The pragmatics of aesthetics: the performance of healing among Senoi Temiar

Journal/Book: Soc Sci Med. 1988; 27: 811-8.

Abstract: 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.

Keyword(s): Magic ; Malaysia ; Medicine, Traditional; Music ; Sick Role; Symbolism Psychology Cross Cultural Comparison; Esthetics ; Mental Healing Comparative Study; Human ; Support, Non U.S. Gov't; Support, U.S. Gov't, Non P.H.S.

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