Teaching and Learning of Indigenous Languages and Cultures in the Northern Territory with

1040-515: The Living Archive of Aboriginal Languages . Projects are being run to revive dying dialects of the language, such as Southern Arrernte/Pertame. This description relates to Central or Eastern Arrernte. /ɰ ~ ʁ̞/ is described as velar [ ɰ ] by Breen & Dobson (2005) , and as uvular [ ʁ̞ ] by Henderson (2003) . Stops are unaspirated. Prenasalized stops are voiced throughout; prestopped nasals are voiceless during

1092-478: The 1970s these shoes were a popular craft item, made to sell to visitors to many sites in the central and Western Desert areas of Australia. The expectation that death would result from having a bone pointed at a victim is not without foundation. Other similar rituals that cause death have been recorded around the world. Victims become listless and apathetic, usually refusing food or water with death often occurring within days of being "cursed". When victims survive, it

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1144-776: The 1970s, Thure von Uexküll and his colleagues in Germany and elsewhere proposed a biosemiotic theory (the umwelt concept) that was widely influential as a theoretical framework for conceptualizing mind-body relations. This model shows that life is a meaning or functional system. Farzad Goli further explains in Biosemiotic Medicine (2016), how signs in the form of matter (e.g., atoms, molecules, cells), energy (e.g., electrical signals in nervous system), symbols (e.g., words, images, machine codes), and reflections (e.g., mindful moments, metacognition) can be interpreted and translated into each other. Henri Laborit , one of

1196-574: The U.S., psychosomatic medicine is considered a subspecialty of the fields of psychiatry and neurology, in Germany and other European countries it is considered a subspecialty of internal medicine. Thure von Uexküll and contemporary physicians following his thoughts regard the psychosomatic approach as a core attitude of medical doctors, thereby declaring it not as a subspecialty, but rather an integrated part of every specialty. Medical treatments and psychotherapy are used to treat illnesses believed to have

1248-702: The abolition of the Aboriginal-led government body Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission cursed the Australian Prime Minister , John Howard , by pointing a bone at him. An act of kurdaitcha initiates both legal and cultural conflict in Peter Weir 's 1977 film The Last Wave . Arrernte language Arrernte or Aranda ( / ˈ ʌr ə n d ə / ; Eastern Arrernte pronunciation: [aɾəⁿɖə] ), or sometimes referred to as Upper Arrernte ( Upper Aranda ),

1300-474: The behavior of the gut. However, there are no actual structural changes in the gut, so stress and emotions might still play a role. The strongest perspective on psychosomatic disorders is that attempting to distinguish between purely physical and mixed psychosomatic disorders is obsolete as almost all physical illness have mental factors that determine their onset, presentation, maintenance, susceptibility to treatment, and resolution. According to this view, even

1352-399: The body tempers and medication would remedy mental disorders because words play a vital and necessary role in emotional regulation . To change such behaviors, he used techniques, such as belief altering, regular musing, rehearsals of experiences, and imagination. In the beginnings of the 20th century, there was a renewed interest in psychosomatic concepts. Psychoanalyst Franz Alexander had

1404-419: The bone is pointed at him. It is as if an actual spear has been thrust at him and his death is certain. Kinjika had been accused of an incestuous relationship (their mothers were the daughters of the same woman by different fathers). Instead of going to his trial, he fled the village. The hunters found him and cursed him. It is said that is why he died. In 2004, an Indigenous Australian woman who disagreed with

1456-615: The constraints that society puts on individuals in order to maintain hierarchical structures of dominance. The film My American Uncle , directed by Alain Resnais and influenced by Laborit, explores the relationship between self and society and the effects of the inhibition of action. In February 2005, the Boston Syndromic Surveillance System detected an increase in young men seeking medical treatment for stroke . Most of them did not actually experience

1508-404: The course of any physical illness. Psychiatry traditionally distinguishes between psychosomatic disorders, disorders in which mental factors play a significant role in the development, expression, or resolution of a physical illness, and somatoform disorders , disorders in which mental factors are the sole cause of a physical illness. It is difficult to establish for certain whether an illness has

