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Amin-e Diwaneh: the musician as madman

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

John Baily
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Extract

While engaged in research on the long-necked lute called Herati dutār in 1974, I was frequently told about a virtuoso dutāri (dutār player) who had died a few years earlier after a fight with a gang of ‘thugs’ in the city of Kandahar. His name was Amin-e Diwaneh. The Persian word diwāneh means ‘crazy’, and was applied to people who (in terms of Western psychiatry) might be classed as ‘insane’, though the cause of insanity was usually attributed to spirit possession. Diwāneh was also a description for individuals who were particularly erratic in their behaviour, and was often used affectionately. Amin the dutāri was such a person.

Type
Research Article
Information
Popular Music , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , May 1988 , pp. 133 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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