Formations of ritual : colonial and anthropological discourses on the Sinhala yaktovil / David Scott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scott, David, 1958-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sinhalese (Sri Lankan people)--Rites and ceremonies.

Sinhalese (Sri Lankan people).

Sinhalese (Sri Lankan people)--Religion.

Medicine, Ayurvedic--Sri Lanka--Devinuvara--Religious aspects.

Medicine, Ayurvedic.

Exorcism--Sri Lanka--Devinuvara.

Exorcism.

Devinuvara (Sri Lanka)--Religious life and customs.

Devinuvara (Sri Lanka).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (334 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c1994.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Yaktovil is an elaborate healing ceremony employed by Sinhalas in Sri Lanka to dispel the effects of the eyesight of a pantheon of malevolent supernatural figures known as yakku. Scott's investigation of yaktovil and yakku within the Sinhala cosmology is also an inquiry into the ways in which anthropology, by ignoring the discursive history of the rituals, religions, and relationships it seeks to describe, tends to reproduce ideological-often, specifically colonial-objects.

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgments; On Transliteration and Usage; Introduction; Part I. Ethnographic Topoi; Part II. Colonial Discourses; Part III. Reconstructing Anthropological Objects; Conclusion; Appendix; Notes; Glossary; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-8166-8508-8

OCLC:

476093495