New Sub-Forum/Discussion Proposal

[Apech]

3 hours ago, Sahaja said:

Thought I’d share this on the Babaylan indigenous culture of the Philippines. I recently participated in some of these rituals and found them both powerful and fascinating particularly seeing the connections to Indian and Chinese language, physical and spiritual cultivation and healing cultures that are part of it. My wife’s grandmother was a traditional practitioner of this  and the capabilities of her lineage appear to have been passed on to the women in my immediate family. 
 

The video talks about the indigenous experience in confronting Christianity and Islam  as well as the role of gender including transgender there. My guess is that many indigenous practices in other parts of the world went through similar processes where they interacted with/were changed by outside cultures trying to control them. In the modern era  the Babaylan culture mostly manifests as indigenous healing practices like manghihilot which are still widespread in the Philippines but there also still exists behind this those currently following the culture and practices of the Babaylan. 

 

 

https://

Why not post this in the new sub forum created exactly for this purpose? 🙃

[Haribol]

On 10.2.2026 at 9:59 PM, Nungali said:

 

  Australian Aboriginal flag ;  Black sky, yellow sun , red earth .

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_flag

 

'Official' ;

 

 

 

But @Nungali, what is going on with Torres Strait Islanders? Curious place, Lemuria is. Very curious is indeed.

[Cobie]

 

22 minutes ago, Haribol said:

… Very curious is indeed.

Most curious.   

Edited Thursday at 10:13 PM by Cobie

[Nungali]

11 minutes ago, Haribol said:

But @Nungali, what is going on with Torres Strait Islanders? Curious place, Lemuria is. Very curious is indeed.

 

What do you mean 'what is going on with them ' ??? 

 

They are a bunch of islands in the Torres Straight . between Cape York and New Guinea , the Islanders are the inhabitants . They constituent one of two groups of indigenous Australians .

 

perhaps one thing 'going on with them'  is ;    Like the mainland  indigenous  they showed, at around a similar time , a unique solution to a social problem , perhaps the only historical account we have of  a people causing nation wide social change and implementing a new system , not because of disaster , conquest or invasion , but by intelligent insight .

 

 

 

 

what has Lemuria got to do with it ?  

 

One 'Lumeria' was a postulated   land bridge supposed to exist between Madagascar and Africa , the other is the submerged parts around Sri Lanka ; Shiva's Brdge or 'Ram Setu' . 

 

[Apech]

On 10/02/2026 at 7:39 PM, Taomeow said:

 

A Briton?  

 

I find it intriguing that long before some British migrated to America, in the 4th century some Britons migrated to Armorica.  Where they renamed Armorica Brittany.  And became a special kind of French who call themselves Bretons. 

 

Straight from some sci-fi plot with parallel timelines, spacetime paradoxes and the like.  

 

P.S. Apologies all around for an off-topic tangent.  This really belongs in my Stranger Things thread.  

This is my problem with the word indigenous.  Were the Britons indigenous?  They were Celts which is in itself a vague term covering a language group hailing from Central Europe.  If you want truly indigenous you have to mean Mesolithic western hunter gatherers … otherwise anyone born in Britain perhaps?  What exactly do we mean by indigenous?

 

 

[Taomeow]

8 hours ago, Apech said:

This is my problem with the word indigenous.  Were the Britons indigenous?  They were Celts which is in itself a vague term covering a language group hailing from Central Europe.  If you want truly indigenous you have to mean Mesolithic western hunter gatherers … otherwise anyone born in Britain perhaps?  What exactly do we mean by indigenous?

 

 

 

Come to think of it, most words that refer to ideas, concepts, mental constructs, interpretations, all that "vaporware" of human cognition, are similarly problematic.  We use them as though they are qualitative and quantitative, whereas they are semantic conventions born of contentions.  Often they define what is really indefinite, what barely exist, or does't exist at all. 

