I guerrieri dell'invisibile: mito e guarigione fra gli aborigeni dell'India

Drawing on the meterial of his personal fteldwork in India, the author analyze the social context of the shamanism among the tribal communities of Orissa and Arunachal Pradesh. This is a cultural phenomenon whose varied forms and multiple functions make it difficult to define. Shamans are the traditional knowledge of the village, the ones two guarantee the future of the clans and the equilibrium of the cosmos. Through the shaman's individual experience of possession, the community interprets disease as a message from the dead/spirits and eventually deals with the crisis by confirming and renewing the cohesion of domestic and kinship bondages with spirits and ancestors. The chapter discusses some of the ritual healing practices, the principles of ethno-botany and tribal medicine, and in conclusion an unusual kind of primitive surgery.