The undead genealogy
Omnipresence, spirit perspectives, and a case of Mongolian vampirism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2267200 |
|---|---|
| Authors | K Swancutt (0000-0002-9838-2849, University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 843-864 |
| Publication date | 2008-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1359-0987 • E-ISSN: 1467-9655 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2008.00534.x |
| OpenAlex | W2171841607 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 26 |
This article gives the sequel to a case study on magical innovation introduced earlier in theJRAI, and shows that Buryat Mongol shamans regularly deflect hostile forces by adopting spirit perspectives. Presenting new ethnography on Buryat vampiric imps and an episode of intra-familial vampirism, the article argues that, in Buryat sociality, anyone - including omnipresent spirits - may cross the virtuous-unvirtuous divide. In northeast Mongolia, Buryats consider that close ancestral spirits watch after their descendants, whereas distant ancestral spirits manage a spirit bureaucracy. Building on Viveiros de Castro's work on perspectivism, the article thus proposes that close spirit perspectives entail an 'intimacy affect' while distant spirit perspectives entail a 'virtuosity affect'. Buryat shamans sometimes oscillate between these perspectives to access both spirit intimacy and virtuosity. The article culminates by demonstrating how a Buryat shaman used intimacy and virtuosity to expunge her mother's ex-husband and his undead relatives from the patriline.RésuméCet article s'inscrit dans le prolongement d'une étude de cas sur l'innovation magique présentée précédemment dans leJRAI. Il montre que les chamanes des Bouriates de Mongolie repoussent régulièrement les forces hostiles en adoptant le point de vue des esprits. L'article présente une nouvelle ethnographie des farfadets vampires des Bouriates et un épisode de vampirisme intra-familial, et avance que dans la vie sociale des Bouriates, n'importe qui (y compris les esprits omniprésents) peut franchir la frontière entre vertu et absence de vertu. Les Bouriates du Nord-est de la Mongolie croient que les esprits ancestraux qui leur sont proches veillent sur leurs descendants, tandis que les esprits ancestraux distants gèrent la bureaucratie des esprits. À partir des travaux de Viveiros de Castro sur le perspectivisme, l'auteure propose que les perspectives des esprits créent un « affect d'intimité », tandis que les esprits distants suscitent un « affect de virtuosité ». Les chamanes bouriates oscillent parfois entre ces deux perspectives pour accéder à la fois à l'intimité et à la virtuosité. Ceci est mis en évidence à travers un exemple qui constitue le clou de l'article : la manière dont une chamane bouriate a chassé de la patrilignée l'ex-mari de sa mère et les parents « non morts » de celui-ci
Adornment · Affect (linguistics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Ethnology · Humanities · Omnipresence · Perspectivism · Shamanism · Sociology · Theology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Philosophy
‘Sempre la'o ho ita’
Moral Economic Transitions in the Mongolian Borderlands
Moral Economic Transitions in the Mongolian Borderlands
Post-socialist animism
Ghosts of the Gulag in the Eveny world of the dead
A Change of Subject
Transformation and Multiplicity
Language, Translation, Trauma
Dreams, Visions, and Worldmaking
Asocial memories, 'poisonous knowledge', and haunting in Mongolia
Establishing mutual misunderstanding
Playing with perspectives
Building Merit
Chiefly and Shamanist Landscapes in Mongolia
Art And Agency
Shamans And Elders
The Headless State
Ecstatic Religion
Tibetan Tales, I
Dialogues with the Dead
The Gender of the GiftProblems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia
The Ontological Spiral
Stalin and the Blue Elephant
Tarrying with Repression
The Little Human and The Daughter-in-law
Who 'Makes' the Shaman
Living in Death
The Human Perspective
Exchanging Perspectives
Transcendental Perspectivism
Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism
Dealing with uncertainty
Inside and Outside the Mirror
Loving and forgetting
Representational vs conjectural divination
Not Animal, Notnot-animal
Totemism, Animism and North Asian Indigenous Ontologies
| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2025 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 13 |