SPIRIT POSSESSION: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION ON THE PRACTICE OF DEOUTHA AMONG THE DEORIS OF ASSAM AND ARUNACHAL PRADESH

Abstract

Spirit possession can be considered as a complex phenomenon found to be still in practice in many societies around the world. Anthropologists have spent long years of time conducting ethnographic field studies on spirit possession and possession-trance in different societies around the world.Belief in spirit possession and possession-trance are ancient and very widespread as seen in the historical and ethnographic records. Spirit possession in man is connected with religion and considered as religious and folk tradition which is a temporary and reversible phenomenon. Spirit possession is a phenomenon that is culture-bound i.e.it is intimately related to the beliefs, customs and attitudes of the particular cultural group in which it is found and is a purely emic term which contains “a meaning which believers themselves attached to what they believe happen during a spirit possession ritual.The “religious possession of spirits”is considered a benevolent entity and considered as an integral part of the Deori social system.

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