Premium
Deadly power: a funeral to counter sorcery in South India
Author(s) -
Nabokov IsabelIe
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.2000.27.1.147
Subject(s) - tamil , proposition , power (physics) , sociology , regeneration (biology) , history , aesthetics , anthropology , environmental ethics , art , philosophy , literature , epistemology , biology , physics , quantum mechanics , microbiology and biotechnology
In this article, I argue that the regenerative potential of Tamil sorcery and countersorcery in South India inevitably depends on destruction; I demonstrate what ritual specialists' and sufferers' perspectives can reveal about relations of power, death, and regeneration. I take issue with Bruce Kapferer's recent proposition that sorcery is a creative practice through which human beings make and remake their lives, [sorcery, countersorcery, ritual healing, funeral symbolism, South India, Tamil people]