1560-479: The course of serious illnesses, such as cancer, can potentially be influenced by a person's thoughts, feelings and general state of mental health. Addressing such factors is the remit of the applied field of behavioral medicine . In modern society, psychosomatic aspects of illness are often attributed to stress making the remediation of stress one important factor in the development, treatment, and prevention of psychosomatic illness. The term psychosomatic disease

1612-468: The emotional thoughts we produce have an incredible impact on our physiology, either positive or negative. PNI integrates the mental/psychological, nervous, and immune system, and these systems are further linked together by ligands, which are hormones, neurotransmitters and peptides. PNI studies how every single cell in our body is in constant communication—how they are literally having a conversation and are responsible for 98% of all data transferred between

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1664-565: The end of every word. Eastern and Central Arrernte has fairly free word order but tends towards SOV . It is generally ergative , but is accusative in its pronouns. Pronouns may be marked for duality and skin group . Pronouns decline with a nominative rather than ergative alignment: Body parts normally require non-possessive pronouns ( inalienable possession ), though younger speakers may use possessives in this case too (e.g. akaperte ayenge or akaperte atyinhe 'my head'). Psychosomatic medicine The academic forebearer of

1716-422: The evidence for these benefits, concluded that no studies meeting the minimum quality standards required in this field have demonstrated such a benefit. The review further argues that unsubstantiated claims that "positive outlook" or "fighting spirit" can help slow cancer may be harmful to the patients themselves if they come to believe that their poor progress results from "not having the right attitude". While in

1768-590: The fear of the illapurinja would be enough to induce following the custom. The practice of kurdaitcha had died out completely in southern Australia by the 20th century although it was still carried out infrequently in the north. In a report in by the Adelaide Advertiser in 1952, some Indigenous men had died in The Granites gold mine in the Tanami Desert , after reporting a sighting of

1820-456: The founders of modern neuropsychopharmacology, carried out experiments in the 1970s that showed that illness quickly occurred when there was inhibition of action in rats. Rats in exactly the same stressful situations but whom were not inhibited in their behavior (those who could flee or fight—even if fighting is completely ineffective) had no negative health consequences. He proposed that psychosomatic illnesses in humans largely have their source in

1872-416: The killing-bone, or kundela , varies from tribe to tribe. The lengths can be from six to nine inches. They look like a long needle. At the rounded end, a piece of hair is attached through the hole, and glued into place with a gummy resin . Before it can be used, the kundela is charged with a powerful psychic energy in a ritual that is kept secret from women and those who are not tribe members. To be effective,

1924-402: The kurdaitcha (man). The Indigenous names for these shoes are interlinia in northern Australia and intathurta in the south. The soles are made of emu feathers, and the uppers of human hair or animal fur. Most of the early European descriptions state that human blood was used as the principal binding agent; however Kim Akerman noted that although human blood might indeed have been used to charge

1976-412: The mob that the deceased belonged to then hold a meeting to decide a suitable punishment. A kurdaitcha may or may not be arranged to avenge them. An illapurinja , literally "the changed one", is a female kurdaitcha who is secretly sent by her husband to avenge some wrong, most often the failure of a woman to cut herself as a mark of sorrow on the death of a family member. Believed to be entirely mythical,

2028-434: The modern field of behavioral medicine and a part of the practice of consultation-liaison psychiatry , psychosomatic medicine integrates interdisciplinary evaluation and management involving diverse specialties including psychiatry , psychology , neurology , psychoanalysis , internal medicine , pediatrics , surgery , allergy , dermatology , and psychoneuroimmunology . Clinical situations where mental processes act as

2080-483: The one described in detail below. It is spoken in the Alice Springs area and taught in schools and universities, heard in media and used in local government. The second biggest dialect in the group is Alyawarre. Some of the other dialects are spoken by very few people, leading to efforts to revive their usage ; others are now completely extinct . "Aranda" is a simplified, Australian English approximation of

2132-414: The others: All of the other dialects are either threatened or extinct: The Arrernte also have a highly developed Arrernte sign language , also known as Iltyeme-iltyeme. There is also an Anmatyerr sign language called iltyem-iltyem which is used by many Anmatyerr speakers to communicate non-verbally; the word iltja means 'hand, finger' and the term translates as 'signaling with hands'. Sign language

