Dark Demon 16

by Christine Feehan

  Kepa Sarna Pus (The Lesser Healing Chant)

  The same chant is used for all physical wounds, «sivadaba» note 1 would be changed to refer to whatever part of the body is wounded.

  Kunasz, nelkul sivdobbanas, nelkul fesztelen loyly.

  You lie as if asleep, without beat of heart, without airy breath.

  note 2

  Ot elidamet andam szabadon elidadert. I offer freely my life for your life. note 3

  O jela sielam jorem ot ainamet es so?e ot elidadet.

  My spirit of light forgets my body and enters your body.

  note 4

  0 jela sielam pukta kinn minden szekmeket belso.

  My spirit of light sends all the dark spirits within fleeing without.

  note 5

  Pajnak o susu hanyet es o nyelv nyalamet sivadaba.

  1 press the earth of our homeland and the spit of my tongue into your heart.

  note 6

  Vii, o verim so?e o vend andam.

  At last, I give you my blood for your blood.

  note 7

  To hear this chant, visit: http://www.christinefeehan.com/ members/.

  3. The Great Healing Chant of the Carpathians

  The most well-known-and most dramatic-of the Carpathian healing chants was En Sarna Pus («The Great Healing Chant»). This chant was reserved for recovering the wounded or unconscious Carpathian's soul.

  Typically a group of men would form a circle around the sick Carpathian (to «encircle him with our care and compassion»), and begin the chant. The shaman or healer or leader is the prime actor in this healing ceremony. It is he who will actually make the spiritual journey into the nether world, aided by his clanspeople. Their purpose is to ecstatically dance, sing, drum, and chant, all the while visualizing (through the words of the chant) the journey itself-ever)' step of it, over and over again-to the point where the shaman, in trance, leaves his body, and makes that very journey. (Indeed, the word «ecstasy» is from the Latin ex statis, which literally means «out of the body.»)

  One advantage that the Carpathian healer has over many other shamans, is his telepathic link to his lost brother. Most shamans must wander in the dark of the nether realms, in search of their lost brother. But the Carpathian healer directly «hears» in his mind the voice of his lost brother calling to him, and can thus «zero in» on his soul like a homing beacon. For this reason, Carpathian healing tends to have a higher success rate than most other traditions of this sort.

  Something of the geography of the «other world» is useful for us to examine, in order to fully understand the words of the Great Carpathian Healing Chant. A reference is made to the «Great Tree» (in Carpathian: En Puwe). Many ancient traditions, including the Carpathian tradition, understood the worlds-the heaven worlds, our world, and the nether realms-to be «hung» upon a great pole, or axis, or tree. Here on earth, we are positioned halfway up this tree, on one of its branches. Hence many ancient texts often referred to the material world as «middle earth»: midway between heaven and hell. Climbing the tree would lead one to the heaven worlds. Descending the tree to its roots would lead to the nether realms. The shaman was necessarily a master of movement up and down the Great

  Tree, sometimes moving unaided, and sometimes assisted by (or even mounted upon the back of) an animal spirit guide. In various traditions, this Great Tree was known variously as the axis mundi (the «axis of the worlds»), Ygddrasil (in Norse mythology), Mount Mem (the sacred world mountain of Tibetan tradition), etc. The Christian cosmos with its heaven, purgatory/earth, and hell, is also worth comparing. It is even given a similar topography in Dante's Divine Comedy: Dante is led on a journey first to hell, at the center of the earth; then upward to Mount Purgatory, which sits on the earth's surface directly opposite Jerusalem; then further upward first to Eden, the earthly paradise, at the summit of Mount Purgatory; and then upward at last to heaven.

  In the shamanistic tradition, it was understood that the small always reflects the large; the personal always reflects the cosmic. A movement in the greater dimensions of the cosmos also coincides with an internal movement. For example, the axis mundi of the cosmos also corresponds to the spinal column of the individual. Journeys up and down the axis mundi often coincided with the movement of natural and spiritual energies (sometimes called kundalini or shakti) in the spinal column of the shaman or mystic.

  En Sarna Pus (The Great Healing Chant)

  In this chant, eka («brother») would be replaced by «sister,» «father,» «mother,» depending on the person to be healed.

  Ot ekam ainajanak hany, jama.

  My brother's body is a lump of earth, close to death.

  note 8

  Me, ot ekam kuntajanak, piradak ekam, gond es irgalom ture.

  We, the clan of my brother, encircle him with our care and compassion.

  note 9

  Opus wakenkek, ot oma sarnank, es ot pus funk, alnak ekam ainajanak, pitanak ekam ainajanak elava.

  Our healing energies, ancient words of magic, and healing herbs bless my brother's body, keep it alive.

  note 10

  Ot ekam sielanak pala. Ot omboce palaja juta alatt o juti, kinta, es szelemek lamtijaknak.