 

With tangible material things the grey zone is a lot smaller, but still...  I sit in an office chair.  I bought it as an "office chair," but if I put a dining-room chair in my office instead, in that same spot in front of the computer, will it become an office chair?  Will it lose its dining-room chair citizenship?  Will it become a naturalized citizen of the office?  Will it surrender its dining-room allegiances and swear to fight all enemies of the office, foreign and domestic?   And will the indigenous residents of the office -- computer, printer, filing cabinet -- see it as an office chair, as "one of us?"  And will it forget all those family dinners it was part of in its native dining-room, all its dining-room mates from the same set still gathered around the dining-room table, still indigenous?..     

Edited yesterday at 04:45 PM by Taomeow

[Apech]

13 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Come to think of it, most words that refer to ideas, concepts, mental constructs, interpretations, all that "vaporware" of human cognition, are similarly problematic.  We use them as though they are qualitative and quantitative, whereas they are semantic conventions born of contentions.  Often they define what is really indefinite, what barely exist, or does't exist at all. 

 

With tangible material things the grey zone is a lot smaller, but still...  I sit in an office chair.  I bought it as an "office chair," but if I put a dining-room chair in my office instead, in that same spot in front of the computer, will it become an office chair?  Will it lose its dining-room chair citizenship?  Will it become a naturalized citizen of the office?  Will it surrender its dining-room allegiances and swear to fight all enemies of the office, foreign and domestic?   And will the indigenous residents of the office -- computer, printer, filing cabinet -- see it as an office chair, as "one of us?"  And will it forget all those family dinners it was part of in its native dining-room, all its dining-room mates from the same set still gathered around the dining-room table, still indigenous?..     

 

 

I stand with the migrant dining room chair community.  Or should that be 'I sit with them?'.

 

[Taomeow]

The opening line of the famous classical Chinese novel,  Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is this:

 

"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been." (話說天下大勢．分久必合，合久必分).

[Sahaja]

After doing the haplogroup thing on my parents and seeing the maps that showed the movement across the world of my ancestors  from their source in east Africa I found that one could argue that indigenous  really only applies to these original people in East Africa. However if you reduce it that far in search of a pure definition you miss out on many interesting and informative  steps in evolution of religion, culture, cultivation, healing modalities and philosophy. To me what makes this topic interesting is asking the questions - what was there before what we are familiar with now?, how are these things connected? and what can we learn from them?  In my posting on the Babaylan priestesses I tried to make the point that the view of the Philippines just as a country that is predominately Catholic with enclaves  of Islam in the south misses a lot of important influences and cultivation phenomena.
 

Some young people in the Philippines are attracted to the Babaylan/hilot culture to find who they are and to overcome their own programming as a colonized people. It has helped them to connect with something through a community mechanism that was there before the modern world that can help them work through their own issues such as trauma, relationships and dealing with gender identity issues. My own interaction as a cultural outsider  meeting with it in my own family has created growth for me including getting me to go beyond the thinking sense that is so predominate in modern culture (a work in progress, lol) and to better see how people  are affected by the colonial mindset. It also has given me a perspective on what lineage transmission is in an esoteric sense that not many outsiders get to directly experience. 

 

 

[liminal_luke]

 

8 hours ago, Apech said:

What exactly do we mean by indigenous?

 

 

In my mind, indigenous people are those who are rooted by blood to communities that have protected them, more or less, from alienating and spirit-fragmenting modern influences.  (This is, perhaps, an overly romantic definition, but whatdaya expect -- I´m not a very indigenous person. )

Edited yesterday at 05:17 PM by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

My cousin has compiled the family tree (on my father's side through which we are cousins).  That project of his spanned years.  It so happened that he used to have access to a very complete and detailed genealogical database of his country that is classified, which made it possible for him to dig up information a regular genealogy buff would never find.  He was able to trace our fist known progenitors to the 11th century Sweden.  From there, three streams of ancestors eventually dispersed over three continents.  Some converged centuries later, some left their places of origin forever -- e.g. there was no one left in Sweden since the 14th century.  But now a distant relative is in Sweden all over again, his parents migrated there, he was born there...  I wonder if he qualifies as indigenous now?..     

