The Temiars; a Mon-Khmer-speaking Orang Asli society living in the uplands of northern Peninsular Malaysia; have long attracted popular attention in the West for reports that ascribed to them the special psychotherapeutic known as 'Senoi Dreamwork'. However; the reality of Temiar religion and society; as studied and recorded by Geoffrey Benjamin over 50 years; is even more fascinating than that popular portrayal - which is shown to be based on a serious misrepresentation of Temiar practice.When Benjamin first lived in the isolated villages of the Temiars between 1964 and 1965; he encountered a people who lived by swidden farming supplemented by hunting and fishing. They practised their own unexportable; localised animistic religion in an area where the main religion of civilisation was formerly Mahayana Buddhism and is now Islam. Fifty years later; the Temiars have become much more embedded in broader Malaysian society; while retaining their distinctive way of life; including continuing involvement with their complex shamanic religion. Benjamin's ongoing fieldwork in the 1970s; 1990s and 2000s followed the Temiars through processes of religious dis-enchantment and re-enchantment; as they reacted in various ways to the advent of Baha'i; Islam and Christianity. Some Temiars even developed a new religion of their own. In addition to its rich ethnographic reportage; the book proposes a novel theory of religion and develops a deeply insightful account of the changing intellectual framework of anthropology over the past half-century.
#6579054 in Books 2003-01-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 #File Name: 9657287014315 pages
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