Performing Symmetry in Andean Weather Forecasting: The Practice of Cabañuelas, Beyond Divination and Suffering
This paper analyzes a practice known as Cabañuelas - - series of signs in the current year. The knowledge and gestures associated with this practice have traditionally been understood according to the classical division between pragmatic techniques and magic rituals, an approach that I set aside in...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Oxford University Press
2022
|
In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2022, Volume: 90, Issue: 4, Pages: 987-1009 |
Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
Summary: | This paper analyzes a practice known as Cabañuelas - - series of signs in the current year. The knowledge and gestures associated with this practice have traditionally been understood according to the classical division between pragmatic techniques and magic rituals, an approach that I set aside in favor of considering Cabañuelas as a hybrid practice involving multiple kinds of beings and agents. It can also be understood as part of a complex of practice together with the offerings to the earth in August, and in addition to the reading of the coca leaf and the molten lead - all of these being practices that share an observational, prospecting, and performative character. Based on this, I put forward the idea of empowered agents, challenging the view of suffering Andean actors hopelessly subjected to super/natural forces or idiosyncratic conditions they cannot control. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
|
Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfad030 |