The Shamaness in Asia
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The Shamaness in Asia This book concentrates on female shamanisms in Asia and their relationship with the state and other religions, offering a perspective on gender and shamanism that has often been neglected in previous accounts. An international range of contributors cover a broad geographical scope, ranging from Siberia to South Asia and Iran to Japan. Several key themes are considered, including the role of bureaucratic established religions in integrating, challenging, and fighting shamanic practices; the position of women within shamanic complexes; and perceptions of the body. Beginning with a chapter that places the shamaness at the centre of the discussion, chapters then approach these issues in a variety of ways, from historically informed accounts to presenting the findings of extensive ethnographic research by the authors themselves. Offering an important counterbalance to male-dominated accounts of shamanism, this book will be of great interest to scholars of indigenous peoples across religious studies, anthropology, Asian studies, and gender studies. Davide Torri is currently a researcher at the Department of History, Anthropology, Religions, and Performing Arts at Sapienza University of Rome. In addition, he is an associate member of the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies (Germany) and of the Centre d’Etudes Himalayennes of the CNRS (France). He is also secretary of the ISARS (International Society for the Academic Research on Shamanism). His main areas of research includes Himalayan religions, shamanism, and indigenous minorities. Among his publications, we find Landscape, Ritual and Identity among the Hyolmo of Nepal (2020) and (as co-editor) Shamanism and Violence: Power, Repression and Suffering in Indigenous Religious Conflicts (2013). Sophie Roche is a research associate and lecturer at the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies and Social Anthropology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Her main research interests include conflict and disaster studies as well as migration in Central Asia, Iran and Germany. She is the author of the monographs Domesticating Youth (2014) and The Faceless Terrorist: A Study of Critical Events in Tajikistan (2019). Vitality of Indigenous Religions Series Editors: Graham Harvey Open University , UK Afeosemime Adogame Princeton Theological Seminary , USA Routledge’s Vitality of Indigenous Religions series offers an exciting cluster of research monographs, drawing together volumes from leading interna- tional scholars across a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. Indigenous religions are vital and empowering for many thousands of indigenous peo- ples globally, and dialogue with, and consideration of, these diverse religious life-ways promises to challenge and refine the methodologies of a number of academic disciplines, whilst greatly enhancing understandings of the world. This series explores the development of contemporary indigenous reli- gions from traditional, ancestral precursors, but the characteristic contri- bution of the series is its focus on their living and current manifestations. Devoted to the contemporary expression, experience and understanding of particular indigenous peoples and their religions, books address key issues which include: the sacredness of land, exile from lands, diasporic survival and diversification, the indigenization of Christianity and other mission- ary religions, sacred language, and re-vitalization movements. Proving of particular value to academics, graduates, postgraduates and higher level undergraduate readers worldwide, this series holds obvious attraction to scholars of Native American studies, Maori studies, African studies and offers invaluable contributions to religious studies, sociology, anthropology, geography and other related subject areas. Rethinking Relations and Animism Personhood and Materiality Edited by Miguel Astor-Aguilera and Graham Harvey Landscape, Ritual and Identity Among the Hyolmo of Nepal The Buddha and the Drum Davide Torri The Shamaness in Asia Gender, Religions and the State Edited by Davide Torri and Sophie Roche For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ religion/series/AINDIREL The Shamaness in Asia Gender, Religions and the State Edited by Davide Torri and Sophie Roche First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Davide Torri and Sophie Roche; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Davide Torri and Sophie Roche to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-27932-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-31980-8 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Biographical notes viii SECTION 1 The conceptual debate: the role of gender and religion in shamanic studies 1 1 The shamaness at the threshold: gender, religions and the state in Asia 3 SOPHIE ROCHE AND DAVIDE TORRI 2 The shamaness’ new clothes: On the qualities of resisting bodies 26 DAVIDE TORRI 3 Shamanesses high and low: gender-based relationships to spiritual entities in Siberia 45 ROBERTE HAMAYON 4 Retrospectives: what I got wrong in my first book 67 LAUREL KENDALL 5 Shamanism and gender (in)equality in South and South-East Asia: the Chepang of Nepal and the Semang-Negrito of Peninsular Malaysia 86 DIANA RIBOLI vi Contents SECTION 2 Sociopolitical contexts: exclusion, marginalization, and participation 101 6 Shamans, Islam and the state medical policy in post-Soviet Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan 103 DANUTA PENKALA-GAWĘCKA 7 From clanic shamaness to Burkhanist messenger: transformations of religious roles of Altaian women (19th–21st centuries) 133 CLÉMENT JACQUEMOUD 8 “Let me take your pain away”: female shamanism in a Central Asian soundscape 155 RAZIA SULTANOVA 9 Female shamanhood in Southern Siberia at the turn of the millennium: revival of an ancient archetype, modernization or declining of “traditional” shamanism? 167 GALINA B. SYCHENKO SECTION 3 Tensions and syncretism: dynamic entanglements between shamanism and bureaucratic religions 189 10 Women’s sociability: the qalandar khona of Khujand (Tajikistan) in the context of political events 191 SOPHIE ROCHE 11 Shamanism and gender construction among the Kavalan of Taiwan: men and women’s illness caused by different spirits 208 PI-CHEN LIU 12 Mirroring values in possession ritual: a biographic-narrative study of female participants in the zār ritual in the Hormozgān province of Iran 225 MARYAM ABBASI Contents vii 13 Shamanism in Mongolia: women, mother-earth and the world 245 LAETITIA MERLI Index 260 Biographical notes Maryam Abbasi University of Heidelberg (Heidelberg, Germany) Maryam Abbasi graduated from Tehran University in the field of social anthropology. She pursued her master studies at the same institute and wrote an ethnography on Laks, a group of people mainly living in the western part of Iran. In 2010, she started to do field work with a private anthropological insti- tute focusing on south Iran, which later became her field of study for her PhD. Within the project of this institute, she worked on traditional medicine and the z ār ritual as a way to treat people who are believed to be possessed. Since then, she has continued to study various other aspects of the z ār ritual. She is particularly interested in social aspects that motivate participants to participate in this ritual and the way this ritual is connected to gender identity. Currently she is a PhD student at the Institute of Anthropology at the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg. Her fields of interest are ritual, gender and sexuality, ethnography, visual anthropology, religion, and social empowerment. Roberte Hamayon École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, France) Roberte Hamayon is honorary professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. An anthropologist, she has conducted fieldwork in Mongo- lia, Buryatia, and Inner Mongolia (China) since the late 1960s. Her main publications concern shamanism, epics, ritual, and the notion of playing. Clément Jacquemoud EHESS-Césor (Paris, France) Clément Jacquemoud is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Césor (LabEx HASTEC, EHESS, Paris). His research compares the seasonal rituals Biographical notes ix that recently appeared in the Altay Republic and focuses on the contempo- rary religious roles of Altaian women, especially the way they are involved in these rituals. He has a PhD in religious anthropology from the EPHE (Paris, 2017). His thesis, entitled “Religious Diversity in the Altay Republic: Rival- ries