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1002:4.1.2 [2019/10/21 21:07] – [In Auhelawa, mourning, witchcraft, and reciprocity among matrilineages are all functionally connected] Ryan Schram (admin)1002:4.1.2 [Unknown date] (current) – removed - external edit (Unknown date) 127.0.0.1
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-# Respect for the owners of the death 
- 
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-## Respect for the owners of the death 
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- 
-Ryan Schram   
-ANTH 1002: Anthropology in the world   
-Module 4, Week 1, Lecture 2 
-Social Sciences Building (A02), Room 410   
-ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au   
-October 23, 2019   
-Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/1002/4.1.2 
- 
-## A death in the village 
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-* Wailing 
-* The haus krai  
-* Speaking to the dead 
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-## The function of witchcraft  
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-Social anthropologists loved talking about witchcraft and sorcery. It seemed a perfect test case for their ideas about social **function**: 
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-* Witchcraft and sorcery function in relation to a society's egalitarian ideology. People bewitch their social equals out of jealousy that they might be gaining prestige and authority (Fortune 1932). 
-* Witchcraft is a way of mediating social conflicts (Nadel 1952). 
-* Witchcraft is a collective representation of deviance itself, the "standardized nightmare" of the society (Wilson 1951: 313). 
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-Witchcraft exist in an equilibrium, and is part of a process of 
-maintaining social equilibrium. 
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-## In Auhelawa, mourning, witchcraft, and reciprocity among matrilineages are all functionally connected 
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-In many ways, the mourning of a person's death is the total social fact of Auhelawa society  
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-* because it involves everyone in the community in some way, and  
-* because what they do together to mourn is the foundation of their relationships to each other in a social structure 
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-People's mourning, their ideas about death, and the roles they play in mortuary ritual are all part of a positive feedback loop which includes their relationships as members of matrilineal groups and as kin.   
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- 
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-## Mourners and owners  
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-Death divides the world into two sides:  
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-* The matrilineal kin of the deceased (mothers, siblings, mother's brothers) are the owners of the death 
-* The affines (spouse, other in-laws) must mourn for the death by wailing, respect, and giving gifts. If a man dies, then the wife and her children are both mourners.  
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-When a matrilineage owns a death, then any other matrilineage for whom they have mourned will now mourn in return.  
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-* For instance, one mourns for the matrilineal kin of one's father. This group will reciprocate this mourning for your matrilineage during your life, and when you die. 
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-Other, unrelated matrilineages also join as "supporters" of either the mourners or the owners.  
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-* People of the same bird (totem) will support each other when one is mourning for or owns a death.  
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-## Mourning means observing taboos out of "respect" 
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-The mourners, and especially the husband or the wife and her children, must show that they are mourning. Besides wailing, they will:  
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-* abstain from washing their hair 
-* wear only dirty clothes 
-* eat only poor vegetables, and abstain from meat and feast yams 
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-These prohibited things are all *bwabwale* (forbidden). The mourners will also give a pig and many feast yams to the owners; this gift is also called *bwabwale*. 
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-* The mourners do not eat what they give 
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-Respect creates a division, but a division enables the two sides to enter into a specific kind of reciprocal exchange. 
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-## Witchcraft and deaths 
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-In many societies, death is always caused by someone's witchcraft, and poses an immediate danger to the living.  
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-As Evans-Pritchard notes, Azande people kill witches. Witches can also be asked to pay compensation for the death (Evans-Pritchard [1937] 1976, 5).  
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-* People are responsible for their witchcraft even though they cannot control it.  
-* The kin of a witch are also supposed to help pay compensation.  
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-A witchcraft attack causes a collective injury, and is a collective responsibility.  
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-This is very different from the concept of responsibility in Western criminal law.  
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- 
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-## Death is not individual  
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-When people die, the relationships that they mediate are interrupted and must be restored. Death is an injury to the social body.  
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- 
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-## Reference 
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-Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1937) 1976. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Edited by Eva Gillies. Abridged edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 
  
1002/4.1.2.1571717274.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/10/21 21:07 by Ryan Schram (admin)