the power of rhetoric: dialogue and dynamic persuasion in healing rituals of a south indian...

8/7/2019 The Power of Rhetoric: Dialogue and Dynamic Persuasion in Healing Rituals of a South Indian Community

1/28

In: Demmer, Ulrich and Gaenszle, Martin (eds.) 2007 The Po- wer of Discourse in Ritual Performance. Rhetoric, Poetics,Transformations . New York, London, Muenster: LIT. pp. 26-53.

The Power of Rhetoric:Dialogue and Dynamic Persuasion in Healing

Rituals of a South Indian Community 1

Ulrich Demmer

Rhetoric is a vital part of many ritual performances and as we outlined above (cf.introduction) it is explored in at least two ways. One approach examines lin-guistic strategies of persuasion from a perspective of poetics'. In particularscholars working in the tradition of the ethnography of speaking (e.g. Sherzer1983; Kuipers 1990) concentrate on the poetic organization of a speech and ei-ther explore formal rhetorical devices (e.g. parallelism or focalization) or outlinethe work of tropes. As these studies make clear, rhetoric is understood in a rather

monologic and epideictic sense focusing on strategies of how speakers elaboraterepresentations of meanings and how they use poetical devices to compose theirspeech effectively. Yet, many ritual performances are not so much organized asmonologic genres but rather as a dialogic discourse where many voices andspeakers are engaged in verbal interaction.

Shamanic healing rituals in rural Malaysia, for instance, are discursive andinteractive verbal practices. As Laderman (1996) shows the so called Main Pe- teri constitute speech events where several speakers are involved in dialogue. Inthat performances shamans ( tok teri) who are thought to embody spiritual beingscommunicate with ritual specialists ( minduk ) as well as with the other humanparticipants of the seance. The latter are drawn from a pool of relatives of thepatient and act as advocates. Thus spirits speak and sing, joke and complain,

1Im grateful to John DuBois for inspiring communication on a dynamic and dialogic

rhetoric. Thanks go also to Stephen Tyler and Ivo Strecker for their constructive critiqueof earlier papers. Of course, Im alone responsible for the stance taken in this chapter. Itis based on more than six years of fieldwork with the J nu Ku umba, undertaken since1987. For more ethnographic details on the J nu Ku umba see the bibliography of thisarticle.


2/28

The Power of Rhetoric 27

express their wishes and agree to withdraw their harmful influence, all throughthe medium of the shaman . (1996: 125). Those conversations are partly collo-quial in style while other parts consist in a kind of sung dialogue or duett whereboth interlocutors, spiritual beings as well as the minduk sing.

The healing rituals of the Temiar in Kelantan (cf. Roseman 1991, 1996) arealso dialogic interactions. They consist of manyfold communication betweenhealers and the relatives of the patient on the one hand and shamans embodyingspiritual beings on the other. In fact, the healer, supported by the rhythmic songsof a female chorus, verbally interacts with the spirits through sung and conversa-tional speech where obviously persuasion is a vital concern. Thus he variouslydirects the actions of the spiritguide, or requests its assistance. Sometimes, di-recting his speech toward the illness agent, he speaks harshly ( ?e -? a: l) tofrighten it away. (1996: 252). The spirits, in turn, respond to the addresses anddemands of the healer by likewise articulating themselves through the shamanwith ordinary speech or songs.

Finally, to mention a last one out of many other instances 2 healing seances of the Warao (Briggs 1996) also constitute a complex form of dialogical interac-tion. As Briggs shows, these performances represent a ritual discourse (1996:212) where three parties, the healer ( wisidatu ), the patient and her/his relativesas well the ancestor spirits (the hebu , who speak through the shaman) are en-gaged. The rituals employ a broad spectrum of both verbal and non-verbalmodes of communication that clearly include persuasive strategies. Thus thehealers address the ancestors with songs and the latter, embodied in the shaman,are persuaded to respond. Moreover, the ancestors are also engaged in dialogueswith the patients and their relatives where they debate the possible causes of thedisease, the responsibilities of other relatives and further topics related to agen-cies, power and morality.

As these examples demonstrate rituals are often colloquial or conversationalin style. Moreover, at least since Fernandez path breaking studies (1991, 1986)we know that rituals often involve processes of negotiation, mutual persuasion

and even argumentation. Their analysis, then, clearly calls for a shift of perspec-tive from a monologic and text-centered to a dynamic and discourse-centeredrhetoric. Instead of locating persuasion in a process where speakers coerce anappropriate effect in the audience and where the latter is seen as a passive recipi- 2

E.g. Kaluli (Schieffelin 1985) and Wana healing seances (Atkinson 1989) as well as themany shamanic rituals in South Asia which are shaped as colloquial debate and persua-sive interaction (cf. Demmer 2001, 2006).


3/28


4/28


beyond all differences, judicial argument as a model for rhetoric generally,focusing attention on the interchange between opposing arguer roles (ibid.).Meanwhile, this approach has developed into an elaborate theory of argumenta-tion. Represented by Van Eemeren et al. (op. cit.) and Billig (1987), it regardsrhetorical events as contexts of controversy, as argumentative processes but alsoas procedures of collaboration. Accordingly, it focuses on the interaction be-tween speaker/audience or between controversial disputants and not on the con-text-free text of a speech or a song.

Moreover, and for our purpose this is of particular value, it puts special em-phasis not only on interaction and verbal exchange but also on the transforma-tive dimension of rhetoric. Indeed one of the most promising elements in argu-mentation theory is its concern with processes of social transformation. Thus itexplores how rhetoric contributes to the reconciliation of conflicting points of views, how it is used to overcome moral crisis or how participants achieve amutually recognised consent. As Van Eemeren et al. put it, a central question forrhetoric is how opposing views come to be reconciled through the use of lan-guage (1997: 215).

Such a concept of rhetoric, I argue, is also relevant for the study of ritual - atleast if it is organised as verbal interaction. What are the verbal means that areemployed? The few studies that we have, all referred to above, identify some of

them. Poetical rhetorists explored formal devices like parallelism or focaliza-tion but also outlined the work of tropes. Others exposed, as it were, politenessstrategies and, last but not least, symbolic action as powerful persuasive devices.All these tools also play an important role in the rituals of the J nu Ku umba (cf.Demmer 2001, 2006); in the following, however, I want to work out some of theless known verbal means, namely social memory, narrativity and emotions.Their relevance for ritual studies remained almost unexplored so far. Accord-ingly, to conceptualise these devices we need to draw on studies other than ritualto a large extent.

Taking an analysis of the healing rituals of the J nu Ku umba in South India

as reference, this chapter explores some of the dialogic and dynamic persuasivestrategies within ritual. It is argued that performances which are primarily basedon verbal exchange are best conceived of as contexts of conversational interac-tion. Seen from that angle the appropriate model for rhetoric is not the epideicticbut rather the forensic genres of public debate and even argumentation. In par-ticular I will outline social memory, narratives and emotions as important rhe-torical strategies in dialogic ritual.


