Fortune and the cursed
Subtitle: the sliding scale of time in Mongolian divination
By: Katherine Swancutt
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York; Oxford
Language: eng
Number of pages: 284
ISBN-13: 9780857454829; 9780857454836
Subjects: Social life and customs; Blessing and cursing; Buriats; Religious aspects; Rites and ceremonies; Religion; Social conflict; Shamanism; Divination
Description: Innovation-making is a classic theme in anthropology that reveals how people fine-tune their ontologies, live in the world and conceive of it as they do. This ethnographic study is an entrance into the world of Buryat Mongol divination, where a group of cursed shamans undertake the 'race against time' to produce innovative remedies that will improve their fallen fortunes at an unconventional pace. Drawing on parallels between social anthropology and chaos theory, the author gives an in-depth account of how Buryat shamans and their notion of fortune operate as 'strange attractors' who propagate.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: A race against time: Mongolian fortune and the anthropology of magic; title: Buryat cosmology and the timescales of religious practice; title: Fortune, the soul and spiralling returns; title: Curses, khel am and the omnipresence of witchcraft; title: Divination and the inextensive distance to cursing rivals; title: An unconventional timescale: the immediate rise of fortune; title: Glossary of vernacular terms.