Power and Intimacy in the Christian PhilippinesWhat kind of reciprocity exists between unequal partners? How can a 'culture' which makes no attempt to defend unchanging traditions be understood as such? In the Christian Philippines, inequalities - global and local - are negotiated through idioms of persuasion, reluctance and pity. Fenella Cannell's study suggests that these are the idioms of a culture which does not need to represent itself as immutable. Her account of Philippine spirit-mediumship, Catholicism, transvestite beauty contests, and marriage in Bicol calls for a reassessment of our understanding of South-East Asian modernity. Combining a strong theoretical interest in the anthropology of religion with a broader comparative attention to recent developments in South-East Asian studies, she offers a powerful alternative to existing interpretations of the relationship between culture and tradition in the region and beyond. This book addresses not only South-East Asianists, but all those with an interest in the anthropology of religion and post-colonial cultures. Power and Intimacy in the Christian Phillipines has won the Harry J. Benda prize for 2001. |
Contents
Marriage stories speaking of reluctance and control | 29 |
Talking about marriage | 30 |
Sa gusto kan mga magurang At your parents will | 33 |
Obedient daughters | 35 |
parents and children | 36 |
Difficult women and good husbands | 38 |
Total escape and complete defeat | 39 |
Learnt love pitying your husband and talking things over | 41 |
Death and those who have nothing | 140 |
calling the dead embalming and the aswang | 141 |
customs relating to death | 145 |
Embalming the look of the corpse and the moment of death | 148 |
The problem of the next world and the ability of the dead to come back | 152 |
Controlled encounters between the living and the dead | 155 |
Pistang Kalag | 156 |
The language of bereavement | 161 |
reluctance and the spirits | 42 |
With girls you can insist but not with boys | 45 |
Kinship and the ritualisation of marriage | 48 |
the Age of the Father and the Age of the Child | 51 |
Spouses and siblings | 54 |
The ritualisation of courtship and marriage in the recent past the bahon | 59 |
The ritualisation of courtship and marriage in the recent past the wedding | 61 |
The ritualisation of courtship and marriage in the distant past | 63 |
Hierarchy and the house in the seventeenthcentury Philippines | 67 |
Past into present | 72 |
Marriage stories the house and the power of talking | 73 |
Healing and the spirits | 77 |
Introduction healing and the people who have nothing | 79 |
The people we cannot see | 83 |
Spirit mediums and spiritcompanions | 88 |
Becoming a medium | 89 |
Auring | 92 |
Auring and Clara | 94 |
Healers and the other person | 98 |
Debt and healing healing and money | 101 |
Debt and healing patrons pity and oppression | 104 |
Spirit mediums and seance forms changing relations to the spirit world | 108 |
Voice unequal conversations and the Bicol seance | 109 |
Temptations baptised spirits and the reach of Gods blessing | 118 |
Coda the birthdayparties of the spirits | 129 |
Saints and the dead | 135 |
The living and the dead | 137 |
the living and the dead | 162 |
The funeral of the dead Christ | 165 |
The funeral of Catalina Dominguez | 166 |
The funeral in the Pasion | 167 |
The funeral of Christ | 172 |
Kinship reciprocity and devotions to the saints | 183 |
The pity of mothers | 188 |
Begging for help | 191 |
The nature of exchange with the Ama and the effects of Christian conversion | 193 |
Bicolano healing and the absence of political event | 199 |
Beauty contests | 201 |
Beauty and the idea of America | 203 |
Beauty in the barangay | 206 |
Overcoming shame and becoming beautiful | 209 |
Becoming beautiful | 212 |
The Miss Gay Naga City Contest 1988 | 219 |
Difficult transformations | 222 |
Conclusion oppression pity and transformation | 227 |
Debtsocieties unpredictable status and capitalism | 234 |
The disappearance of the lowlands as a cultural object | 241 |
Continuity and change in the anthropology of identity | 245 |
Knowing the words | 250 |
Appendix | 255 |
Notes | 259 |
| 287 | |
| 307 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Alcina Amang Hinulid American anitos argued Asian aswang Auring Auring's bakla barangay beauty Bicolanos Bikol body bride brideprice brideservice Calabanga Camarines Sur Catholic centre chapter child Christ Christian Clara coffin colonial context contrast culture datus dead death debt described devotions elite Elsa embalming emphasise emsee Errington especially ethnography exchange feel Filipino funeral gender gift groom healers husband idea idioms kalag kind kinship Libmanan living lowland Philippines Lynch Mamay marriage married mediums mediumship Merina mother Naga City Nana notion parents Pasion patients performance person Philippine Studies pity political possession Quezon City Rafael relations relationship religious reluctance rice ritual saints San Ignacio saro seance seems sexual shamanism sharing shrine siblings social society someone soul Southeast Asia Spanish spirit-companion spirits spouses status stories supernatural Tagalog talk tawo Tiang tion told University Press Visayan wedding woman women
Popular passages
Page 9 - ... intangible, mysterious, and divine energy which animates the universe. It is manifested in every aspect of the natural world, in stones, trees, clouds, and fire, but is expressed quintessentially in the central mystery of life, the process of generation and regeneration. In Javanese traditional thinking there is no sharp division between organic and inorganic matter, for everything is sustained by the same invisible power. This conception of the entire cosmos being suffused by a formless, constantly...
Page 5 - Spain's was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and, by God's grace, to do the very best we could by them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ also died.
Page 5 - ... Kipling urged America to take up the white man's burden, Mr. Dooley, less reverently, noted that it was less than two months since most Americans had learned whether the Philippines were islands or canned goods. After testing the mood of the country, President William McKinley announced that he had no choice but "to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them.
Page 20 - ... provide a well-head. Menander was at great pains to create the atmosphere he wanted, and we can to some extent recreate it for ourselves with the help of contemporary texts and archaeological remains. By so doing we can appreciate rather more clearly the social problem which interested him : the gulf between the world of the rich and the world of the poor, the honest Knemon's complete rejection of the corrupt world of the rich (to which he belonged) for the simple world of the poor, and the kinds...