5/28

Demmer 30

Persuasive Tools

Anthropological studies have identified and examined a number of rhetoricaldevices like parallelism, repetition and the elaboration of meanings (cf. Sherzerand Woodbury 1987) as well as figures of speech, most prominently metaphor(cf. Fernandez 1991, Sapir & Crocker 1977). Discursive strategies like narration,social memories and emotions, in contrast, are less well studied. In this chapter,therefore, I will concentrate on these rhetorical tools, though the devices men-tioned above in the introduction are also employed.

Narratives and reports, i.e. narrativity, are powerful means of rhetoric. Theirstructure can be impersonal in the sense that the speakers just describe events orfacts. Sherzer (1982) for instance argues for the persuasive function of this typeof narrative in the healing rituals of the Kuna. In other speech events narrativesare rather personal and, as Bauman (1986) and Hill (1995) make clear, are usedrhetorically too. This is in particular the case when social or moral conflicts areat issue. In moral discourse, the moral identity of the involved is put in questionand the speakers have to defend and strengthen their points of view effectively,

representing them as reliable and legitimate. In those contexts, they can use thenarration of personal matters to illustrate and elaborate their own positions. Onthe other hand, personal narratives serve to underline contrasts and differentia-tions, so that one's own points of view are strengthened by the fact that otherpositions are described in negative terms, for example as little desirable, bad orwrong. Narrativity, then, is used to locate and relocate the person in the moralspace of accountability and responsibility and is thus of particular value in moraldiscourse. Accordingly narratives are used as arguments to defend or re-establishthe moral identities of the speakers. As our analysis below makes clear, this isalso the case in ritual discourse. In fact, in those processes a lot is at stake andrituals prove dramatically that also there performances of narratives provide aforum for negotiating personal and collective identity. (Briggs 1988: 273).

Apart from narratives social memory plays an important role. The claim, rep-resentation or negotiation of collective or personal identities often has a substan-tial temporal dimension of remembrance. This is the case in contexts of every-day life (Taylor 1989) but also in ritual performances (Connerton 1989, Csordas1996). That is particularly evident in cases where the discourse is concerned


6/28


with personal conflict and the negotiation of identities as, for example, in the socalled 'Disentangling' meetings in the Pacific (Watson Gegeo & White 1990). Insuch contexts, the social behaviour of people in the course of their common so-ciography is under scrutiny. What is at stake here is the social self of the partici-pants in its continuity. To preserve or re-establish trust and reliability their 'face'needs a kind of reconstitution in the depth of time. The person's regain of its'good' social self, then, is accordingly linked with the reconstruction of its pastsocial relations within the shared life history. It is the narrative and then (Tay-lor 1989: 47) that permits the person to be placed in a temporal context and in astory that finally is its sociography. As we will see below, it is in particular in

the context of dialogue and argumentation that narratives and, we can add, socialmemories, gain that force as rhetorical devices of identification (Bauman1986: 28) in a powerful way.

Another forceful rhetorical instrument is provided by the linguistic articula-tion of emotions. Their rhetorical function in ritual is to a large extent unex-plored, but the literature provides some hints at least. Thus in the healing seancesof the Kaluli (Schieffelin 1985) verbal expressions of feelings play an importantrole. There, the shamans need to pull their audiences into the ritual performanceagain and again and for this purpose they often use emotional means. Theyevoke and memorise, for example, the common life history with the dead and

thus make their audience cry. But these memories and feelings also cause theliving to long for the deceased and to communicate and talk with them. In othersequences it is the intention of the shamans to make their audiences laugh and inother parts they try to evoke fear and anxiety, in order to enhance dramaturgi-cally the peculiar atmosphere that goes along with the presence of the spirits. AsSchieffelin shows, the use and arousal of emotions is a crucial rhetorical devicein the ritual process. Kapferer (1979) too discusses the role of emotions in ritual.In the Sinhalese healing seances the ritual specialists and the comedians seek toevoke the laughter and the amusement of the patients. This evocation of emo-tions is an important goal of the interaction as well as of the ritual as a whole.

Other anthropologists, outside rituals studies, examine why feelings are soimportant a rhetorical device. M. Rosaldo (1980) argued early on that feelingsare often a kind of pragmatic language. This is in particular the case, when inter-personal and moral issues are at stake. As an example she mentions the responseof a mother who first hears a child cry but then realises that it is her own child.Referring to the mother's immediate reaction to help and rescue the child,Rosaldo points to the appellative and rhetorical force of linguistically expressedfeelings that are able to evoke and even to demand morally appropriate replies.


7/28

Demmer 32

Moreover, for Rosaldo emotions and feelings are not only a kind of moral lan-guage, but they are also beyond the common separation of rationality and feel-ing/nature; emotions are, accordingly, embodied thoughts (1984). 3

Subsequent research has shown in detail, how relevant indeed these findingsare. Thus scholars who worked explicitly on the social relevance of personalexperiences (cf. Kleinman 1992, DelVecchio Good et al. 1992) point out thatexperiences, e. g. social suffering and pain, have a substantial role in the consti-tution of moral communities, because they are powerful persuasive means. Emo-tions, they write, have an important rhetorical dimension: they are meant toarouse a response in audiences, as well as express discomfort (DelVecchioGood et al. 1992: 201 ). Moreover, ethnopsychologists were able to demonstratein detail the persuasive dynamics of emotions in discursive interaction. In thealready mentioned meetings of Disentangling, for example, emotions areevaluations and interpretations of social events, based deeply on the cultural andsocial values and meanings of the people involved. Thus anger, to cite just oneinstance (cf. White 1990), can be a moral evaluation of social behaviour and/or aform of social criticism. As those studies prove, feelings and experiences, articu-lated in social discourse, serve to define positions of speakers in the social ormoral space of their community. This positioning, in turn, gives rise to the rhe-torical function of emotions; as moral statements they are experienced as appeals

or as inquiries demanding an answer.Emotions, then, can be seen as discursive acts used to articulate, legitimise,

defend or deny socially relevant claims. In the moral space of responsibility andaccountability they have an argumentative function to 'move' people towards aculturally and socially appropriate response. Feelings, then, play an importantpersuasive role, wherever people are involved in the negotiation and discursiveconstitution of social and moral identities. In those contexts, emotions are, asLutz und White say, a primary idiom for defining and negotiating social rela-tions of the self in a moral order (1986: 417).

In the present article I will analyse the healing ritual of the J nu Ku umba

and argue that the social dimension is of paramount importance in ritual dis-course. In as much as rituals provide a moral and discursive space where socialrelations, normative axioms and worldviews are transformed and reconstructed,

3Morality is based on the interplay of intellect and feeling. As S. Tyler (1978: 166)

writes in his defence of rhetoric this is manifest in language itself. Yet, the scientificseparation of reason and passion, however, has destroyed the ethical basis of dis-course. (ibid.: 167). See also Tyler 1987.