[oak]

On 10/02/2026 at 10:00 PM, Haribol said:

My aunt is one. I’m no expert in the slightest of their spirituality, and sad part; it seems to be mostly dead to them as well. Lived realtivley peacefully together until the 17-1800s when some good souls decided to give them the one and only truth of the one true God, and save them from an eternity of hellfire. So some were burned alive instead, to compensate uknow. But in pre Christian times escpecially there was great respect, perfect fear, for their precieved magic ability. 
 

I read this book called tracing old Norse cosmology a while ago. Hardly remember anything, but there seems to have been quite a bit of mutual influence between the two world vies. Only natural, considering how long we lived alongside each other. I also think we have a little bit of a biased move about how various regions connect to each other. If you look at a map and the rivers and terrain you will see that traveling/trading etc. with the steppe and the east is just as accessible as any other direction.

 

Anyhow, the time prior to being showed the light (17-1800s) they refer to simply as the age of the drum. Here is pic of one of the shaman drums:

 

This would have been beaten rythmically while chanting, very possibly with the aid of the Amanita mushroom 🍄 filtered trough reindeer urine in order to enter the spirit realm. The design on each drum is unique and is believed to represent the personal experience of the shaman trough the spirit realm. Curious that Santa is dressed in red and white and travels on flying reindeers delivering gifts, no? Anyhow, enjoy:

 

edit:

The above is called joik. Sami chantig that is. No words, just sounds. Throwing in some folk music from the faraoes (settled by Norwegians, their language however is believed to resemble old Norse to a significant greater degree than the Scandinavian ones). Here words are used, but rhythmic drum and chanting as well as you can hear:

 

 

Genetically I should be 1/3 Norwegian. These videos just make me wish to visit Norway. So curious about what I would feel like there.

 

[Taomeow]

37 minutes ago, oak said:

 

Genetically I should be 1/3 Norwegian. These videos just make me wish to visit Norway. So curious about what I would feel like there.

 

 

I have a friend who is American but considers himself Norwegian because of his ancestry and his Norwegian last name.  A number of years ago he went to visit that country, loved it, found a job, wound up staying for 8 years, then returning.  His conclusion: "I know I'm a wannabe Norwegian but who am I kidding...  I'm American."  Which has been my observation too.  Californian through and through. 

 

But if you do go there, be ready for 1/3 of your genetics making its voice heard.      

[oak]

11 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

I have a friend who is American but considers himself Norwegian because of his ancestry and his Norwegian last name.  A number of years ago he went to visit that country, loved it, found a job, wound up staying for 8 years, then returning.  His conclusion: "I know I'm a wannabe Norwegian but who am I kidding...  I'm American."  Which has been my observation too.  Californian through and through. 

 

But if you do go there, be ready for 1/3 of your genetics making its voice heard.      

 

What made me seriously think about it was once listening to this englishman born and bread in England but with a Russian mother speaking of his experience while visiting Russia. He never felt identified with English culture but while in Russia altough sometimes feeling literally smashed by the cold he felt simultaneouslly extremelly happy to be amongst his people, those who really understood him 🙂

[Sahaja]

2 hours ago, Taomeow said:

My cousin has compiled the family tree (on my father's side through which we are cousins).  That project of his spanned years.  It so happened that he used to have access to a very complete and detailed genealogical database of his country that is classified, which made it possible for him to dig up information a regular genealogy buff would never find.  He was able to trace our fist known progenitors to the 11th century Sweden.  From there, three streams of ancestors eventually dispersed over three continents.  Some converged centuries later, some left their places of origin forever -- e.g. there was no one left in Sweden since the 14th century.  But now a distant relative is in Sweden all over again, his parents migrated there, he was born there...  I wonder if he qualifies as indigenous now?..     

in my work on genealogy I came across the Mormon genealogical database called FamilySearch that goes back crazy far. Someone related to me might  have been Mormon so one part of my family line was there, and  I traced mine back to some interesting famous historical characters. Need to take it with a grain of salt as lots of the layers were problematic . JC himself was there with a daughter named Sarah Damaris bat Yeshua. I teased my daughters that based on this they were DaVinci code material. Of course the Roman emperor Caligula was there too..haha. Worth a look if you have lots of time to scroll through all the generations. 