  But my brother's soul is only half. His other half wanders in the nether world.

  note 11

  Ot en mekem ?ama?: kulkedak otti ot ekam omboce palajanak.

  My great deed is this: I travel to find my brother's other half.

  note 12

  Rekature, saradak, tappadak, odam, ka?a o numa waram, es avaa owe o lewl mahoz.

  We dance, we chant, we dream ecstatically, to call my spirit bird, and to open the door to the other world.

  note 13

  Ntak o numa waram, es muzdulak, jomadak.

  I mount my spirit bird and we begin to move, we are under way.

  note 14

  Piwtadak ot En Puwe tyvinak, ecidak alatt o juti, kinta, es szelemek lamtijaknak.

  Following the trunk of the Great Tree, we fall into the nether world.

  [Follow-we the Great Tree trunk-of, fall-we through the night, mist, and ghosts lowland-

  their-of.]

  Fazak, fazak no o saro.

  It is cold, very cold.

  note 15

  Juttadak ot ekam o akarataban, o'sivaban, es o sielaban.

  My brother and I are linked in mind, heart, and soul.

  note 16

  Ot ekam sielanak ka?a engem.

  My brother's soul calls to me.

  note 17

  Kuledak es piwtadak ot ekam.

  I hear and follow his track.

  note 18

  Sayedak es tuledak ot ekam kulyanak.

  Encounter-I the demon who is devouring my brother's soul.

  note 19

  Nenam coro; o kuly torodak. In anger, I fight the demon.

  note 20

  0 kuly pel engem.

  He is afraid of me.

  note 21

  Lejkkadak o ka?ka salamaval.

  1 strike his throat with a lightning bolt.

  note 22

  Molodak ot ainaja, komakamal.

  I break his body with my bare hands.

  note 23

  Toya es molana.

  He is bent over, and falls apart.

  note 24

  Han ca?a. He runs away. note 25

  Manedak ot ekam sielanak. I rescue my brother's soul.

  note 26

  Aladak ot ekam sielanak o komamban.

  I lift my brother's soul in the hollow of my hand.

  note 27

  Al?dam ot ekam numa waramra.

  I lift him onto my spirit bird.

  note 28

  Piwtadak ot En Puwe tyvijanak es sayedak jalleen ot elava ainak majaknak.

  Following up the Great Tree, we return to the land of the living.

  note 29

  Ot ekam ela jalleen. My brother lives again. note 30

  Ot ekam wenca jalleen.

  He is complete again.

  note
31

  To hear this chant, visit: http://www.christinefeehan.com/ members/

  4. Carpathian chanting technique

  As with their healing techniques, the actual «chanting technique» of the Carpathians has much in common with the other shamanistic traditions of the Central Asian steppes. The primary mode of chanting was throat chanting using overtones. Modern examples of this manner of singing can still be found in the Mongolian, Tuvan, and Tibetan traditions. You can find an audio example of the Gyuto Tibetan Buddhist monks engaged in throat chanting at: http://www.christinefeehan.com/carpathianchanting/

  As with Tuva, note on the map the geographical proximity of Tibet to Kazakhstan and the Southern Urals.

  The beginning part of the Tibetan chant emphasizes synchronizing all the voices around a single tone, aimed at healing a particular «chakra» of the body. This is fairly typical of the Gyuto throat chanting tradition, but it is not a significant part of the Carpathian tradition. Nonetheless, it serves as an interesting contrast.

  The part of the Gyuto chanting example that is most similar to the Carpathian style of chanting is the mid-section, where the men are chanting the words together with great force. The purpose here is not to generate a «healing tone» that will affect a particular «chakra,» but rather to generate as much power as possible for initiating the «out of body» travel, and for fighting the demonic forces that the healer/traveler must face and overcome.

  Appendix 2

  The Carpathian Language

  Like all human languages, the language of the Carpathians contains the richness and nuance that can only come from a long history of use. At best we can only touch on some of the main features of the language in this brief appendix:

  The history of the Carpathian language

  Carpathian grammar and other characteristics of the language

  Examples of the Carpathian language

  A much abridged Carpathian dictionary

  1. The history of the Carpathian language

  The Carpathian language of today is essentially identical to the Carpathian language of thousands of years ago. A «dead» language like the Latin of two thousand years ago has evolved into a significantly different modern language (Italian) because of countless generations of speakers and great historical fluctuations. In contrast, many of the speakers of Carpathian from thousands of years ago are still alive. Their presence-coupled with the deliberate isolation of the Carpathians from the other major forces of change in the world– has acted (and continues to act) as a stabilizing force that has preserved the integrity of the language over the centuries. Carpathian culture has also acted as a stabilizing force. For instance, the Ritual Words, the various healing chants (see Appendix 1), and other cultural artifacts have been passed down the centuries with great fidelity.