8/28


emotions, narratives, and social memories constitute principal rhetorical meansin its dynamic. Before we can turn to the description and analysis of the healingsance, however, we need to know more about the moral conflict and the socialcrisis that illness initiates among the J nu Ku umba. This will provide the neces-sary background knowledge to evaluate the transformations that the participantsaccomplish in the ritual process.

Illness, Morality and Divine Dialogue

The J nu Ku umba are a tribe of gatherer/hunters and forest traders in SouthIndia. Widely scattered in the northern Nilgiri region they live in moral commu-nities of approximately 300 to 400 people. Sociality within the community ispredominantly based on kinship relations. However, the J nu Ku umba have anextended concept of community that includes also the dead and the deities whoare considered to live in the underworld. All these beings stand in close socialand moral relations; they should support one another, help one another in timesof crisis etc. Moreover, as moral beings they are all responsible and accountableagents too. Thus, if people fail to adhere to the moral codex of the communitythey are taken to task, they have to account for their wrongdoings and they areasked to defend it. Finally, all these beings can actively communicate, talk and

interact with each other. This is possible because the J nu Ku umba practice'spirit mediumship' 4 where a shaman is thought to act as a medium, embodyingand giving a voice to the dead and the deities. Such a communication, however,is only realized in ritual performances like the death ritual 5 and the healing rit-ual.

Though the J nu Ku umba have indigenous medical knowledge and apply,for example, a variety of herbal treatments, it is the deities who have the mosteffective power to prevent illness and also to stop it even if it has already startedto affect the person. This is so because, according to their believe, a person thatbecomes seriously sick is most probably afflicted by other peoples magic andaccordingly people have to ask the deities for help to combat its damaging force.Even more complicated, however, those incidents point to some social and moralconflict that initiated the attack of magic. According to J nu Ku umba interpre-tation either the patients themselves or their relatives might have done something

4Cf. Claus 1979 for that practice which is common throughout South Asia and, in fact,

the world.5

Cf. Demmer 1999 and 2001 for an analysis of its performance and rhetoric.


9/28

Demmer 34

wrong that caused others magic and, subsequently, their own suffering. Thepatient, for example, or some relative might have misbehaved towards otherrelatives and this mistake ( tappu ) led to magic retaliation by the offended.Moreover, it is also a chance that they might have neglected and angered thedeities who, in turn, punish people by causing someone to become ill. In thissense, an illness is always a social issue because it is related to a moral conflictand a crisis of relationships within the community.

Healing a sick patient, in turn, implies a two-fold strategy. First, people haveto find out about and fight against the magic that causes the illness. Second,however, they also have to solve the social conflict, the mistake that made theproblem to come, as the J nu Ku umba say. For both goals to accomplish,however, they need the deities support. First it is the deities, as it were, who canmost effectively stop the magic. Second, it is the deities who can reveal whatkind of social misbehavior caused the moral conflict and who among the peopleor deities was offended. Yet, usually the deities are rather unwilling to help theliving. Instead, they must be argued with and convinced to support their livingrelatives, to reveal what was wrong and to show the way how to block the suf-fering. To achieve this is the main objective of the healing ritual.

In the ritual process the shaman travels several times into the underworldwhere the deities and the dead live. There he is calling the deities for help and

asks them to come up with him to help the patient. Once he has convinced themto do so, which is often very hard, the deities come up and speak, using the sha-man as a medium, with the patient and her/his living relatives, who assembled atnight to perform the ritual. However, instead of readily offering their assistancethey engage the living in a series of dialogues about the patients moral conductand about the sociography of the humans. First, they gradually construct what iscalled an account ( kanak u) of the patient and her/his relatives moral conduct inthe past. They accuse the patient and his/her relatives of social carelessness,half-heartedness and inertia, as far as their social commitment is concerned.They also recall the sociography, in particular that of the patient, as a series of bad behaviour and accordingly create a negative sociography. Moreover, theysuggest that the patients illness and suffering is a deserved punishment for theirwrongdoings.

The humans, however, argue against that. They seek to convince the deitiesto the contrary and to prove their good past behaviour and their moral integrity.Accordingly the patient and her/his relatives oppose the deities reconstructionof their moral history. They remind the deity of the patients good conduct in


10/28


the past and narrate their good relations with the deities. They thus reconstructthe patients history as a good narrative. In addition, they appeal to the deitiesmorality. They articulate the helplessness of the patient, the innocence of thehumans in general and they call into memory the earlier assistance and promisesof help that the deities made towards them. Finally, the accused also point outthe offerings which they gave to the deities right now in the course of the ongo-ing ritual. Shifting from narratives of the past to their performances in the pre-sent ritual they bring forth irresistable good arguments for their moral integrity.

Empirically the arguments of the humans are in most cases successful. Usu-ally the humans admit that mistakes were made by either the patient or otherrelatives, they also promise to act in a good way and that they will observe themoral standards of the community. Yet, they also demand a fair response fromthe deities and this is usually happening too. After often elaborate exchanges of arguments the deities finally do agree to the positive reconstruction of the hu-mans moral history and they also acknowledge the offerings that the humansgave to them in the course of the ritual itself. They demand that the living moveon the good path in future and, after getting the humans positive response, theyagree to fight against the illness and to help the patient to recover. In sum, then,all actors moved one another from crisis and conflicting point of views to recon-ciliation and a common ground; that is to a consensus on the, after all, good rela-

tionships and moral integrity of the people.

M res Healing Ritual

In this chapter I analyse the healing ritual ( dike ) for a young mother, M re, andthe discussions that her close relatives led with the shamans who, in turn, areregarded to embody the deities. With this healing ritual we enter the discursivelandscape of the moral community at a time, when in the life of M res family anumber of sorrowful incidents happended and, indeed, life became very hard tobear. Shortly after M re and K lan had married M cigan, K lans grandfatherdied. A few weeks later, when they had just performed the dead ritual for him,Klans youngest brother also died, completely unexpected after a short and highfever at an age of approximately 10 years. Ultimately, M re who was obviouslypregnant with a baby hurt herself seriously.

One morning she went to fetch water from a nearby river, as all women of theJnu Ku umba do, but slipped on the wet rocks at the riverside and damaged herback. She could neither stand up nor walk and was carried by some other women


11/28

Demmer 36

back to her hut where she lay down. The next couple of days she was treated byher mother with an ointment that she prepared from herbs of the forest. As itturned out, however, that did not help much. M re had, according to my judg-ment, a dislocated spinal disc. More important yet, for the J nu Ku umba otherthings, namely social, moral and magic issues were involved. Most probably shewas afflicted by other peoples magic, and accordingly they had to ask the dei-ties for help to combat its damaging force. Beyond that, M re herself or her rela-tives might have done something wrong that caused others magic and her suffer-ing. Most likely she herself or some relative had mistreated other relatives andthis moral failure led to magic retaliation by others. Besides it was also possible

that someone offended the deities who, in turn, punished people by causingMre to fall down and suffer.

