The pragmatics of aesthetics: the performance of healing among Senoi Temiar.
Indigenous healers in many societies use patterned sounds, movements, colors, shapes, and odors as therapeutic techniques; yet medical anthropology remains curiously inattentive to the aesthetics of healing rituals. Based on research among Senoi Temiar of Peninsular Malaysia, I propose an approach to the therapeutic efficacy of these symbolic forms. The music of Temiar healing ceremonies is examined from three perspectives: the formal musical structures, the indigenous theories that inform those structures, and the strategies through which they are performed and experienced by participants. Temiar healing performances present a moment of articulation between two domains of knowledge and action: musical composition, performance, and affect, on the one hand, and indigenous cosmology, illness etiology, and the pathogenicity of emotions, on the other. Songs of Temiar spirit-mediums cross-cut these two domains, and demonstrate the pragmatics of aesthetics.
Roseman
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Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155.
D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004954:Esthetics; D006801:Humans; D008273:Magic; D008296:Malaysia; D008519:Medicine, Traditional; D008602:Mental Healing; D009146:Music; D012803:Sick Role; D013561:Symbolism