Let Your Spirit Free a Critique of Janice Boddys Woman and Alien Spirits
Let the Spirit Set You Free Critique of Janice Boddy?s, Wombs and Alien Spirits Jason Carey March 12, 2003 RELG 400B On my honor, as a student of the University of Virginia, I have neither given nor received any unauthorized information on this paper. ... In Janice Boddy?s Wombs and Alien Spirits, the study of rituals and symbols takes the reader to the heart of the anthropology of experience, performance, and symbolism. ... As an ethnographer, Janice Boddy traced the cultural and social aspects of the Hofriyati people, especially those dealing with spirit possession. Throughout the book, Boddy evolves in her text, first dealing with the relations between men and women and flowing into exploring the spirit world apart from contexts of possession in Hofriyati humans. ... r is centered mainly on the female, where a woman is possessed by a spirit or zayran. ... Many writers have noted that while the majority of the possessing spirits are male, those possessed are generally female. This is not to say that the men do not contribute to zar ceremonies: they may help with drumming, the slaughter of ritual animals, or may themselves be a husband or relative required to make offerings to the possessing spirit. ... The ambiguity with which a zar can create emphasizes the importance of openness and how only when a woman lets the zaryan in, when she loosens her hold on reality and enters the ? ... Obeyesekere says that a woman uses her symbol with full knowledge of what it means to be so. But, a woman who has been possessed by a zar has no particular idea what has made her that way. Not until afterwards does shoe know that the spirit has picked her for a certain purpose. ... But Obeyesekere consistently talks only about the woman with matted hair, never getting to the reactions of others.