reproduce all living t

hings provides world-class training in explosives, firearms and explosive site safety in association with the - from the point of view of mimetic connection the crucial factor being that during pregnancy a woman's "soul" or purpa becomes, as Chapin puts it, "one with the cosmos itself. The two spiritual realms are fused together in the never-ending process of creating offspring and replenishing the Earth's stock of living beings." (433) On this view, then, the singing of the Muu-Igala for a woman

suffering from obstructed childbirth is an enactment of

the spirit helpers in the wooden figurines making their way at one and the same time into both the cosmic domain and the soul of the laboring woman- that is, the soul of the real pregnant woman attempting to give birth. As Chapin puts it, "When the chanter's spirit helpers journey along Muu's river and then Muu's path through the levels [of the cosmos], they are simultaneousl

y travelling along the sp

iritual vagina of the woman." (433) If this double-tracking alon

g a spiritual river and along a spiritual birth canal is not too hard to hang onto-then take hold of this (to quote Chapin again): "When they [the spirit helpers] arrive at Muu's house [in the cosmos], they come to the [real woman's] spiritual womb. At this poin

t in their journey, howe.