Metaphors and cultural narratives on adaptive responses to severe adversity: A field study among the Indigenous Pitaguary community in Brazil.

The expressions resilience and posttraumatic growth represent metaphorical concepts that are typically found in Euro-American contexts. Metaphors of severe adversity or trauma and the expressions of overcoming it vary across cultures-a lacuna, which has not been given much attention in the literature so far. This study aimed to explore the metaphorical concepts that the Indigenous Pitaguary community in Brazil uses to talk about adaptive and positive responses to severe adversity and to relate them to their socio-cultural context. We carried out 14 semi-structured interviews during field research over a one-month period of fieldwork. The data were explored with systematic metaphor analysis. The core metaphors included images of battle, unity, spirituality, journeys, balance, time, sight, transformation, and development. These metaphors were related to context-specific cultural narratives that underlie the Pitaguary ontological perspective on collectivity, nature, and cosmology. The results suggest that metaphors and cultural narratives can reveal important aspects of a culture's collective mindset. To have a contextualized understanding of expressive nuances is an essential asset to adapt interventions to specific cultures and promote culture-specific healing and recovery processes.

Culturally shared metaphors expand contemporary concepts of resilience and post-traumatic growth: contrasting an indigenous Brazilian community and a Swiss rural community.

The metaphorical concepts resilience and post-traumatic growth (PTG) reflect the contemporary Western understanding of overcoming highly challenging life events. However, it is known that across different cultures, a broad range of metaphorical idioms for describing adaptive responses to severe adversity exists. This study aimed to explore and contrast two distinct cultural groups' culturally shared metaphors for overcoming severe adversities. Fieldwork was conducted in two rural communities: an indigenous Brazilian community that has experienced severe collective adversity and a mountain village in Switzerland that has survived a natural disaster. We carried out separate qualitative metaphor analyses of semistructured interview data from each community. There were some similarities in the metaphorical narratives of the two cultural groups, for example, in metaphors of balance, changed perspective, collective cohesion and life as a journey The main variations were found in metaphors of magical thinking, equilibrium and organic transformation used by the Brazilian group and metaphors of work, order and material transformation used by the Swiss group. Results from this study suggest that the Western-devised concepts of resilience and PTG can be further expanded, which is highlighted by the variety of culturally shared metaphors. Metaphorical idioms for overcoming severe adversity may be determined by the type of trauma as well as by the sociocultural and historical context. Our findings indicate potential approaches to the cultural adaptation of psychological interventions.

Doença de feitiço, ações terapêuticas e os percursos de cura nos terreiros de umbanda e candomblé em Macapá-AP / Spell disease, therapeutic actions and healing pathways in umbanda and candomblé terrariums in Macapá-AP

Esta etnografia trata de uma modalidade de adoecimento físico-psíquico conhecido como doença de feitiço. Tem por objetivo compreender a dinâmica desse modo de adoecer a partir das narrativas de pessoas que se dizem afetadas por esse mal e de que modo os curandeiros concebem e tratam a doença a partir de suas experiências espirituais de acordo com uma lógica própria centrada nos terreiros de umbanda e candomblé na cidade de Macapá-AP. Proponho uma análise das diversas formas de manifestação desse fenômeno tomando como chave de leitura analítica a concepção cosmológica do universo amazônico seus itinerários terapêuticos e os tipos de rituais de cura acionados no decorrer do tratamento. O material etnográfico aqui descrito e analisado foi obtido durante a pesquisa de campo (entrevistas em profundidade e observação participante) no período entre 2013 e 2015 na cidade de Macapá- AP. Verifica-se que a crença no feitiço está no cerne de um sistema cosmológico que admite a atuação de forças ocultas em suas diferentes formas de agir na vida cotidiana individual ou coletiva. Meus dados etnográficos indicam que o feitiço é uma crença reguladora da vida amazônica e que mesmo diante das demandas da vida moderna impelida pela racionalidade médico-cientifica seu poder de interferência no cotidiano é gerido pela crença na existência de doenças não naturais não explicadas pela ciência médica. Não obstante o intenso fluxo de informações preventivas e a implementação de modelos curativos e de cuidados em saúde capazes de responder às diversas doenças presente da vida moderna não foram suficientes para suprimir as ideias e os valores culturais desses indivíduos que adotam as concepções e práticas tradicionais de cura associadas ou não aos novos métodos mesmo no contexto urbano.(AU)

This ethnography deals with a form of physical-psychic illness known as spell disease. Its purpose is to understand the dynamics of this way of getting sick from the narratives of people who are said to be affected by this evil and how the healers conceive and treat the disease from their spiritual experiences according to their own logic centered in the terreiros of Umbanda and candomblé in the city of Macapá-AP. I propose an analysis of the various forms of manifestation of this phenomenon taking as a key analytical reading the cosmological conception of the Amazonian universe its therapeutic itineraries and the types of healing rituals triggered during the treatment. The ethnographic material described and analyzed here was obtained during field research (in-depth interviews and participant observation) in the period between 2013 and 2015 in the city of Macapá-AP. It turns out that belief in the spell is at the core of a cosmological system that admits the performance of hidden forces in their different ways of acting in daily life individual or collective. My ethnographic data indicate that the spell is a regulating belief in Amazonian life and that even in the face of the demands of modern life impelled by medical-scientific rationality, its power of interference in daily life is governed by the belief in the existence of unnatural diseases not explained by medical science . Despite the intense flow of preventive information and the implementation of curative and health care models capable of responding to the various diseases present in modern life they were not enough to suppress the ideas and cultural values ​​of these individuals adopting the traditional.(AU)

[Skull cult. Trophy heads and tzantzas in pre-Columbian America]. / El culto a los craneos. Cabezas trofeo y tzantzas en la America precolombina.