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2184-492: The practice is still common enough that hospitals and nursing staff are trained to manage illness caused by "bad spirits" and bone pointing. The following story is related about the role of kurdaitcha by anthropologists John Godwin and Ronald Rose: In 1953, a dying Aborigine named Kinjika was flown from Arnhem Land in Australia's Northern Territory to a hospital in Darwin . Tests revealed he had not been poisoned, injured, nor

2236-446: The remit of psychosomatic medicine in practice and there exist large areas of overlap in the scientific research. Studies have yielded mixed evidence regarding the impact of psychosomatic factors in illnesses. Early evidence suggested that patients with advanced-stage cancer may be able to survive longer if provided with psychotherapy to improve their social support and outlook. However, a major review published in 2007, which evaluated

2288-433: The result of evil spirits or spells, usually influenced by an enemy. Often, a dying person will whisper the name of the person they think caused their death. If the identity of the guilty person is not known, a "magic man" will watch for a sign, such as an animal burrow leading from the grave showing the direction of the home of the guilty party. This may take years but the identity is always eventually discovered. The elders of

2340-411: The ritual must be performed faultlessly. The bone is then given to the kurdaitcha, who are the tribe's ritual killers. These killers then go and hunt (if the person has fled) the condemned. The name, kurdaitcha, comes from the slippers they wear while on the hunt. The slippers are made of cockatoo (or emu) feathers and human hair — they virtually leave no footprints. Also, they wear kangaroo hair, which

2392-593: The second stage of the plan running from 2018 to 2020. The Alice Springs Language Centre delivers language teaching at primary, middle and senior schools, offering Arrernte, Indonesian , Japanese , Spanish and Chinese . There are two courses teaching Arrernte at tertiary level: at the Batchelor Institute and at Charles Darwin University . There are books available in Arandic languages in

2444-454: The shoes with magical power (turning invisible), it is likely felting was the main method used to bind the parts together. The upper surface is covered with a net woven from human hair. An opening in the centre allows the foot to be inserted. In some instances the shoes were allowed to be seen by women and children; in others, it was taboo for anyone but an adult man to see them. When not in use they were kept wrapped in kangaroo skin or hidden in

2496-403: The stop. These sounds arose as normal consonant clusters; Ladefoged states that they now occur initially, where consonant clusters are otherwise forbidden, due to historical loss of initial vowels; however, it has also been argued that such words start with a phonemic schwa, which may not be pronounced (see below). All dialects have at least /ə a/ . The vowel system of Eastern/Central Arrernte

2548-414: The term is normally restricted to those illnesses that do have a clear physical basis, but where it is believed that psychological and mental factors also play a role. Some researchers within the field believe that this overly broad interpretation of the term may have caused the discipline to fall into disrepute clinically. For this reason, among others, the field of behavioral medicine has taken over much of

2600-446: The traditional pronunciation of the name of Arrernte [ˈarəɳ͡ɖa] . Glottolog defines the Arandic group of languages/dialects as comprising 5 Aranda (Arrernte) dialects, plus two distinct languages, Kaytetye (Koch, 2004) and Lower Southern (or just Lower) Aranda, an extinct language. Ethnologue defines 8 Arandic languages and classifies them slightly differently. Two dialects are more widely spoken than any of

2652-477: Was he suffering from any sort of injury. Yet, the man was most definitely dying. After four days of agony spent in the hospital, Kinjika died on the fifth. It was said he died of bone pointing. "Bone pointing" is a method of execution used by the Aborigines. It is said to leave no trace, and never fails to kill its victim. The bone used in this curse is made of human, kangaroo , emu or even wood. The shape of

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2704-576: Was most likely first used by Paul D. MacLean in his 1949 seminal paper ‘Psychosomatic disease and the “visceral brain”; recent developments bearing on the Papez theory of emotions.’ In the field of psychosomatic medicine, the phrase "psychosomatic illness" is used more narrowly than it is within the general population. For example, in lay language, the term often encompasses illnesses with no physical basis at all, and even illnesses that are faked ( malingering ). In contrast, in contemporary psychosomatic medicine,

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