An Aboriginal healer believed to have spiritual powers.
if the cause is believed to be supernatural, assistance is sought from a maban
sorcery was still practised by maban well into the 1930s
Example sentencesExamples
The Mabans sometimes interfered for their own ends.
He has the status of Maban, which endows him with secret knowledge.
The Maban in his stories always work for the good of the people.
The scene tells of a maban.
A maban and two young men are living in an outcamp.
A shaman from the Western Kimberley is a maban, and is able to see into the world of the spirit beings and draw on some of their energies.
The problem discussed in the story relates to the different speed at which each character moves—the wife too slowly, the maban too quickly.
In his mid-80s, he was a stockman, jailbird, cartographer and maban—a tribal honorific meaning with tribal access rights to huge acres of Western Australian bush territory.
A Maban of great and evil reputation they had brought from the south.
The "power in the belly" enables the maban to turn the forces of an oppressive culture to his own advantage.
Origin
Early 20th century: probably from an Aboriginal language of the Pilbara region.