Description
Proposing a new theoretical framework, this book explores Shamanism’s links with violence from a global perspective. Contributors, renowned anthropologists and authorities in the field, draw on their research in Mongolia, China, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, India, Siberia, America, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan to investigate how indigenous shamanic cultures dealt, and are still dealing with, varying degrees of internal and external violence. During ceremonies shamans act like hunters and warriors, dealing with many states related to violence, such as collective and individual suffering, attack, conflict and antagonism. Indigenous religious complexes are often called to respond to direct and indirect competition with more established cultural and religious traditions which undermine the sociocultural structure, the sense of identity and the state of well-being of many indigenous groups. This book explores a more sensitive vision of shamanism, closer to the emic views of many indigenous groups.
Table of Contents
Introduction, Diana Riboli, Davide Torri; Chapter 1 Dark and Light Shamanisms: Themes of Conflict, Ambivalence and Healing, Andrew J. Strathern, Pamela J. Stewart (Strathern); Chapter 2 Enchantment and Destruction, Michael Oppitz; Chapter 3 Shamans Emerging from Repression in Siberia: Lightning Rods of Fear and Hope, Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer; Chapter 4 Experiences of Mongol Shamans in China: Victims and Agents of Violence, Peter Knecht; Chapter 5 Variations of Violence at the Vital Core of Chinese and Korean Shamanic Ritual Worlds, Daniel A. Kister; Chapter 6 Words of Violence: a Shamanic Curse in a Sagay Text, Galina Sychenko; Chapter 7 Exorcism Death in Virginia: On the Misrepresentation of Korean Shamans, Laurel Kendall; Chapter 8 Contesting Power, Negotiating Influence: Rai Shamans and New Religious Movements in Eastern Nepal, Alban von Stockhausen, Marion Wettstein; Chapter 9 Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Himalayan Encounters with Human and Other-Than-Human Opponents, Davide Torri; Chapter 10 Of Angry Thunders, Smelly Intruders and Human-Tigers. Shamanic Representations of Violence and Conflict in Non-Violent Peoples: The Semang-Negrito (Malaysia), Diana Riboli; Chapter 11 1Note of the Editors: Professor Neil L. Whitehead, one of the strongest voices in contemporary anthropology, suddenly passed away on 22 March 2012. The editors have decided to publish here the abstract of the chapter he was writing for the volume, which unfortunately he did not have the chance to finish. Divine Hunger – The Cannibal War-Machine, Neil L. Whitehead;
