Illness and healing among the Sakhalin Ainu : a symbolic interpretation
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Illness and healing among the Sakhalin Ainu : a symbolic interpretation
Cambridge University Press, 2014, c1981
- : pbk.
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Originally published in 1981, this book explores the issue of how a society understands human illness in the absence of a germ theory. This is done through an interpretation of the illness categories and healing practices of the Sakhalin Ainu, a hunting and gathering people resettled in Japan. The text illustrates how illnesses relate to the Ainu view of the universe and how their medical system is intimately interwoven with their moral cosmology and social networks. Even such minor ailments as headaches and boils are meticulously classified to mirror the classifications of such basic perceptual structures as space and time. With the Ainu medical system as an example, this book probes questions central to research in symbolic, medical and linguistic anthropology, structuralism, and the anthropology of women.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Ainu phonemes
- 1. Introduction: aims and scope of the book
- 2. The Ainu
- 3. The ethnomedical approach in anthropology and the Ainu domain of illness
- 4. Habitual illnesses
- 5. Classification of body-part and skin illnesses
- 6. Metaphysical illnesses and their healing rituals
- 7. A symbolic interpretation of metaphysical illnesses and healing rituals
- 8. Theories in symbolic studies and the Ainu data
- 9. Modes of perception and the classification of illnesses: a synthesis
- 10. Language and cognition: theoretical and methodological problems in arriving at perceptual categories
- 11. Illness, the individual, and society
- Appendix A. Details of Ainu habitual illnesses
- Appendix B. Beings and objects used in the cures of habitual illnesses
- Appendix C. Imu:
- Appendix D. Biological, cultural, and linguistic identity of the Ainu
- Appendix E. The history of the Sakhalin Ainu
- Notes
- References
- Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"