Conceiving Spirits. Birth Rituals and Contested Identities Among Laujé of Indonesia.

Nourse, Jennifer:

ISBN 10: 1560988509 / ISBN 13: 9781560988502

Published by Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999

About this Item

Series: Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry. xi 308p paperback, maroon cover, very good condition, minimal wear, binding tight, spine sunned, pages neat and bright, one or two light pencil marks, text and photographs very clear and sharp, a very good pre-owned copy Altersfreigabe FSK ab 0 Jahre Language: English.

Seller Inventory # 226378

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Conceiving Spirits. Birth Rituals and Contested Identities Among Laujé of Indonesia.
• Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1560988509
• ISBN 13: 9781560988502
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Anthropology

About this title

Synopsis

For most of the Lauje' of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, birth spirits are of primary importance. The spirits inhabit a mother's birth fluids and placenta, nurturing fetuses in the womb and children after birth---or bringing sickness and death if rituals are neglected.

Jennifer Nourse describes how Lauje' from both modernized coastal and isolated highland villages attribute to birth spirits competing meanings that hinge on an individual's gender, social class, and religion. At the beginning of her fieldwork, Nourse collaborated with two Lauje' men whose concepts of birth spirits as divided into good and bad, male and female, or local and foreign categories seemed to prevail in their respective villages. But after both men died, Nourse came to understand that some individuals, most often commoners or female spirit mediums, disagreed with these dualistic views of birth spirits, preferring to focus on the mystery and potency of the spirit world as a whole.