  One small exception should be noted: the splintering of the Carpathians into separate geographic regions has led to some minor dialectization. However the telepathic links among all Carpathians (as well as each Carpathian's regular return to his or her homeland) has ensured that the differences among dialects are relatively superficial (e.g., small numbers of new words, minor differences in pronunciation, etc.), since the deeper, internal language of mind-forms has remained the same because of continuous use across space and time.

  The Carpathian language was (and still is) the proto-language for the Uralic (or Finno-Ugrian) family of languages. Today, the Uralic languages are spoken in northern, eastern and central Europe and in Siberia. More than twenty-three million people in the world speak languages that can trace their ancestry to Carpathian. Magyar or Hungarian (about fourteen million speakers), Finnish (about five million speakers), and Estonian (about one million speakers), arc the three major contemporary descendents of this proto-language. The only factor that unites the more than twenty languages in the Uralic family is that their ancestry can be traced back to a common proto-language-Carpathian-which split (starting some six thousand years ago) into the various languages in the Uralic family. In the same way, European languages such as English and French, belong to the better-known Indo-European family and also evolve from a common proto-language ancestor (a different one from Carpathian).

  M

  The following table provides a sense for some of the similarities in the language family.

  Note: The Finnic/Carpathian «k» shows up often as Hungarian «h». Similarly, the Finnic/Carpathian «p» often corresponds to the Hungarian «f.» ^

  M

  2. Carpathian grammar and other characteristics of the language

  Idioms. As both an ancient language, and a language of an earth people, Carpathian is more inclined toward use of idioms constructed from concrete, «earthy» terms, rather than abstractions. For instance, our modern abstraction, «to cherish,» is expressed more concretely in Carpathian as «to hold in one's heart»; the «nether world» is, in Carpathian, «the land of night, fog, and ghosts»; etc.

  Word order. The order of words in a sentence is determined not by syntactic roles (like subject, verb, and object) but rather by pragmatic, discourse-driven factors. Examples: «Tied vagyok.» («Yours am I.»); «Sivamet andam.» («My heart I give you.»)

  Agglutination. The Carpathian language is agglutinative; that is, longer words are constructed from smaller components. An agglutinating language uses suffixes or prefixes whose meaning is generally unique, and which are concatenated one after another without overlap. In Carpathian, words typically consist of a stem that is followed by one or more suffixes. For example, «sivambam» derives from the stem «siv» («heart») followed by «am» («my,» making it «my heart»), followed by «bam» («in,» making it «in my heart»). As you might imagine, agglutination in Carpathian can sometimes produce very long words, or words that are very difficult to pronounce. Vowels often get inserted between suffixes, to prevent too many consonants from appearing in a row (which can make the word unpronouncable).

  Noun cases. Like all languages, Carpathian has many noun cases; the same noun will be «spelled» differently depending on its role in the sentence. Some of the noun cases include: nominative (when the noun is the subject of the sentence), accusative (when the noun is a direct object of the verb), dative (indirect object), genitive (or possessive), instrumental, final, supressive, inessive, elative, terminative, and delative.

  We will use the possessive (or genitive) case as an example, to illustrate how all noun cases in Carpathian involve adding standard suffixes to the noun stems. Thus expressing possession in Carpathian-«my lifemate,» «your lifemate,» «his lifemate,» «her lifemate,» etc.-involves adding a particular suffix (such as «=am») to the noun stem («palafertiil»), to produce the possessive («palafertiilam»-«my lifemate»). Which suffix to use depends upon which person («my,» «your,» «his,» etc.) and whether the noun ends in a consonant or vowel. The following table shows the suffixes for singular nouns only (not plural), and also shows the similarity to the suffixes used in contemporary Hungarian. (Hungarian is actually a little more complex, in that it also requires «vowel rhyming»: which suffix to use also depends on the last vowel in the noun; hence the multiple choices in the cells below, where Carpathian only has a single choice.)

  ¦m

  OiJ

  Note: As mentioned earlier, vowels often get inserted between the word and its suffix so as to prevent too many consonants from appearing in a row (which would produce unpronouncable words). For example, in the table above, all nouns that end in a consonant are followed by suffixes beginning with «a.»

  Verb conjugation. Like its modern descendents (such as Finnish and Hungarian), Carpathian has many verb tenses, far too many to describe here. We will just focus on the conjugation of the present tense. Again, we will place contemporary Hungarian side by side with the Carpathian, because of the marked similarity of the two. As with the possessive case for nouns, the conjugation of verbs is done by adding a suffix onto the verb stem:

  saj

  As with all languages, there are many «irregular
verbs» in Carpathian that don't exactly fit this pattern. But the above table is still a useful guideline for most verbs.

  3. Examples of the Carpathian language

  Here are some brief examples of conversational Carpathian, used in the Dark books. We include the literal translation in square brackets. It is interestingly different from the most appropriate English translation.