DOCSLIB.ORG

Living Without the Dead

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Living Without the Dead ............................... Living without the DeaD ............................... ............................... Living without the DeaD Loss anD ReDemption in a JungLe Cosmos ............................... Piers Vitebsky the UniVersity of ChiCago Press Chicago and London Piers Vitebsky is Emeritus Head of Anthropology and Russian Northern Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, England. He is also professor at the University of Tromsø, the Arctic University of Norway, as well as honorary professor at the M. K. Ammosov North- Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk, Siberia, Russia. Further photos, films, and linguistic documentation can be found at http://www.piersvitebsky.org. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2017 by Piers Vitebsky All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2017 Printed in the United States of America 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5 isbn-1 3: 978- 0- 226- 85777- 0 (cloth) isbn-1 3: 978- 0- 226- 47562- 2 (paper) isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 40787- 6 (e- book) Doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226407876.001.0001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Vitebsky, Piers, author. Title: Living without the dead : loss and redemption in a jungle cosmos / Piers Vitebsky. Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCn 2016058030 | isbn 9780226857770 (cloth : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226475622 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780226407876 (e-book) Subjects: LCsh: Savara (Indic people)—Funeral customs and rites. | Spiritualism—India. | Shamanism—India. Classification: LCC Ds432.s37 V58 2017 | DDC 305.8959/5—dc23 LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2016058030 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper). To my Sora friends, may their ancestors and descendants not lose each other through religious conflict; to all the generations of my own family; and to the inventors of portable voice recorders, who have made it so much more possible to know other worlds . so that what humans have done should not fade with time (ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται) heroDotUs, Histories (meaning “Researches,” the first surviving work of anthropology, ca. 430 BC) 1.1 There are none now in Phoenicia, that lament the death of Adonis; nor any in Libya, Creta, Thessalia, or elsewhere, that ask counsaile or helpe from Jupiter. The great god Pan hath broken his pipes. sir WaLter raLeigh, The History of the World (London, 1614), bk. 1, chap. 6, para. viii, p. 96 All over the world we can sense . the Great God Pan breaking his pipes; and it is now open to us, as it was scarcely open to Raleigh, to see this process as the essence of human history . the brutal natural selection of belief systems. john DUnn (1979: 59) I don’t care about debts or illness, I’d be sad to be a Christian. Lokami, Sora shamaness, 2005 (author’s field notes 62.53).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Annual Report
    The Department of Geography Annual Report 2015-2016 Contents Introduction, Bill Adams, Head Of Department 3 Staff, Arrivals, Departures 4 Promotions, Honours And Prizes 5 Research 6 Notable Outputs/Books Published 7 Key Grants Awarded, Postdoctoral Research Fellows 8 Distinguished International Guests, Research Visitors And Departmental Seminars 9 Undergraduate Studies 10 Geographical Tripos, Prizes, External Dissertation Prizes 11 First Class Dissertations 12 Graduate Studies: Highlights Of The Year 13-14 Technical Services: Laboratories 15 Information Services, Building And Safety 16 Annexe 1: Staff 17 Annexe 2: Research Grants Awarded 18 Crete Fieldtrip 2015 2 Department of Geography Annual Report 2015-16 Introduction The Department has also seen its investment in biodiversity conservation research over the last decade bear fruit, with the opening of the refurbished David Attenborough Building on the New Museums Site, and Main Geography building the continuing secondment Bill Adams, Head of Department of Bhaskar Vira as Director of the nascent Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, one of the University’s four new Interdisciplinary Research Centres. There are This academic year has seen a great deal plans for the Department to move to a new building on of change in the Department in terms of the New Museums Site nearby, although this is still five academic staff. The academic year began years at least away. with a dinner in Queens’ College to mark the retirement of four long-standing colleagues: Tim Perhaps once universities were places of tranquil Bayliss-Smith, Hans Graf, Ron Martin and Bob Haining. It calm and sober reflection. No more: changes from ended with a toast at the last Staff Meeting of the year without and within come thick and fast, powered by to two more retirees, Susan Owens and Piers Vitebsky, as the incessant chatter of emails and the relentless well as Lizzie Richardson who has gone from a temporary connectivity of the internet.