What exactly the causes were only the deities could tell, and to find out whathappened people had to talk with them. Therefore, when M re didnt becomebetter after some days, they decided to perform a healing ritual where they couldtalk to the deities and discuss with them who and what was responsible forMres and, because they also were said and worried, also their own sufferings.After they could win K lans father to act as shaman, K lan and the parents of Mre started the performance.

As it is always done they first cleaned the ritual spot where the performance

takes place and after K lan and his brother Kempan had made a fire in the centreparticipants arranged themselves around it in a typical pattern. The patient waslaid down at one side of the fire and, close to her, some female relatives of her,elder women as well as girls, took their seat. Such female groups act as a chorusand accompany the shamans initial speeches with their songs. Sung in refraintheir songs are intended to calm and conjole the deities. Because the deities havea desire ( ista ) for them, as J nu Ku umba say, the songs have the power topersuade the deities to join the shaman and come up with him from the under-world to the ritual place.

Also in this group are some elder experienced women who, though they

might also sing, act as advocates for the patient and who will be talking with thedeities. They share this concern with a group of male relatives who sit at theother side of M re. These men constitute, together with the elder women, thepool of interlocuters - those who ask (k davaru) who discuss the criticalissues with the deities. Finally, at the other side of the fire, the shaman takes hisplace. His task is to travel down, usually several times in the course of the ritual,into the underworld where the deities and the dead live. His task is twofold. First


12/28


he has to persuade the deities to come with him and help. Second, once he hassucceeded in doing so he has to carry them, as the J nu Ku umba say, upwardwhere he then acts as a medium through which the deities and dead can talk withthe patient and her relatives.

The Performance

After the shaman burnt a bundle of incense sticks and camphor to honour thedeities he descends into the underworld to bring the deities up for discussion.Shaking his rattles fiercely he is thought to travel around in the underworldwhile singing a song. This refrain is echoed by the women above. The shamanssong and its refrains describe, both in verses and in intersected speeches, to theritual participants above what the shaman sees in the underworld and what ishappening there. Moreover, the songs also contain invocations and lamentswhich are addressed to the deities. These are meant to calm their potential angerand to persuade them to help.

Shaman 8: [singing] Ayya, ayya, they [the deities] climb down, they climb down,from where do they climb down? In the country of the silver mountains, fromwhere do they climb down?

Shaman 9: [rattling fast, singing] my dead one, you, you look after me, father. Inthe countries of the silver mountains, from where they climb down? From where,from where do they climb down? In the successful [happy] countries they are ap-proaching!

Women 10: [singing refrain] They climb down, they climb down! From where,from where do they climb down? In the countries of the silver mountains, fromwhere they climb down?

After repeated singing of these verses the shaman switches to a kind sungspeech. In it he asks that the deities and the deceased come up with him to the

suffering people and take care and look after them. The living at the ritualspot above support the shamans speech. They underline their distress and pre-sent themselves as ignorant, powerless and endangered by the endless fightingamong themselves. On the other hand, however, they accuse the deities of beingcareless and lacking in support of their living relatives. The women continue toaccompany the speeches with their singing


13/28

Demmer 38

Shaman 19: Ayya, you my dead one, look after me, mother [ female deity], my fa-ther [male deity].

Mres father 19 b: Oh, oh, look swami [deity], you yourself.

Shaman 20 b: Oh, oh, we failed [missed the correct way ], father, my deity, youmother [female deity], look out [search for helpful deities, for the magic, for whatwent wrong].

Mres father 21: [to the shaman] Question it [the dead and the deities]: Youhave all assembled, one heap [you stay together], as one heap; why do you keepquiet and why you do nothing [instead of coming to us and talk with us]?

Kempan 22: [agrees with M res father]. Yes, let them [the deities and the deadones] rise and come.

Shaman 23: Ayya, mother [deity], look out for my dead ones. Father [deity], meetwith the other deities and tell me what [kind of wrongdoings, open accounts,black magic etc.] is there, mother [deity].

Kempan 25 b: Ah, ah, [approving], dear deity! Look after us, we, the ignorantones, we now sit together and kick and fight each o ther, isnt it so, deity?

Mres father 25 c: What are we able to do [against it and in contrast to you.]?

Following those often desperately longings of the living for support and justdialogue one of the deities from M res family comes up, Be emme M ri. Yet,this deity disappoints the hope of the living for rapid assistance. Instead she be-gins with a critical reconstruction of the social relations within the community:She insults M res father as a son of a bitch and accuses him of not taking careof her shrine, leaving it in a lonely ( sibberi ) and deserted condition, without anoil-lamp and the smell of camphor. Nevertheless, later on she promises to helpand stresses that they should forget the problems and have no fear as far as theillness is concerned. Above all, she requests M res father, not to sleep here butto come to her shrine as soon as the ritual is over.

Klan, M res husband, however argues against it. He calms down the deitypromising that right in the morning they will go to her shrine, but he also re-minds her of her responsibilities for the living. Moreover, he complains that it isnot correct of her to simply ask them to forget about the problems and see hershrine. That, he suggests, cant be all there is about the deitys promise ( satia ,promise, swearing), because for them, the living, this means that nothing willchange, that even in eleven days they will still sit, nothing will happen and theystill have to call for help in a healing ritual. Instead it is the task of the deity, he


14/28


argues, to tell them where the illness comes from; the living cant accomplishthat.

Female deity 221(Speeches of deities or spirits are in italic) : Ayya, ayya, these children of a bitch, children of a bitch, they came, they sit [now] over there at the side and call for the deity, isnt it so, children? Ayya, there are no people [at my shrine] who ignite an oil-lamp for me, who burn camphor [to honour me], am I right?

Mres father 222: For what do we call the deities? This thing [our problems] youmust take it [into your hand]. Look [you] are a deity. Tell us, what is in your belly[which feelings you have, whether you are angry with us etc.]?

Female deity 223: [to M res father] That is nothing, that is nothing, dont be afraid, dont be afraid, whether it is your dead ones or whether it is four [all] deities, we [the deities] will call them and together we will go [come to your help].Dont be afraid, son.

Mres father 224: Whatever is inside [of M re], you cant let her fall down [lether die]. Today you must speak [about the problem] and bring it [our suffering,the illness etc. ] to an end. Because, if she doesnt become well, we have to sithere even if it is for eleven days and call [you the deities]. But, is it this what thedeities promise [ satia ]?

Female deity 225: [to M res father] You, you must leave [from here]. [You my] darling and [you] old lady [M res mother], you must leave, leave, leave to your settlement. Dont sleep here today, though I will forgive you ( manniso:du ) for being here for one day.

Mres father 226: Now I dont go. I go when I have tied together everything[when I have finished the ritual and convinced you, the deities, to help].

Female deity 228: This son of a bitch, because [camphor etc.] is not there [at my shrine], and because he went [away from my shrine ] our settlement became lonely (sibberi). In former times he burned incense sticks and always put it [in front of me]. This son, today there is nothing [in my shrine].

