Project Description

MARTINO NICOLETTI, SHAMANIC SOLITUDES: ECSTASY, MADNESS AND SPIRIT POSSESSION IN THE NEPAL HIMALAYAS, KATHMANDU, VAJRA PUBLICATIONS, 2006

 

An itinerary – only apparently circular – furrows the universe of Kulunge Rai shamanism in Nepal. A nomadic religion, generated within the space of a double geography that weaves vivid visionary foreshortenings into the flat weft of reality.

A  journey through the principal places composing the universe of shamanic reality: the “call” by the spirits of the wood. The dreams and initiatic visions; the vocational sickness and flight into the forest – mandatory steps on the path to obtaining powers; the praxis of healing and funerary rituals, centred on the experience of a “magic journey” accomplished by crossing different regions of the cosmos; the body’s function and corporeity within the choreutic-musical world of shamanism: a body acting as temple and simulacrum for a divine epiphany. As a frontier between worlds. A vocal and sonorous body capable of starting up the great shamanic machine.