 

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

Come to think of it, most words that refer to ideas, concepts, mental constructs, interpretations, all that "vaporware" of human cognition, are similarly problematic.  We use them as though they are qualitative and quantitative, whereas they are semantic conventions born of contentions.  Often they define what is really indefinite, what barely exist, or does't exist at all. 

 

With tangible material things the grey zone is a lot smaller, but still...  I sit in an office chair.  I bought it as an "office chair," but if I put a dining-room chair in my office instead, in that same spot in front of the computer, will it become an office chair?  Will it lose its dining-room chair citizenship?  Will it become a naturalized citizen of the office?  Will it surrender its dining-room allegiances and swear to fight all enemies of the office, foreign and domestic?   And will the indigenous residents of the office -- computer, printer, filing cabinet -- see it as an office chair, as "one of us?"  And will it forget all those family dinners it was part of in its native dining-room, all its dining-room mates from the same set still gathered around the dining-room table, still indigenous?..     

 

It will not become an indigenous chair of the office until it has eliminated every other chair that was there before it .

 

Then the new  office chair can make an edict  to forbid any other chair that is different from a dining room chair .... I mean ... an office chair ...  coming into the room   ; 

 

 

[Taomeow]

40 minutes ago, Sahaja said:

in my work on genealogy I came across the Mormon genealogical database called FamilySearch that goes back crazy far. Someone related to me might  have been Mormon so one part of my family line was there, and  I traced mine back to some interesting famous historical characters. Need to take it with a grain of salt as lots of the layers were problematic . JC himself was there with a daughter named Sarah Damaris bat Yeshua. I teased my daughters that based on this they were DaVinci code material. Of course the Roman emperor Caligula was there too..haha. Worth a look if you have lots of time to scroll through all the generations. 

 

 

I got lost even in my own family tree when my cousin sent it to me...  and it's only a thousand years old.  I keep telling myself I will study it in depth someday...  As for the Mormon genealogy, I dunno...  they even wrote their own bible placing Jesus square in America, so  what's to stop them from writing "alternative" genealogical databases? 

Then again, their bible was dictated by God if I remember correctly, so what's to stop Him from dictating a genealogical database too while at it?..

 

 

[Nungali]

Down here in Oz we have certain unique dynamics that can assure 'indigenous '  , like, it is pretty certain now and backed up by a lot of research  that the indigenous Australian Aboriginal  can be certainly termed indigenous as they were the first people here .  That's a rare (supported ) claim . 

 

The confusion rises with the idea of modern indigenous ; what is accepted as indigenous here : 

 

It relies on 3 things ;  Proved descent, self identification and community recognition . 

 

problematic ;  due to lost and stolen generations , some may look obviously Aboriginal but not know ancestry . There is also the issue of % of ancestry ... it doesnt apply !   One ancestor  ( going back to whenever ) is sufficient to claim indigeneity. 

 

Self identification ... curious , I just need to declare I think I am . It also means no one can say you are , if you dont agree . 

 

And community battles or fights or rival claims can make the leaders of a community 'not recognize' (or not issue a certificate of recognition )  to  others . 

 

So, with myself as an example ; 

 

I cant prove descent  *  ,   I did not in the past, but  am moving towards identifying as indigenous  ( due to above  *  and also the following ) 

 

many times Indigenous community  have insisted I am Aboriginal  , BUT  they were not the people that I might have descended from  and  with  the other group, that generation of elders has gone now ( that insisted I was Aboriginal ) and the new people cant seem to recognize it  or even are aware of my past work with the old elders . 

 

* as far as I can track ;  paternal Grandfather came out from  England expecting promised land of milk and honey ... not so . Ended up as a cane cutter in Queensland , then went out west to do remote mining . Somehow ended up with some woman and 3 kids  ( not sure if they all had the same mother ) .  Looking at history .... what were women doing out there ?  A great shortage of women for the miners  .  Chances are she was indigenous .  But that was all covered up . Grandfather came to Sydney with three kids  and a  relative of his had an in law that felt sorry fo them and stepped in to help . This was the woman I thought was my paternal grandmother (until I was in my 30s ! ) 

 

It would be funny if it turned out she came from  .... 

