11Story

23 December 2008

Sickness and death

"We have eaten the forest"

Contents:  "We have eaten the forest"  - Introduction  - Aim of the exhibition  - Synopsis        * Ethnology as an art of living        * The Sar Luk villagers        * A poetic and oral tradition        * Burning the forest of the stone spirit Goo        * Works and days        * Buffalo sacrifice        * Sickness and death         * Sar Luk today  - The purpose of ethnography: an interview with Georges Condominas with Yves Goudineau  - Biography of Georges Condominas  - Main publications

 

Sickness and death

 

Healing rites

 

“The profound beauty of these shamanic séances is undeniable. The skilled performance, with its wealth of accompanying artifacts and symbolic actions; the powerful musical incantations in abstruse verse filled with words ‘just to make it rhyme’ or whose sense is lost today; the obscure magical formulae; the clumsily groping, blind actions of this journeyer into the Great Beyond (the shaman’s eyes remain closed throughout the séance); the all too real sickness; and the actual presence (nobody in attendance would think to doubt it) of spirits and sorcerers, the agents of death – all these elements imbue such séances with an authentically mysterious atmosphere and with tragic grandeur.”

 

		Figurine for exorcism
Figurine 71.1951.3.273 © musée du quai Branly / P. Gries

 

Field notebook © Georges Condominas / musée du quai Branly collections	The female shaman of the neighbouring village consecrates the jar for the sacrifice, in the presence of the son of the ailing Jôn-Wan © Georges Condominas

 

Funerals

 

“The deceased’s sister draws back the top of the matting shroud to uncover the dead man’s face, so that he may look one last time upon his wife and children, and see the sun and the sky. It is surprising to see no trace of decay upon his features, and Bbaang-the-Stag attributes this to the injections and pills made from ‘magical European plants’ administered by the nurse. Brôong then places a few pieces of coal beside the corpse, which will serve as guides for the deceased on his journey to meet Yaang Boec, lord of the regions of Hell.” “Today we have finally ‘visited the cemetery’, paid a last visit to his tomb, which will then be abandoned forever. Taang-Jieng-the-Stooped has now ceased to exist in any way in the village’s economic, social and religious life. He has joined the ancestors of his household, where, as in all Gar families, male ascendants only play a minor role until the day they are reincarnated in a newborn child; only when life begins again for them will they take up a place in the society once more.”

                                                       
 

Funeral of the son of Bbür and Aang-of-the-Drooping-Eyelid
© Georges Condominas

 

Funeral lintel 71.1951.3.350 © musée du quai Branly / P. Gries

 

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