Abstract
For the Ifugao of Northern Luzon, the Philippines, life, health and well-being depend on the containment of the life force called lennawa within the body. The life sustaining lennawa-body relation is, however, inherently unstable. Hence, there is a need to engage in practices that sustain the lennawa-body relation. While, as also previous studies have shown, exchange and sharing are ways in which this is achieved, I argue that the containment of the life force within and its eventual release from the body depend on the sensorially enacted relations with other humans and spirits. I describe how the Ifugao use olfactory, auditory and tactile techniques to manage relations with other humans and spirits and how performing these sensorial techniques properly stabilizes the lennawa-body relation. When this relation is weakened, the Ifugao I worked with engaged in elaborate therapeutic rituals, the purpose of which was to retrieve the lennawa and ensure that it was rejoined with the body. The rituals took the form of exchange of lennawa between humans and spirits, and this exchange too was brought about by various multi-sensorial means. In sum, I discuss how Ifugao techniques of containing life must be understood within a framework that acknowledges the sensorial enactment of relations.
Acknowledgements
An initial version of this article was read at the panel “Notions of health and personhood in transition, and the containment of life” at the Southeast Asia Studies Symposium, Oxford, March 2014. I thank Elisabeth Hsu for organizing the panel and for her relentless efforts, encouragements and critique. I also thank the other participants in the panel, Isabell Hermanns, Junko Iida, Claudia Merli, and Marina Roseman as well as the two anonymous reviewers whose comments were very helpful. Research for this article was funded by the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo.
Bibliography
Barton, R. F. (1930): “Hunting Soul-Stuff: The Motive Behind Head-Taking as Practiced by Ifugaos of the Philippines”. Asia: Journal of the American Asiatic Association 30: 188–195, 225–226.Search in Google Scholar
Barton, R. F. (1946): “The Religion of the Ifugaos”. American Anthropologist 48.Part II: 1–211.Search in Google Scholar
Barton, R. F. (1969): Ifugao Law. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Barton, R. F. (1978): The Half-Way Sun: Life among the Headhunters of the Philippines. New York: Brewer and Warren Inc.Search in Google Scholar
Beyer, H. O. (1913): “Origin Myths among the Mountain People of the Philippines”. The Philippine Journal of Science 8.2: Sec. D.Search in Google Scholar
Beyer, H. O. / Barton, R. F. (1911): “An Ifugao Burial Cermony”. The Philippine Journal of Science 6.5: 228–249.Search in Google Scholar
Bubandt, N. (1998): “The Odour of Things: Smell and the Cultural Elaboration of Disgust in Eastern Indonesia”. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 63.1: 48–80.10.1080/00141844.1998.9981564Search in Google Scholar
Bubandt, N. (2014): The Empty Seashell: Witchcraft and Doubt on an Indonesian Island. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.10.7591/9780801471971Search in Google Scholar
Cannell, F. (2001): Power and Intimacy in the Christian Philippines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Chau, A. Y. (2008): “The Sensorial Production of the Social”. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 73.4: 485–504.10.1080/00141840802563931Search in Google Scholar
Chua, L. (2012): “Conversion, Continuity, and Moral Dilemmas among Christian Bidayuhs in Melanesian Borneo”. American Ethnologist 39.3: 511–526.10.1111/j.1548-1425.2012.01378.xSearch in Google Scholar
Conklin, H. C. (1980): Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao: A Study of Environment, Culture, and Society in Northern Luzon. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Conklin, H. C. (2007): Fine Description: Ethnographic and Linguistic Essays. New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Csordas, T. (1997): Language, Charisma, and Creativity: The Ritual Life of a Religious Movement. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520324022Search in Google Scholar
De Witte, M. (2011a): “Touch”. Material Religion 7.1: 148–155.10.5040/9781474280709.ch-035Search in Google Scholar
De Witte, M. (2011b): “Touched by the Spirit: Converting the Senses in a Ghanian Charismatic Church”. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 76.4: 489–509.10.1080/00141844.2011.620711Search in Google Scholar
Endicott, K. (1970): An Analysis of Malay Magic. Singapore: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Engelke, M. (2007): A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Engelke, M. (2010): “Past Pentecostalism: Notes on Rupture, Realignment, and Everyday Life in Pentecostal and African Independent Churches”. Africa 80.2: 177–199.10.3366/afr.2010.0201Search in Google Scholar
Ewart, E. (2008): “Seeing, Heering and Speaking: Morality and Sense among the Panará in Central Brazil”. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 73.4: 505–522.10.1080/00141840802563949Search in Google Scholar
Gell, A. (1977): “Magic, Perfume, Dream...”. In: Symbols and Sentiments: Cross-Cultural Studies in Symbolism. Edited by I.M. Lewis. London: Academic Press, 25–38.Search in Google Scholar
Gibson, T. (1986): Sacrifice and Sharing in the Philippine Highlands: Religion and Society among the Buid of Mindoro. London: The Athlone Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gibson, T. (2011): “Egalitarian Islands in a Predatory Sea”. In: Anarchic Solidarity: Autonomy, Equality, and Fellowship in Southeast Asia. Edited by T. Gibson and K. Sillander. New Haven, CT: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 270–294.Search in Google Scholar
Hollnsteiner, M. R. (1973): “Reciprocity in the lowland Philippines”. In: Four Readings in Philippine Values. Edited by F. Lynch and A. de Guzman II. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press.Search in Google Scholar
Howell, S. (1989): Society and Cosmos: Chewong of Peninsular Malaysia. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