 

https://www.victoriadaly.nt.gov.au/timber-creek/#:~:text=The first inhabitants were the Ngaliwurra and,of whom still live in Timber Creek.

 

[ I did not know of these people when I chose this name ,,,, its a pun in local language  about a  goanna lizard (gungali )  and the main myth of this valley (Nungli )  ]

I still have trouble with it as I  still 'visually identify ' people ... nowadays this is a big no-no ;

 

In 

Australia

, there is no "blood quantum" or minimum percentage required to be recognized as Indigenous. 

The legal and community standard does not measure "how much" descent you have (e.g., 1/4 or 1/16); rather, it focuses on the fact of descent from the inhabitants of Australia prior to European settlement

 

Which means some dude white as snow might be considered , but some guy 'black as'   that could not get the records or community acceptance  might not be   

 

One reason I dont pursue the claim ; all sorts of people are doing it to get special benefits reserved for the indigenous . I have never had to suffer any thing or need that as the system never assumed I was indigenous .  The other reason is .... 'special'   types of Aboriginals instantly recognize me as 'one' .  The ones that do not .... seem to have lost something    ( by that I mean they seem more 'westernized' and less 'magical' ) . 

 

[Taomeow]

37 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

It will not become an indigenous chair of the office until it has eliminated every other chair that was there before it .

 

 

Sadly, that's what happened with all my office chairs -- each new one eliminated its predecessor.  There's never been enough room for two office chairs.

  

My only redemption lies in the fact that nearly thirty years ago I gave an old office chair to a friend who needed one, and that old chair was already a very old chair when I got it from a thrift store -- but built like a tank, they don't make them like that anymore, haven't in ages.  Recently that friend mentioned to me he still has it. 

 

To be honest, I miss that chair...  have missed it through a succession of uncomfortable and/or flimsy and/or ugly Johnny-come-latelies that followed.  I misunderstood it back then, back when I was one of the people who believe that "new" means "better."  But now I know.  The staying power of authenticity...

[Nungali]

Some how this chair got into my Chiropractors treatment room as a 'waiting for her' chair . You wait in the waiting room, then its your turn , you get to the treatment room and then you have to wait there  ???? 

 

Most chairs have the cross pieces for the back rest , flat side facing your back . Not this one , it had the edges sticking out and the pieces attached as if they were shelves ... totally the opposite of every chair I have ever sat on, The edges dug into your spine and the gaps between vertebrae . I asked where it came from and she said they were spare chairs from her house  ... so, they were non indigenous migrants to he treatment room . 

 

I explained my dislike of them and the reasons and ... fer gawds sake ! ... in a chiro treatment room of all places !  She said I was the only one that seems to think that .   WTF ?    after a few other incidents like that , I stopped going .   Now go to an osteopath  ... he has sensible chairs in the waiting room ... when you do get to go into the treatment room , thats when the treatment starts  ( not have to wait there as well )  Why  ... wait here ... now come in.. but  wait there ?  What ?  

[Apech]

14 hours ago, Nungali said:

Some how this chair got into my Chiropractors treatment room as a 'waiting for her' chair . You wait in the waiting room, then its your turn , you get to the treatment room and then you have to wait there  ???? 

 

Most chairs have the cross pieces for the back rest , flat side facing your back . Not this one , it had the edges sticking out and the pieces attached as if they were shelves ... totally the opposite of every chair I have ever sat on, The edges dug into your spine and the gaps between vertebrae . I asked where it came from and she said they were spare chairs from her house  ... so, they were non indigenous migrants to he treatment room . 

 

I explained my dislike of them and the reasons and ... fer gawds sake ! ... in a chiro treatment room of all places !  She said I was the only one that seems to think that .   WTF ?    after a few other incidents like that , I stopped going .   Now go to an osteopath  ... he has sensible chairs in the waiting room ... when you do get to go into the treatment room , thats when the treatment starts  ( not have to wait there as well )  Why  ... wait here ... now come in.. but  wait there ?  What ?  

I always assumed that the basis of chiropractic therapy was to shout ‘cheer up’ in a very loud voice until the patient runs out of the room in panic.  Cheer-up-practy!