Seeing the eyes of god in human form: iconography and impersonation in african and hindu traditions of trance performance in the southern caribbean

Abstract

490 seeing the eyes of god in human form: iconography and impersonation in african and hindu traditions of trance performance in the southern caribbean keith e. mcneal university of houston Downloaded by [Deakin University Library] at 16:12 12 August 2015 ABSTRACTThis article links analysis of the body and of visual culture within religious studies through comparative examination of two southern Caribbean ritual traditions: Shango, or Orisha Worship (African), and Shakti Puja, or Kali Worship (Hindu). Both are centered upon subaltern ceremonies of trance performance and spirit mediumship. The article examines a primary difference in the impersonation of divinity evident between the two traditions-performing with one's eyes open on the African side versus closed on the Hindu side-and accounts for this contrast in terms of inverse relations between religious iconography and use of the body as a vehicle of ritualized form, referred to here as inverse conventions of "iconopraxis." However, this level of differentiation is built upon a deeper, but no less cultural use of the body as a tool of entranced ritual praxis shared by each tradition. Each tradition therefore exploits similar phenomenological affordances of the human body in order to cultivate alter-cultural experiences of ceremonial ecstasy that, in turn, are modulated by differing conventions of iconopraxis. The analysis highlights the polymorphous nature of embodiment in accounting for similarities and differences of cultural symbolism in the ritual arts of trance.The body can always be viewed in a multiplicity of ways, with a focus on separation or connection, finitude or transcendence, stability or change.Drew Leder, The Absent Body

Preenchendo murtis: arte e conhecimento em um templo hindu da deusa Kali na Guiana

“…Desde o trabalho de Diana Eck, publicado originalmente em 1981, as interações e transações visuais nos rituais hindus têm sido destacadas na bibliografia especializada (ver, dentre outros, Babb 1981;Eck 1998Eck [1981Fuller 2004Fuller [1992Hawley 1996;Mines 2005;Mello 2014Mello : 340-356, 2018McNeal 2012;Nabokov 2000;Stephanides e Singh 2000). Alfred Gell, que realizou trabalho de campo na região central da Índia no final da década de 1970, sintetizou bem essas dimensões em sua seminal obra póstuma.…”

“…Singh 1978;O. Singh 1993;Younger 2010), em escritos sobre arte visual (Benoist et al 2004), em artigos acerca da relação entre possessão espiritual e iconografia (Mello 2018), quanto em estudos sobre as relações entre possessão, estética e simbolismo de práticas rituais (McNeal 2011(McNeal , 2012 e em reflexões em torno do processo histórico de formação da iconografia e do panteão hindu (McNeal 2010). No caso de murtis, 2 formas esculpidas de divindades, a tendência das obras citadas acima é concebê-las como formas materializadas que aludem a processos de transformação histórica de práticas religiosas ou como expressões de mitos, símbolos e cosmologias.…”