Beschreibung
This detailed study on one among the many indigenous peoples
of Nepal is based on more than twenty years of ethnographic
research. It starts with an account of the Sunuwar’s
indigenous notion of culture (mukdum) as expressed in social
practice. With reference to specific social fields a model
of the Sunuwar person, mainly used to grasp deviations from
the ideal way of life, is analysed in the perspective of
Cultural Psychology and the Anthropology of the Senses. The
study concludes with an analysis of healing rituals, showing
that their effect simultaneously results from the ancestral
atmosphere produced by the shaman and a kind of
domination-free discussion among the ritual participants
mainly taking place in the pauses of the ritual. Thus, the
shamanic ritual is interpreted as a kind of legal mediation.
Werner M. Egli is Associate Professor at the
Dept. of Social & Cultural Anthropology of Zurich
University and Senior Researcher at the Dept. of Social &
Cultural Anthropology of Lucerne University.
