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Initiation into the ugao: rethinking the structure of Tharaka symbolism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Guido Giarelli
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Résumé

Après avoir analysé le mythe d'origine de l'ugao—médecine tharaka—comme la charte constitutionnelle de sa ‘juridiction’, l'étude décrive l'initiation de l'auteur par trois agao (guérisseurs) au territoire réservé de l'ugao pendant une période de dixsept journées, par plusiers types d'enseignement et de performances rituelles et qui se conclu avec un apprentissage pratique. Dans le détail, une description complète est donné par le giciaro, la fraternité de sang schellée par le muma, le serment sur le sang de la chèvre entre les maîtres et le novice; et de la livraison rituelle des cornes, les instruments de l'art de la guérison du mugao.

Dans le deuxième partie de l'étude, les principaux symboles dominant des rituels thérapeutiques de l'ugao sont analysé dans le détail dans le but de cueillir la particulière structure qui le met en ordre, en définant le modèle de guérison. A ce sujet, l'auteur met en discussion la validité d'une classification duel sur la base de ses résultats, en discutant les faiblesses de l'analyse proposée par Rodney Needham sur le symbolisme méru. Alternativement, il suggère quʼune classification triadique peut mieux considerer le modèle générale de la correspondance symbolique propre de l'ugao comme de la culture tharaka.

Type
Becoming a healer, revealing a witch
Information
Africa , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , April 1997 , pp. 175 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1997

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