Klan 229: We will go, my dear. Let it [the healing] happen here, let other things

be. That what is in the body [of M re], the fire [the illness], who is able [to handleit. We are not able]?

The deity, however, is not willing to talk further and discuss whether her accusa-tions are justified or not. Without a response she goes away. To bring up othermore helpful deities the shaman descends a second time into the underworld. Assoon as he reaches there he starts to call the deities for help.


15/28

Demmer 40

Shaman 234: [screaming] My deity, look father, look what happend, father. Idont say [like some deities do]: I dont want. Deity, after you met with my[dead] fathers and with my mother-brothers [with all dead ones], look what [ex-actly] is there [about M res illness] and come!

This time the shaman is successful immediately and Kadap ra M ri, one of thefemale deities of M res family, appears for discussion. First she assures herchildren, as she calls them, that the deities will help. In response, the livingwelcome this promise and request the deity to immediately speak about the ori-gin of the problem ( kasta ). The deity agrees and gradually narrates the criticalpoints in the M res social biography. She reports that the illness has somethingto do with the social conduct of M res grandparents. These had initiated inolden times a powerful magic, a so-called areke , and since then the magic felldown on several persons. It already crushed a child and now finally it has fallendown on M re. The deity in response assures that it is her (the deities) responsi-bility to eliminate this problem. Since children are not able to handle this itbecomes her turn to swallow the magic in one instance. Finally, however,the deity requests the living to first give something to her, as a response ( badil )to what she had said right now.

Deity 235: Ayya, ayya, all have put their belongings aside, sit here [and call us in a bad manner like]:Come deity, what, are you allright? Come, come, sit down,come! All, all deities and dead are one [belong to us and we rely on them]. Come,come!

Mres father 236: [At least] you talk to us. Let them [people who call like shesaid above] speak their words, we speak ourselves [in our own proper way].

Deity 237: Yes, appa, yes, dont be afraid, dont be afraid, dont be afraid! Ayya,the problem ( kasta ) that has come upon you, the biting ( uri ) that came, the fire ( binki ) that came to you - we, we will make everything well and then [only] we will go away. Dont be afraid son.

Mres father 238: Yes, it [the magic] came and now it it is inside humans. It issaid you are the deity who seizes [the problems]. You must search for [what theproblem is] and then tell us.

Deity 239: What shall I search for, son? Dont you [all] know it?

Mres father 240: That from olden times. The words [of magic] which went onthe left side [bad words], tell about that!


16/28


Deity 241: This [illness], ayya, it originated in the time in which your own mother and your own father acted, dont you know this? What concerns that, it is a arekemagic that was there in that time. Therefore [a problem came]; ayya, of two [of your children] one was crushed, that is one [aspect of the problem], and after it [the magic] left this crushed person it [the magic] searched and looked all around and it fell down again upon a child, and while it was sitting at its left side, it spoke: It must fall [the child must die], and it [the magic] fell down, fell down upon that child. What happend to that child? Because some people approached those who know a bit [the deities] and those who ask a bit [the shaman and relatives who are ready to act in a healing ritual] because of that the child remained [it survived]. Do you know that? It survived! Ayya, this [magic then] fell from that

body of the child [and is now] on another body [M res body]. Ayya, must swallow[ M re], must swallow it [M re], says the areke [magic ]. Now it is sitting on the body. What do you say about that? What do you give me [if I destroy this magic]? In half of an instant I will have swallowed this areke and will be gone away. What will you give, tell!

The living, however, are not satisfied with that story. They do not respond tothe request of the deity but demand further clearing-up of past events andwrongdoings. Yet, the deity doesnt care. She only refers to that magic whichcame from olden times and she stresses the responsibility of the deities to de-stroy it. She does mention briefly, though, that another magic ( mara r vu) is involved. As she says, however, this magic can be dealt with by the living them-selves. At that point the living agree and consent to give the required gifts to thedeity, whereupon the deity describes her demand in detail. At the same time sheassures the living of her support.

Mres father 242: First, it [the magic] came to the small child and acted, as yousaid. From that it came to the big child and from this to this [patient, M re] itself.It is this [M res problem] we are asking for.

Deity 243: With respect to this [M re], these [other deities] say that it is a little bit of an old thing [a magic that came long long ago], this is not new, this is a magic from old time. Dont you know that?

Mres father 244: Hm, hm [yes, yes]. It is from whom? Who knows it?

Klan 245: From whom is it, [and say] from where it did not come.

Deity 246: One, one [of M res problems] is a tree-fright ( mara r vu) [a certainmagic] . Dont you know that? Another, the arekemagic, came and sat on the left shoulder [of the child] and it swallowed, swallowed. It looked around and around.


17/28

Demmer 42

It said: riiitsch! [like that I will tear my victim into]. For that enterprise (k rya) [for the destruction of this magic], we take responsibility ( jab bd ri ), my dear one.

Mres father 247: Hm, hm [agrees]. You yourself must take care of it. What dowe know, the human worms?

Mres mother 248: [talking to the other relatives]. Is it possible that grandmothermakes trouble?

Deity 249: Well. What do you give us? What do you give? In one instant we will have swallowed your magic.

Mres father 250: We always give [a few] incense sticks.Klan 251: [Yes], that is for you. Thats how we give, exactly [some] incensesticks.

Deity 252: [okay] about this affair I will tell. Listen! Don't you know it? And [the other thing] I tell also, understand! The tree - fright [magic], however, you must stop yourselves, my dear. The tree fright, you must stop. You know that? You must finish [destroy] it.

Mres father 253: Well, well, ah, we know that now.

Deity 254: What, what kind of things you have to put [at my shrine], this I tell now. Money must be put down there, fruits, must be brought and you bring camphor also. Ayya, [but] you must stop the tree fright; you know that. Do you know that? We [on our part] do not stop until we catch your [the other] magic,ayya.

Deity 255: We do not omit any magic.

Mres father 256: Hm, hm [yes, yes], what is the use if we were there to solvethis problem? If you are there it is sufficient.

Deity 257: This [the old magic] is our responsibility. You cant master this.

Mres father 258: [Pretends to have misunderstood the deity]. It cant masterthis?

Deity 259: We, what, what? Our consciousness ( mansu ) is one [we are reliable and we dont think and act one day that way and another day in a different way. In contrast to humans we are straight]. What can this [magic] do to us? I will talk to others [to the other deities] and will return [to you].

After that the deity goes away. As the following discourse makes clear she isgoing to discuss M res past social behaviour with the other deities in the un-


18/28


derworld. After a while the shaman travels down, asks her to enquire about whatcaused the illness and calls her to come up and tell the whole story, the account(kannaku ) of what was good and bad.

Shaman 262: Draw the account ( kanaku ) [of what was good and bad] and come,oh deity. Look, come quickly, my deity. Draw the account. In front of all deities,speak clearly, I see your power ( sakti ). My dead relative [comes], he looks aroundeverywhere and says: The mistakes ( tappu ) which [humans] made, finish withthem [clear them and stop misbehaving]. They are not needed. Thus he [mydead relative] speaks. Now he goes away.

