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The Earth and the Tree in Alekh Shamanism in Koraput/Odisha

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Dealing with Disasters

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Disaster Anthropology ((PSDA))

Abstract

This chapter analyzes local patterns of Mahima Dharma, a new ascetic religion in Odisha, which recently proselytized in the Koraput region of Eastern India. The chapter describes and discusses the cultural resilience of an eco-cosmological worldview in the context of conversion. As eco-cosmologies the article defines worldviews and life-worlds relating intrinsically the human with the non-human, the cosmos and the other-than-human sphere such as trees, animals, rivers, mountains. Among the Mahima Dharma followers in Koraput, this relatedness between the human and non-human sphere is mainly mediated by a ritual ecstatic specialist, a shaman, connecting through visions and dreams the living world with an animated ecological landscape.

Some aspects of this paper have been published in the article entitled “Negative Ecstasy or the Singers of the Divine. Voices from the Periphery of Mahima Dharma.” 2007. In Periphery and Centre: Studies in Orissan History, Religion and in Anthropology, edited by G. Pfeffer, 105–130. Delhi: Manohar.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Lidia Guzy

  2. National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    Lidia Guzy

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  1. Lidia Guzy
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Correspondence to Lidia Guzy .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion University, Athens, Greece

    Diana Riboli

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Pamela J. Stewart

  3. Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Andrew J. Strathern

  4. Department SARAS (Storia Antropologia Religioni Arte e Spettacolo), Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Davide Torri

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Guzy, L. (2021). The Earth and the Tree in Alekh Shamanism in Koraput/Odisha. In: Riboli, D., Stewart, P.J., Strathern, A.J., Torri, D. (eds) Dealing with Disasters. Palgrave Studies in Disaster Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56104-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56104-8_7

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