INTRODUCTION: The skull cult is a cultural tradition that dates back to at least Neolithic times. Its main manifestations are trophy heads, skull masks, moulded skulls and shrunken heads. The article reviews the skull cult in both pre-Columbian America and the ethnographic present from a neuro-anthropological perspective. DEVELOPMENT: The tradition of shaping and painting the skulls of ancestors goes back to the Indo-European Neolithic period (Natufian culture and Gobekli Tepe). In Mesoamerica, post-mortem decapitation was the first step of a mortuary treatment that resulted in a trophy head, a skull for the tzompantli or a skull mask. The lithic technology utilised by the Mesoamerican cultures meant that disarticulation had to be performed in several stages. Tzompantli is a term that refers both to a construction where the heads of victims were kept and to the actual skulls themselves. Skull masks are skulls that have been artificially modified in order to separate and decorate the facial part; they have been found in the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. The existence of trophy heads is well documented by means of iconographic representations on ceramic ware and textiles belonging to the Paraca, Nazca and Huari cultures of Peru. The Mundurucu Indians of Brazil and the Shuar or Jivaroan peoples of Amazonian Ecuador have maintained this custom down to the present day. The Shuar also shrink heads (tzantzas) in a ritual process. Spanish chroniclers such as Fray Toribio de Benavente 'Motolinia' and Gaspar de Carvajal spoke of these practices. CONCLUSIONS: In pre-Columbian America, the tradition of decapitating warriors in order to obtain trophy heads was a wide-spread and highly developed practice.

An anthropological study about epilepsy in native tribes from Central and South America.

PURPOSE: Epilepsy was a well-recognized disease in pre-Columbian cultures. However, anthropological studies about epilepsy in native cultures living at the present time are scarce. The objective of this paper was to study native perception and myths about epilepsy, their magic-religious healing rites and ceremonies, and the natural treatments that archaic cultures used. METHODS: An anthropological fieldwork was performed in Central and South America with Tzeltal Maya (Chiapas, Mexico, 1995), Kamayurá (Matto Grosso, Brazil, 1999) and Uru-Chipaya people (Bolivian Andes, 2004). We collected information from shamans and medicine men about epilepsy beliefs and the use of traditional treatments. RESULTS: Epilepsy is called tub tub ikal by Tzeltal people. It is caused by an attack suffered by the animal spirit who accompanies the person, after a fight between the spirits who serve the forces of good and evil. People with chronic epilepsy are considered witches. Epilepsy is called teawarup by Kamayurá, and is caused by the revenge of the spirit (mama'e) of the armadillo killed by a huntsman. It is treated with two roots, tsimó and wewurú, kneaded and diluted in water. Epilepsy is called tukuri by the Chipaya people, and is originated by a witchcraft that enters into the nose and the head, as a wind. Tukuri is treated with a ritual animal sacrifice called willancha, and by taking several dried insect infusions and bird's blood. CONCLUSION: These American native cultures have developed a system of orally transmitted knowledge about epilepsy based on magic-religious traditions.

Do cultural factors affect causal beliefs? Rational and magical thinking in Britain and Mexico.

In two experiments, unusual phenomena (spontaneous destruction of objects in an empty wooden box) were demonstrated to adult participants living in rural communities in Mexico. These were accompanied by actions which had no physical link to the destroyed object but could suggest either scientifically based (the effect of an unknown physical device) or non-scientifically based (the effect of a 'magic spell') causal explanations of the event. The results were compared to the results of the matching two experiments from the earlier study made in Britain. The expectation that scientifically based explanations would prevail in British participants' judgments and behaviours, whereas Mexican participants would be more tolerant toward magical explanations, received only partial support. The prevalence of scientific explanations over magical explanations was evident in British participants' verbal judgments but not in Mexican participants' judgments. In their behavioural responses under the low-risk condition, British participants rejected magical explanations more frequently than did Mexican participants. However, when the risk of disregarding the possible causal effect of magic was increased, participants in both samples showed an equal degree of credulity in the possible effect of magic. The data are interpreted in terms of the relationships between scientific and 'folk' representations of causality and object permanence.

La cura chamánica: una interpretación psicosocial / The shamanic cure: a psychological interpretation

Este trabajo constituye básicamente un análisis teórico de la cura chamánica en el que se propone la comunicación como base del proceso de curación, descrito este último a partir de los actos comunicativos, con énfasis en la interpretación de los elementos simbólicos. Se da cuenta de la dimensión en la cual se inscribe este proceso, la modalidad lingüística que se emplea, el tipo de relación que se establece entre el/la chamán, el/la paciente y el grupo, la manera como se construye una realidad simbólica compartida, la visión de mundo del chamán y el efecto que tiene sobre las personas. Se toma el enfoque psicosocial como marco interpretativo y se propone una explicación en términos de la fundación de un acto comunicativo como escenario donde se construye una realidad simbólica, constituida por la cura propiamente, a la que ingresa el paciente en cada sesión. Se analiza la visión mágica del chamanismo y su influencia sobre el proceso salud-enfermedad

The psychodynamics of demon possession

This paper examines the psychodynamics of demon possession in contemporary Trinidian society. Field observations and interviews with possessed individuals indicate that the incorporation of the local folklore and superstition is the prime prerequisite for the possession complex, but that the reaction per se is triggered by situations of unusual stress or emotional conflict. Although, a consistent clinical picture of psychopathology is not apparent, the four reported case histories consistently reflect a tendency toward hysterical features, sometimes in conjunction with neurotic depression. In all cases, however, possession affords two positive advantages to the individual - direct escape from a conflict situation and dimunition of guilt by projecting blame on to the intruding spirit (Summary)