When she appears for discussion she gradually unfolds her version of the historyof social relationships and of the moral conduct of M re and her relatives. Inparticular she points out M res sociography, that is the social biography of Mre, her parents as well as of her grandparents. The deity lively calls intomemory that the parents had taken care of M re nicely but M re, in turn, hadneglected in particular her grandparents. M re, the deity argues, ignored hergrandparents and did not help them when they were in bitter need of water andfood. This, so her argument, weighs heavily because M re herself was alwayswell treated, fed and nicely grown up by her parents. The deity, therefore, re-

quests M re, as a precondition for her support, to make good the bad treatmentof the grandparents. Right tomorrow the deity says, M re must allocate thegrandparents a space in the center of the hut and reconcile herself with thegrandparents.

In response, some of the living agree with that rather negative interpretationof M res biography. In the beginning M re too approves the narrative. Yet,later in the discussion, when the entire responsibility for the suffering is threat-ening to fall on her alone, M re opposes the deity and brings the mistakes andwrongdoings of the grandparents into mind. They, she argues, also carry respon-sibility for the conflict-laden past. At first the deity doesnt accept that defense.Instead she mentions M res responsibility. In addition, she asks M re to correcther moral mistake. When M re agrees to that, however, the deity admits that thegrandmother also carries part of the responsibility. In particular, the deity says,not only M re but the grandmother too should be ready for reconciliation. Thegrandparents should accept M res offer to take care of them, instead of continu-ing their anger. Moreover, the deity promises that she will call the grandparentstoo to account, if these are not ready for reconciliation and if they continue notto take care of the children and grandchildren.


19/28

Demmer 44

Deity 279: At that [former] time the curse ( spa ) of the grandfather and the curse of the grandmother were the same [both were at one]. Because of the curse of the grandfather and the curse of the grandmother, it [the magic] fell on your hut [family]. But dont be afraid, children. I will stop the curse of the grandfather and the curse of the grandmother and then I will continue to search [what should be done to help]. You, however, you take your grandmother and give her a place in the center of the hut; and the spear which you set up, the knife that you showed to her 6 - take care that you stop that speech, then your three huts [your family] will stand firm.

Klan 280: [wants to distance himself from any responsibilities]. I dont evenknow them [the grandparents]. I dont know their family either, I dont know theirdeities. What do I know? Tell me that, now. What do I know [of that problems]?

Deity 281: If you dont know it [no problem, but] you know these two [M re and the grandmother] at least. These two will come together, and you understand [and learn from] what was talked [today by us]. But if these [grandparents] say: They [M res parents] are not the children we have born, these [M re and her brothers and sisters] are not the children that were born [ in our family], if they talk like that then they [the grandparents] also need some understanding ( buddi ). If, moreover,they [the grandparents] will say:[The grandchildren] dont need our support ( dara ), then they dont know anything.

Deity 282: My dear one. What I said, is it truth (nija) or lie ( pku )? Tell!

Mres father 283: Exactly the truth.

Deity 284: Tomorrow your grandmother will be here. Tomorrow, after you have brought the grandmother here, will you throw her down?

Mres father 285: How could one do that?

Deity 286: Wait, father, how many promises (satia) were made, how many incense-sticks were set up [in my shrine, and yet, how many did not keep their promises]? Tomorrow, after we have un-tied it [solved the magic ], you will not keep it. In this way, my dear one, are the speeches of our people. They simply go

ahead, simply they follow the desires ( ista) of their heart, just as they like.Mres mother 287: Why do you make the thing so big?

Deity 288: It is like that. You all are not respectful. Drop it [the bad behaviour].Yet, it will happen anyway like that. They will not come together [the people,who have started to fight and dislike one another].

6 Both are metaphors for fight and bad, hostile talk.


20/28


Mres father 289: [listening] Hm, hm, what can we do? What will you do?

Deity 290: About that I will talk also to you, you children, listen. Listen and see how it is. Our deities and our grandfathers spoke already like: You old woman,and you old man, you simply live without understanding, why? If [your children] now tell you: We have a cup of water for you, drink, then drink.[and dont re- fuse in anger], and if they say: Stay with us, then stay with them [and dont go away in anger]. If they say to you: No need to cry when your are with us [because we take care of you], then give up your anger].

Mres father 291 [listening]: Hm, hm.

Deity 292: But if you [who sit here] tell us: We dont need all this [the council and support of the deities], you are shit! Let it rise [let the problems increase],they [the grandparents] may go anywhere and die, if you speak like that then you will fall and will fall [suffer and die]. Now, what is our [the deities] very power ( sakti )? That much [power] is ours, correct?

With this advice to keep their promises of good conduct the ritual comes to anend. Following the debate the deity leaves the patient and her relatives. And thelatter are content, at least for the time being, that they were able to convince thedeity to help.

Rhetorical Strategies

As the above discourse shows, feelings and emotions play a vital role in itsrhetoric. Thus, experiences of suffering and other feelings are instrumentsthrough which speakers morally evaluate their social environment and positionthemselves as well as the interlocutors in the ethical space of the community.Most important, however, they are moral acts (Das 1995a) that are used tomove the addressees.

This is clearly the case with expressions of suffering ( p du ) and pain ( n ).The shamans, when traveling into the underworld and searching for helpful dei-

ties or dead, as well as the relatives of the patient, frequently articulate the mis-erable condition of the sick person. They also point out their own suffering inseeing their ill relative. As the speakers verbal explorations show, they suggestthat way not to be deserving that kind of pain and that it is unjust. Moreover, thistaking a stance emotionally gives rise to the rhetorical function of those feel-ings. As moral statements they have a pragmatic force of evoking and, in fact,demanding a response. Accordingly the living use them to request the dead and


21/28

Demmer 46

the deities to worry about the suffering of the living, to come with them to theritual arena and to take care of them and look after them. The women supportthe shaman with their imploring songs. At critical moments in the ritual processthey enforce the articulations of suffering thus appealing to the dead and deitiesto help the patient.

Once the deities are persuaded to come and speak with their relatives this rhe-torical function is taken over by the other people who ask. They depict thepatient and themselves as human worms ( nare ullu ), a metaphor that suggeststheir weakness and vulnerability but also their ignorance with respect to moralmistakes. In fact declaring themselves human worms' they claim to be weak and forgetful, thus not being able to make out the way ( d ri ) of proper behav-iour. With such expressions of weakness and helplessness the living personsappeal to the indulgence of the deities with the human beings who fail to walk on the right path. It is obvious that those emotional appeals serve to dramatizetheir personal circumstances in such a way as to move the addressees towardssupport and help.

