Męskie versus żeńskie czy męskie w żeńskim i żeńskie w męskim? Problem relacji płciowych w mitach australijskich

• Authors: Andrzej Szyjewski

Title variants

EN

Male versus Female or Male in Female and Female in Male? The Issue of Sex Relations in Australian Myths

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The social structure and gender relations in Aboriginal societies clearly indicate that the male domain is favoured in contact with the sacred. Nevertheless, male-female relations are not as unequivocally established as they are thought to be within Aboriginal mythology. The sex of sacred characters such as the Rainbow Serpent or Cannibal Monster is extremely flexible even within the same version of a myth. The general character of male/female relations tends to be one of exchange, where male sacred power is a derivative of the female power of fertility. The most sacred values, belonging to the sacred-secret realm, are established by the tension between male and female principles, marked by moving those elements that belong to one gender to the domain of the other. This construct also establishes the threat of desacralisation, connected with moving the object back to the domain it came from.

Keywords

EN

Australian Aborigines; mythology; Fertility Mother; Rainbow Serpent; gender relations; bull-roarer; initiation; gender symbols

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Jagielloński
• Journal: Studia Religiologica
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 57–66

Dates

online

2012-09-20

Contributors

author

Andrzej Szyjewski

• Instytut Religioznawstwa UJ

Identifiers

DOI

10.4467/20844077SR.12.004.0796