    [Show full text]
  • Indigenous Religions This Page Intentionally Left Blank Indigenous Religions
    Indigenous Religions This page intentionally left blank Indigenous Religions A Companion Edited by Graham Harvey T CASSELL LONDON and NEW YORK Cassell Wellington House, 125 Strand, London WC2R OBB 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6550 First published 2000 © Graham Harvey and contributors 2000 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-304-70447-4 (hardback) 0-304-70448-2 (paperback) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Indigenous religions: a companion/edited by Graham Harvey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-304-70447-4 (hardcover)—ISBN 0-304-70448-2 (pbk.) 1. Indigenous peoples—Religion. I. Harvey, Graham. BL380.I56 2000 299-dc21 99-41462 CIP Typeset by Paston PrePress Ltd, Beccles, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd That the people might live This page intentionally left blank Contents Contributors ix Preface xi Introduction 1 Graham Harvey Part I Persons 1. The cosmos as intersubjective: Native American other-than- human persons 23 Kenneth M. Morrison 2. Native Womanism: Exemplars of indigenism in sacred traditions of kinship 37 M. A. Jaimes Guerrero 3. Shamanism 55 Piers Vitebsky 4. Witchcraft and healing among the Bangwa of Cameroon 68 Fiona Bowie 5. Rattray's request: Spirit possession among the Bono of West Africa 80 Jan G.
    [Show full text]
  • Cat Vitebsky
    From Materfamilias to Dinner-Lady: The Administrative Destruction of the Reindeer Herder’s Family Life Piers Vitebsky, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge Abstract The imposition of collectivization on reindeer herders industrialized their previous subsistence herding into a system of ranching, making the vast landscape into a giant open-air meat factory. Children removed to harsh and distant boarding schools now lack the skills or sensibilities to work with animals. The removal of women from the land and their placing into newly established villages forced them into quite separate orbits of work and movement from those of the male herders. As a result, the very existence of family life is now threatened by alienation, alcoholism and suicide. This article follows the different destinies of three herding families among a community of Even in the northern Sakha Republic (Yakutia), from the early days of perestroika into post-Soviet times. It reveals a spectrum of adaptation or resistance to the state farm, and focuses on diverse possibilities of fulfilment (or its absence) for their women as an older model of integrated family matriarch is replaced by that of a hired dinner-lady. It shows how people can become vulnerable in different ways because of small differences in their demographic and personal circumstances, but also suggests that significant improvements can be made by small adjustments to budgetary or schooling procedures. Keywords Reindeer herding, Eveny (Tungus), family life, boarding school, GULAG, development, women‟s role Indigenous people on a vast landscape Among the indigenous minorities of the Far North, Soviet modernization had a peculiar and drastic effect on gender relations.
    [Show full text]
  • Thesis Draft Final
    The Corral and the Slaughterhouse Knowledge, tradition and the modernization of indigenous reindeer slaughtering practice in the Norwegian Arctic Hugo Reinert Wolfson College Scott Polar Research Institute Dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Cambridge 1 Acknowledgements Acknowledgements This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration. No part of it has been submitted for any other qualification, and it does not exceed the word limits set by the Degree Committee for Earth Sciences and Geography. Signed Acknowledgements Teachers and friends, lovers and informants, helpers, critics, guides – to list them all would be impossible. This dissertation hangs in a shimmering web of gratitudes, and debts beyond repayment. Still, at least to the following, I would offer my thanks – and the acknowledgement that without them, it is difficult to imagine how it might ever have been written in the first place. To the Sámi Research Programme of the Research Council of Norway – for the generous financial support that enabled me to undertake this project, and for accounting flexibilities above and beyond the call of duty. To my informants, in Finnmark and elsewhere – for sharing their thoughts, opinions, company and experience, extending a friendly hand to a stranger in a strange land. To my friends and fellow students in Cambridge, at SPRI and in the Department of Anthropology – no one named, no one left forgotten; you all know who you are. To my two neo-structuralists in the Total Institution, Patrice and Evgenia – for coffees, talks and plaintive theorizing, and for all those little things, too numerous to mention.