Howes, D. (1991): “Olfaction and Transition: An Essay on the Ritual Uses of Smell”. In: The Varieties of Sensory Experience: A Sourcebook in the Anthropology of the Senses. Edited by D. Howes. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 128–147.Search in Google Scholar
Howes, D. (2007): Sensual Relations: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social Theory. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Search in Google Scholar
Hsu, E. (2008): “The Senses and the Social: An Introduction”. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 73.4: 433–443.10.1080/00141840802563907Search in Google Scholar
Ileto, R. C. (1979): Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840–1910. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ingold, T. (2000): The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Janowski, M. (2016): “The Dynamics of the Cosmic Conversation: Beliefs About Spirits among the Kelabit and Penan of the Upper Baram River, Sarawak”. In: Animism in Southeast Asia. Edited by K. Århem and G. Sprenger. London: Routledge, 181–204.10.4324/9781315660288-9Search in Google Scholar
Knauft, B. (2002): Exchanging the Past: A Rainforest World of Before and After. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lambrecht, F. (1932): “The Mayawyaw Ritual, No. 1: Rice Culture Ritual”. Publications of the Catholic Anthropological Conference 4.1.Search in Google Scholar
Lambrecht, F. (1938): “The Mayawyaw Ritual, No. 3: Death and Death Ritual”. Publications of the Catholic Anthropological Conference 4.3.Search in Google Scholar
Lindhardt, M. (2011): “Introduction”. In: Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians. Edited by M. Lindhardt. New York: Berghahn Books.Search in Google Scholar
Luhrman, T. M. (2012): When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. New York: Vintage Books.10.24260/alalbab.v1i1.16Search in Google Scholar
McKay, D. (2010): “A Transnational Pig: Reconstituting Kinship among Filipinos in Hong Kong”. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 11: 330–344.10.4324/9781315873930-7Search in Google Scholar
Meyer, B. (1998): “Make a Complete Break With the Past’: Memory and Post-Colonial Modernity in Ghanian Pentecostalist Discourse”. Journal of Religion in Africa 28.3: 316–349.10.1163/157006698X00044Search in Google Scholar
Newell, L. E. (1993): Batad Ifugao Dictionary with Ethnographic Notes. Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines.Search in Google Scholar
Novellino, D. (2009): “From ‘Impregnation’ to ‘Attunement’: A Sensory View of How Magic Works”. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15: 755–776.10.1111/j.1467-9655.2009.01583.xSearch in Google Scholar
Rafael, V. (1988): Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Remme, J. H. Z. (2014a): Pigs and Persons in the Philippines: Human-Animal Entanglements in Ifugao Rituals. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Search in Google Scholar
Remme, J. H. Z. (2014b): “A Dispositional Account of Causality: From Herbal Insecticides to Theories of Emergence and Becoming”. Anthropological Theory 14.4: 405–421.10.1177/1463499614552738Search in Google Scholar
Rio, K. (2003): “The Sorcerer as an Absented Third Person: Formations of Fear and Anger in Vanuatu”. In: Beyond Rationalism: Rethinking Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery. Edited by Bruce Kapferer. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 129–154.10.3167/015597702782409284Search in Google Scholar
Robbins, J. (2004): Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rosaldo, M. Z. (1992): Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self and Social Life. Cambridge: Cambrige University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Santos-Granero, F. (2006): “Sensual Vitalities: Noncorporeal Modes of Sensing and Knowing in Amazonia”. Tipití: Journal of the Society of the Anthropology of Lowland South America 4.1: 57–80.Search in Google Scholar
Scott, W. H. (1985): Cracks in the Parchment Curtain and Other Essays in Philippine History. Quezon City: New Day.Search in Google Scholar
Sillander, K. (2016): “Relatedness and Alterity in Bentian Human-Spirit Relations”. In: Animism in Southeast Asia. Edited by K. Århem and G. Sprenger. London: Routledge, 157–180.10.4324/9781315660288-8Search in Google Scholar
Sprenger, G. (2016): “Dimensions of animism in Southeast Asia”. In: Animism in Southeast Asia. Edited by K. Århem and G. Sprenger. London: Routledge, 31–51.10.4324/9781315660288-2Search in Google Scholar
Stanyukovich, M. V. (2013): “Epic as a Means to Control the Memory and Emotions of Gods and Humans: Ritual Implications of the hudhud Epics among the Ifugao and Kalanguya”. In: Songs of Memory in Islands of Southeast Asia. Edited by N. Revel. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publications, 167–204.Search in Google Scholar
Telle, K. (2003): “The Smell of Death: Theft, Disgust and Ritual Practice in Central Lombok, Indonesia”. In: Beyond Rationalism: Rethinking Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery. Edited by B. Kapferer. New York: Berghahn Books, 75–104.10.3167/015597702782409301Search in Google Scholar
Viveiros de Castro, E. (1998): “Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism”. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4.3: 469–488.10.2307/3034157Search in Google Scholar
Viveiros de Castro, E. (2004): “Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies”. Common Knowledge 10.3: 463–484.10.1215/0961754X-10-3-463Search in Google Scholar
Weckerle, C. S., Timbul, V., and Blumenshine, P. M. (2010): “Medicinal, Stimulant and Ritual Plant Use: An Ethnobotany of Caffeine-Containing Plants”. In: Plants, Health and Healing: On the Interface of Ethnobotany and Medical Anthropology. Edited by Elisabeth Hsu and Stephen Harris. New York: Berghahn Books, 262–301.Search in Google Scholar
Wiener, M. J. (1995): Visible and Invisible Realms: Power, Magic, and Colonial Conquest. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