Nonetheless, the deities and deceased take a stance too. They express theiranger ( k pa ) about the continuous moral mistakes ( tappu ) of the living personsand about the latters lack of social commitment. In their accusations ( avam na ,shaming) the deities ashame their living relatives and accuse them of being

sleepy and blind with regard to proper moral conduct. Accordingly theyargue against the humans claims of innocence and underline the responsibilityand accountability of the patients and their living relatives. This angry stancein moral space has rhetorical goals too. Thus it is intended to move the livingtowards self-critique, to admit mistakes and to finally renew their commitmentto the moral order. On the other hand, however, the deities and dead often le-gitimize their hesitation or, sometimes, their outright refusal to help with thedisplay of anger and shaming ( avam na ). Feelings and emotions, then, appear asdiscursive strategies that exert a pragmatic rhetorical force. Moreover, they areused as arguments in the process of moral negotiations.

Other important rhetorical tools that speakers use to mutually move eachother are social memories and narratives. In fact, in the healing discourse theemotional persuasion is embedded into a rhetoric of remembrance and narration.Thus in the beginning of the dialogues the deities recall the sociography of rela-tionships within the moral community as a negative sociography' 7. They remind

7 This term is borrowed from Gergen 1991.


22/28


23/28

Demmer 48

deities/dead specify their negative memories the living argue against these nega-tive sociographies. They might confess that the living in general make mistakes

in fact too many. But at the same time they appeal to the indulgence of thedeities/dead and request them to forget the bad past.

Most important, however, the living persons really start to argue against thenegative biography of the patient. They remind the deities, for instance, thatother people were also involved in the social conflicts that the deities mentionand that these people too must be taken to responsibility. In addition, the livingtell the sociography of relationships from their own point of view, foregroundingthe good behaviour of the patients. They thus oppose the negative memories of the deities with their positive narrative and in this way claim justice for the pa-tients.

The deities usually agree to some parts of this new history. They admit thatthe patients have done good deeds as well and that they deserve support andhealing. Yet, those good narrative representations of the patients do not fullyconvince the deities. Instead, to persuade them of the moral integrity of the pa-tients and their advocates they demand that the ill persons publicly renew theircommitment to the moral order of the community and promise to behave prop-erly in the future. In addition, and in particular if the patients are too sick to doso, they require that the living back their positive narratives and claims to help

with actual and visible social deeds. They may ask the living, for example, toignite incense sticks, to offer gifts to the deities in the ongoing ritual itself or tolater carry out a p ja at the shrine of the deities.

The living, in turn, do not want to put the ritual process and the healing of thepatients at risk and accordingly response to those requirements as well. Usually,the patients or their advocates finally agree to the modified moral accountpresented by the deities. They publicly commit themselves to the moral values of the community - in M res case, for example, to actively support the grandpar-ents - and thus strengthen their claims to justice and support. In addition theylegitimize their demands of support and healing not only with words but also

through their social conduct in the ritual itself: they do ignite incense sticks,they sing and praise the deities and show them their respect. It is, in fact, thosebehavioral utterances that have the strongest persuasive force and effectivelyserve to legitimize the claims of the living to forget their bad past.

Ultimately, the deities too respond positively to these arguments of the living.The deities declare themselves ready to support the patient and to block, asthey say, the magic that caused the patients illness. Moreover, they also promise


24/28


to re-install justice. They confirm the responsibility of other living persons - inMres case that of her grandmother - and agree to take those other people, whoalso behaved wrongly, to justice too.

Conclusion: Rhetoric, Dialogue and the Power to Transform

Rhetoric plays a crucial role in many ritual performances. Yet, Bauman andBriggs call to examine more closely the ways that enable verbal art to trans-form, not simply reflect social life (1990: 69) did not result in much clarity

about linguistic processes of ritual transformation. The case of the J nuKuumba healing ritual suggests some of the ways rhetoric is employed therein.As we have seen, the participants have to achieve a complex transformation.Most important, illness and suffering puts the morality and relatedness of peopleinto question, it leads to mistrust and a crisis of social relations. In ritual, in turn,the actors have to transform their bad relations, they have to move one anothertowards reconciliation and trust. In short, transformation is accomplished rhet-orically. To disclose how that works, however, we applied a dynamic and dia-logic notion of persuasion.

While some studies might tend to look at rhetoric in ritual as a form of

monologic and epideictic discourse, the analysis shows that in the case presentedhere a dialogic notion of persuasion is appropriate. Whereas in the monologicepideictic genre the audience is regarded primarily as passive, mute and unre-sponsive, in the J nu Ku umba healing sance it is explicitly responsive and anactive partner in the discourse. Moreover, its rhetoric is not based on the recita-tion or correct performance of strictly formalised and fixed utterances, butdraws, like forensic and judicial rhetoric, on formulaic speech, which is lessformalised and allows for wider individual variations and person- as well ascontext-bound utterances. Finally, in the verbal interaction of ritual, persuasiveeffects are not merely achieved in the sense that a passive audience is ratherimpressed or even coerced into accepting the message than convinced by it. Incontrast, it is a rather Sophistic notion of rhetorical discourse that is most sig-nificant here.

As Vickers has noted to the Sophists rhetoric was less an arsenal of verbaldevices than a process of interaction in which the norms of justice and socialorder were worked out by those taking part (1998: 123). Its aim need not beidentified then, as for example a Platonic rhetoric does, with the desire to gainpower and benefit the self by the unrestrained indulgence of desire (op. cit.:


25/28

Demmer 50

120). Rather this concept regards peoples direct involvement with communitydecisions (op. cit.: 6) as vital, so that Cicero, for example, could hold that rheto-ric is designed to make people aware that they must work for the commongood. (op. cit.: 8). To sum up, for the Sophists rhetoric meant indeed an im-provement of society through expression of conflict and yet contain it by anagreed political procedure (op. cit.: 124). Its effectiveness derives from a twosided-process, with the development of pro- and contra-statements, with negotia-tion and the change of perspectives achieved (or not achieved). Rhetoric relieson mutual argumentation, on debate and ultimately on the ability of the partici-pants to reach jointly approved decisions and consent.

In J nu Ku umba healing rituals rhetorical transformation is brought about onthis dialogic level of performance. In the beginning, the morality of the speakersand their good social relationship is put into question. But in the ritual processthe actors seek to defend their reputation as good members of the communityand try to persuade one another that the reproaches and suspicions are un-founded. Yet it is crucial to see, that this is not a matter of mere representationand make-believe. Instead narratives and memories are always subject toevaluation and criticism. Speakers use these devices as arguments to posit them-selves and others in the moral space of the community. Yet, in doing so they arealso provoking response and debate, so that all speakers are engaged in the

evaluation, rejection, approval or even in forgetting - and thus in the reworkingof representations.

Indeed, the transformative process of ritual is based on this selective process.Positive memories, narratives and emotions of the person are accepted as justi-fied. Once approved they are counted as good arguments and as appropriaterepresentations of the person in question. In addition, reports of the good deedsin the ritual itself legitimate the forgetting of the bad memories. It is only in thatprocess of rejecting and approving the reminded and emotional episodes of theirsociography that the participants gradually succeeded to create a larger, morepositive and convincing story, a social biography of their good social relation.Participants moved one another towards a consent on their common good historyand on their proper relationships in the present too, thus re-establishing recon-ciliation and trust. The ritual as a whole can be understood as a context of argu-mentation, where the alternating articulation of memories, narratives and feel-ings enabled the speakers to transform their social relations and thus to regainthe common ground of a good community.


