Reading the Entrails
Analysis of an African Divination Discourse
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2574154 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J Abbink (0000-0003-1383-7849, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1993 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 705 |
| Publication date | 1993-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Man (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0025-1496 • E-ISSN: 2397-2548 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2803993 |
| OpenAlex | W2160319163 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 10 |
The divinatory reading of animal intestines, a cultural practice widespread in East Africa but hardly given attenition in the anthropological literature, is analyzed in terms of a veiled but manifest communicative strategy, constrained by cultural premisses. The 'relevance theory' of Sperber and Wilson (1986) is used. The case study presented is from the Me'en ethnic group of south-western Ethiopia. The Me'en were formerly agro-pastoralists, but are now subsistence cultivators and hunter-gatherers. On the basis of a description of two types of intestine-reading, it is argued that while there is a set of rules underlying the discourse of entrail-reading, it is the body of tacit, social, contextual clues which sets the bounds of 'meaning' of the message in the entrails - details of the physical structure of the intestines have no determinate meaning in themselves. The meaning is a construction emerging from the reading as a communicative event, activating in an indirect manner the presuppositions ofthe 'audience' while conveying the intention of the speaker(s) who interpret(s) the 'message
Art · Divination · Linguistics · Literature · Reading (process · African history and culture analysis · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy
Rethinking the Anthropology of Ethiopia through Culture and Ritual
Zootherapy in Archaeology
Ethnographie matérielle, sonore et spatiale de la mort en pays maale (Éthiopie méridionale)
Roman Republican Augury
Ritual and Environment
Love and death of cattle
Celebrating Easter, Christmas and their associated alien fauna
Reduction, Generation, and Truth
The Social Practice of Symbolization
Meaning without intention
Order, analogy, and efficacy in ethiopian medical divination
An Approach to Kuranko Divination
Divinity and Experience
African divination systems
Anthropology and Psychology
African Divination Systems
The Age-Set System of the Pastoral Pokot
"The "Peripheral Situation
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,26 |
| Citation span | 1995 - 2022 (28) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |