Pain, Play and Music - Death and Healing Rites Among the Wana

Through fieldwork with the Wana people of Morowali, Central Sulawesi, Giorgio Scalici shows how music serves as a connection between the human world and the hidden world of spirits and emotion. The Wana people of Morowali accept the experiences of pain, illness and loss, and transform them into something positive: rituals that celebrate life, friendship and the community.By examining rituals such as the , the main Wana healing ritual, and the kayori, the funeral, this book investigates how music is used by the Wana to heal people, control emotions, reinforce the sense of community and to mark the cultural death of the community member. In this study, music transforms the pain of loss into a playful event that heals the community and assures its future.This book will be of interest to the wider academic study of religion, anthropology and ethnomusicology as it looks as at funerals as healing rituals for the community which lead the living and the dead through critical times.>

About the author

Giorgio Scalici is a research fellow at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, President
of the Italian Network on Death and Oblivion and Membership Secretary of the Association for the Study of Death and Society.

Product details

• Authors: Giorgio Scalici
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 22.02.2024
• EAN: 9781350236257
• ISBN: 978-1-350-23625-7
• No. of pages: 256
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Music > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; MUSIC / Instruction & Study / Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology of Religion, RELIGION / Devotional, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Indigenous Studies, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Indigenous Peoples, Relating to indigenous peoples, Theory of music & musicology, Social and cultural anthropology, Worship, rites & ceremonies, Indonesia, Worship, rites, ceremonies and rituals, Tribal religions, Theory of music and musicology, Indigenous, ethnic and folk religions and spiritual beliefs, RELIGION / Folk & Tribal