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Folklore. EJF 45
We kindly ask you to read the new issue, Vol. 45 of Folklore. Electronic Journal of Folklore (available at http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol45/.
Staffan Mjönes, in his article Shaman, Psychoanalyst or Obstetrician: A Critical Reading of Claude Lévi-Strauss’ Essay “The Efficiency of Symbols”, intends to clarify the obstetric, medical-psychological and ethnological credibility of the well-known essay in structural anthropology, indicating that Lévi-Strauss’ reasoning is based on an incomplete source as well as on a grave anatomical misunderstanding.
Anu Korb writes about healers and healing skills in the Ryzhkovo Vironian community in Siberia, founded as a mixed Lutheran settlement in Western Siberia around 1803.
Sarita Sahay focuses on Gai-Goheri, the festival of ceremonial torture, a popular ritual among the people of the Bhil tribe of Western India. Manolis G. Sergis presents and discusses the custom of kynomartyrion (dog torture) which took place in the Greek lands until the 1980s.
Tomi S. Melka investigates the Moche Lima beans recording system, bringing together structural, iconographic and cultural aspects, and indicating that we might be dealing with an original form of mnemotechnology, contrived to solve the problems of medium and long-distance communication among the once thriving Moche principalities. Tarmo Kulmar provides a contrastive overview of the Inca state (1438–1532) in Peru, a highly centralised empire, and the Aztec state (1427–1519) in Mexico, a confederation with weak central authority, retaining many features of a military democracy.
Terry Gunnell analyses the past and present of Sagnagrunnur – a new database of Icelandic folk legends in print. L. Madan Mohan’s article presents a description of magico-religious healers and herbalists among the Savaras, enumerating the various categories of specialists and their diagnostic methods.
In addition, the readers of the new issue can obtain a brief coverage of the more relevant events and enjoy a book review.
