Alleged practices of magical assault and vampirism are a recurrent feature of popular explanations of misfortune in Tuva, South Siberia. Based on a field study of healing practices in an “Association of Shamans”, this article analyses rituals of redressing curse afflictions in the context of Russian political domination. A central purpose of this discussion is to foreground the centrality of...
Alleged practices of magical assault and vampirism are a recurrent feature of popular explanations of misfortune in Tuva Republic, South Siberia. Based on a field study of healing practices in an “Association of Shamans”, this article analyses rituals of countercursing one’s antagonists in a context of Russian political domination. A central purpose of this discussion is to foreground the...
This dissertation examines suspicions and accusations of affliction with curses in the Republic of Tuva, south Siberia (Russia). Based on a sample of consultations between shamans and clients regarding curse-inflicted misfortunes, as well as on sociological and statistical sources about post-Soviet Tuva, this thesis identifies a significant incidence of curse accusations in contemporary Tuva. I...