Ritual works and practices: a case study from a Muslim community in Cambodia
Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis January 16, 2019 Ing-Britt Trankell
Rituals are formalized, repetitive, and conservative events that assert transcendental power over everyday life. This paper argues that ritual studies should examine how rituals negotiate power and influence. Research on a spirit possession cult among the Muslim Cham in Cambodia shows that the cult functions both as a kind of state ritual and as exorcism, with open-ended and unbounded features in contemporary society. Through the cult, the Cham take refuge in memories of the distant past rather than in immediate memories of terror and political violence from the civil war and Khmer Rouge regime. Songs of the spirits intermingle present and past, narrating difficulties, conflicts, and struggles in a spirit world that mingles with ordinary human life.