Revelation and Divination in Ndembu Ritual

Portada
Cornell University Press, 2018 M05 31 - 352 páginas

The core of this book is a complete description of two important Ndembu rituals of affliction (Chihamba and Kayong'u), and an analysis of the system of ideas underlying more than a dozen modes of divination. Written by an internationally-known social scientist, the book demonstrates how the study of small-scale events may reveal as much about what it means to be a human being in society as do grand macrosocial and macrocultural surveys.Drawing on two and a half years of fieldwork, Victor Turner offers two thorough ethnographic studies of Ndembu revelatory ritual and divinatory techniques, with running commentaries on symbolism by a variety of Ndembu informants. Striking a personal note in the introductory chapter, Turner acknowledges his indebtedness to Ndembu ritualists for alerting him to the theoretical relevance of symbolic action in understanding human societies. He believes that ritual symbols, like botanists' stains, enable us to detect and trace the movement of social processes and relationships that often lie below the level of direct observation.

Dentro del libro

Contenido

Introduction
15
A RITUAL DRAMA OF THE NDEMBU
35
ITS SYMBOLISM AND TECHNIQUES
205
Appendix
339
Bibliographical References
343
Index
345
Derechos de autor

Otras ediciones - Ver todas

Términos y frases comunes

Acerca del autor (2018)

Victor Turner is Professor of Anthropology and Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Información bibliográfica