    [Show full text]
  • Environment and History
    Environment and History Volume 5 October 1999 Number 3 EDITORIAL Richard Grove 253 FEATURES Oriental Nature, its Friends and its Enemies: Conservation of Nature in Late-Colonial Indonesia, 1889–1949 Peter Boomgaard 257 Abruzzo National Park: Land of Dreams James Sievert 293 Thomas Pringle’s Plantation Damian Shaw 309 How Terms Shape Forests: ‘Niederwald’, ‘Mittelwald’ and ‘Hochwald’, and their Interaction with Forest Development in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland Matthias Bürgi 325 Environment and Social History: Kalahandi, 1800–1950 Biswamoy Pati 345 Military Conflict and Forests in Central Provinces, India: Gonds and the Gondwana Region in Pre-colonial History Archana Prasad 361 Index to Environment and History volume 5, 1999 377 ? = username $REMOTE_ASSR = IP address Thu, 30 Sep 2021 12:17:41 = Date & Time Environment and History Environment and History is an interdisciplinary journal which aims to bring scholars in the humanities and biological sciences closer together, with the deliberate intention of constructing long and well-founded perspectives on present day environmental problems. Contributions and editorial enquiries should be addressed to The Editor, c/o the White Horse Press, 10 High Street, Knapwell, Cambridge CB3 8NR, UK. Fax 01954 267527. A style sheet is available on request. EDITOR Richard H. Grove Australian National University email [email protected] fax 616 249 3051 CORRESPONDING EDITOR Mahesh Rangarajan Nehru Memorial Institute EDITORIAL BOARD Daniel Alexandrov, Russian Academy of Sciences; David Arnold,
    [Show full text]
  • PEI 2019 UK Final Programme (Updated 7-4-19)
    The 4th international Polar Educators workshop is supported by: The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). With special thanks to Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, British Antarctic Survey (BAS), The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) & The Polar Museum. Photography kindly sponsored by Anglia Ruskin University Day One: Monday, 8 April: The Polar Museum, Scott Polar Research Institute, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB2 1ER 13:30 – 16:30 Registration, tours and ice-breaker games in The Polar Museum ● Workshop pack and ID collection at The Polar Museum. ● Explore the Polar Museum and discover extraordinary stories of Earth’s coldest, driest, windiest, highest and deadliest places, including historical tales from heroic age of polar exploration, life in the Arctic and modern-day climate science ● Visit the Polar Encounters exhibition, which features 200 years of Arctic art by Inuit artists and European travellers to the far north, showing different interpretations of life at home, at camp and at sea. ● Sign up to take a tour of the world-renowned Polar Library: books, journals maps and more relating to the Arctic, Antarctic snow and ice – 15:00 & 16:00. ● Learn more about the Museum’s growing collection of online polar education resources. ● Enjoy some polar-themed ‘ice-breaker’ activities in the Museum 17:45 Doors re-open at The Polar Museum 18:00-20:00 Conference Launch Event and Drinks Reception The Polar Museum Welcome - Prof Julian Dowdeswell (Director, Scott Polar Research Institute – SPRI), Julia Dooley (President, Polar Educators International - PEI) with Allen Pope (Executive Secretary, International Arctic Science Committee – IASC). Opening remarks - Dr Chandrika Nath, Executive Officer, Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Keynote: Science on Ice: Wild, Charming or Alarming? Dr Gabrielle Walker Dr Gabrielle Walker, co-author of The Hot Topic: How to Tackle Global Warming and Still Keep the Lights On.
    [Show full text]