1002:4.1.2
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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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- | ~~DECKJS~~ | ||
- | # 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:// | ||
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- | ## 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' | ||
- | * Witchcraft is a way of mediating social conflicts (Nadel 1952). | ||
- | * Witchcraft is a collective representation of deviance itself, the " | ||
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- | Witchcraft exist in an equilibrium, | ||
- | 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' | ||
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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' | ||
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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' | ||
- | * 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 " | ||
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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 " | ||
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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' | ||
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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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- | ## 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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- | ## Reference | ||
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- | Evans-Pritchard, | ||
1002/4.1.2.1571717274.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/10/21 21:07 by Ryan Schram (admin)