Spirit possession and spirit mediumship from the perspective of Tulu oral traditions.
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry March 1, 1979 DOI: 10.1007/bf00114691 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnography Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 45 |
| Key findings | Spirit possession in southern India is culturally embedded and cannot be adequately explained by psychological or sociological frameworks alone. |
Abstract
The phenomenon of spirit possession is looked at in relationship to the broad cultural context in which it is found to exist in a region of southern India. The author critically reviews various attempts to explain spirit possession as solely a psychological or sociological event. Instead, he turns to the region's spirit possession and mediumship cults, oral traditions and social ideology for an ethnographically relevant interpretation of spirit possession.