26/28


References

Atkinson, J. M. 1989. The Art and Politics of Wana Shamanship . Berkeley: Universityof California Press.

Bakhtin, M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination . Austin: University of Texas Press.

Bauman, R. 1986. Story, Performance, and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative .Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Billig, M. 1987. Arguing andThinking: A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology.Cambridge, Paris: Cambridge University Press.

Briggs, Ch. 1988. Introduction. In Ch. Briggs (ed.), Narrative Resources for the Creationand Mediation of Conflict. Anthropological Linguistics 30, Nos. 3/4: 271-277.

1996. The Meaning of Nonsense, the Poetics of Embodiment, and the Production of Power in Warao Healing. In C. Laderman und M. Roseman (eds.), The Performance of Healing . New York, London: Routledge.

Claus, P. 1979. Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship from the Perspective of TuluOral Traditions. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 3: 29-52.

Connerton, P. 1989. How Societies Remember . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Csordas, T. 1996. Imaginal Performance and Memory in Ritual Healing. In C. Ladermanund M. Roseman (eds.), The Performance of Healing . New York, London: Rout-ledge.

DelVecchio Good, M. et al. 1992. Epilogue. In M. DelVecchio Good, P. Brodwin, B.Good and A. Kleinman (eds.), Pain as Human Experience: An Anthropological Per- spective . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Demmer, U. 1996. Verwandtschaft und Sozialitt bei den J nu Ku umba. Vom Arbeiten,vom Teilen, und von (Un)gleichheit in einer sdindischen Sammler- und Jgerge- sellschaft . Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

1999. How to Make the Spirit of the Dead Happy. The Rhetoric of Words and Deedsin a J nu Ku umba Death Ritual. In E. Schmbucher & C. P. Zoller (eds.), Ways of Dying. Death and its Meaning in South Asia . Dehli: Manohar.

2001. Always an Argument: Persuasive Tools in J nu Ku umba Death Rituals.Anthropos 96: 475-490.

2006. The Rhetoric and Poetics of Ritual Performance among the J nu Ku umba. A Interactive Multimedia CD-ROM (English language edition). In U. Demmer, Rheto- rik, Poetik, Performanz. Das Ritual und seine Dynamik bei den J nu Ku umba. Muenster, Berlin. London: LIT- Verlag.


27/28

Demmer 52

DuBois, J. W. 2002. Dialogic Rhetoric : Stance and Intersubjectivity in the Syntax of Engagement . Paper read at the second Rhetoric Culture Conference, Mainz Uni-versity, July 2002.

Fernandez, J. 1986. Persuasions and Performances. The Play of Tropes in Culture.Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Fernandez, J. (ed.). 1991. Beyond Metaphor - The Theory of Tropes in Anthropology .Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Gergen, K. J. 1991. The Saturated Self . New York: Basic Books.

Hill, J. 1995. The Voices of Don Gabriel: Responsibility and Self in a Modern Mexicano

Narrative. In B. Mannheim and D. Tedlock (eds.), The Dialogic Emergence of Cul- ture . Urbana, Chicago: University of I llinois Press.

Kapferer, B. 1979. Emotion and Feeling in Sinhalese Rites. In B. Kapferer (ed.), ThePower of Ritual: Transition, Transformation, and Transcendence in Ritual Practice.Social Analysis 1: 153-177.

Kleinman, A. 1992. Pain and Resistance: The Delegitimization and Religitimizaton of Local Worlds. In: M. DelVecchio Good, P. Brodwin, B. Good and A. Kleinman(eds.), Pain as Human Experience: An Anthropological Perspective . Berkeley: Uni-versity of California Press.

Kuipers, J. C. 1990. Power in Performance. The Creation of Textual Authority in

Weyewa Ritual Speech . Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.Laderman, C. 1996. The Poetics of Healing in Malay Shamanistic Performances. In C.

Laderman und M. Roseman (eds.), The Performance of Healing . New York, Lon-don: Routledge.

Lutz, C. A. and G. M. White 1986. The Anthropology of Emotions. Annual Review of Anthropology No. 15: 405-36.

Paine, R. 1981. Introduction. In R. Paine (ed.), Politically Speaking: Cross-Cultural Studies of Rhetoric . Philadelphia: ISHI.

Perelman, Ch. and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969 [Fr. 1958]. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise in Argumentation . Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.

Rosaldo, M. 1980. Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Conceptions of Self and Social Life .New York: Academic Press.

1984. Towards an anthropology of self and feeling. In R. A. Shweder and R. A.LeVine (eds.), Culture Theory. Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion . Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.


28/28


Roseman, M. 1996. Pure Products Go Crazy: Rainforest Healing in a Nation-State.In C. Laderman and M. Roseman (eds.), The Performance of Healing . New York,London: Routledge.

Sapir J. D. and J. C. Crocker (eds.). 1977. The Social Use of Metaphor: Essays on the Anthropology of Rhetoric . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Schieffelin, E. 1985. Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality. American Ethnologist 12 (4): 707-724.

1996. On Failure and Performance: Throwing the Medium Out of the Sance. In C.Laderman and M. Roseman (eds.), The Performance of Healing . New York, Lon-don: Routledge.

Sherzer, J. 1982. The Interplay of Structure and Function in Kuna Narrative, Or: How toGrab a Snake in the Darien. In D. Tannen (ed.), Analyzing Discourse. Text and Talk, Georgetown University Roundtable Talk on Language and Linguistics 1981,Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.

1983. Kuna Ways of Speaking . Austin: University of Texas Press.

Sherzer, J. and A. C. Woodbury (eds.). 1987. Native American Discourse. Poetics and Rhetoric.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shotter, J. 1993. Cultural Politics of Everyday Life. Social Constructionism, Rhetoric and Knowing of the Third Kind . Buckingham: Open University Press.

Taylor, Ch. 1989. Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity . Cambridge,Mass: Harvard University Press.

Toulmin, S. E. 1958. The Uses of Argument . Cambridge: University Press.

Tyler, S. 1978. The Said and the Unsaid. Mind, Meaning, and Culture . New York: Aca-demic Press.

1987. The Unspeakable. Discourse, Dialogue, and Rhetoric in the Postmodern World . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Van Eemeren, F. H. et al. 1997. Argumentation. In T. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Struc- ture and Process . London: Sage.

Vickers, B. 1998. In Defence of Rhetoric . Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Watson Gegeo, K. A. and G. M. White (eds.). 1990. Disentangling: Conflict Discourse in Pacific Societies . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

White, G. M. 1990. Moral Discourse and the Rhetoric of Emotions. In L. Abu-Lughodand C. Lutz (eds.), Language and the Politics of Emotion . Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

the power of rhetoric: dialogue and dynamic persuasion in healing rituals of a south indian...

Documents