The main purpose of this article by Emiline Smith and Erin L Thompson is ostensibly to proscribe the publication of unprovenanced works of art, particularly from the Kathmandu Valley. Such publications, the authors argue, should be prevented on the grounds that they may increase the value of such items in the illicit art market. The authors further argue strongly against the removal of objects from their original location and their acquisition by private collectors and museums. This second argument is one side of an ongoing debate about whether works of art should remain in the countries where they were produced or whether their export is acceptable on the grounds that, in certain circumstances, they are likely to be safer in a foreign environment that has the appropriate curatorial facilities. The debate is a well-known one, and the cases for and against have been argued in m...
]]>Since the Companion has 81 entries, it would be difficult to discuss the different entries, their specific themes and their analyses. Therefor...
]]>To begin with, I would like to clarify what Sacrifice et Violence does not claim to be. The book does not present itself as a synthesis or a survey. It does not aspire to provide a comprehensive overview of the themes of sacrifice and violence in Nepal and does not aim to be exhaustive. As its subtitle indicates, it draws its material for reflection from my ethnography. It is limited to what I was able to examine from a fresh perspective and that I gathered over four decades in the region of the 22 and 24 ancient kingdoms of present-day western Nepal. Therefore, it does not cl...
]]>In this rich and thought-provoking book, Marie Lecomte-Tilouine provides a detailed survey of sacrifice and violence in Nepal that brings together the results of many years of reflection, writing and extensive fieldwork in western Nepal, accompanied by beautiful photos. Lecomte-Tilouine particularly emphasises the violence of sacrifice, a violence that sacrificial texts tend to obscure or deny, and that anthropological theories have often ignored. But, as the author shows, this violence shapes sacrifice in Nepal on all sides: through coercion (the binding force of the commitment to sacrifice implying non-human retaliation when it is not honoured), through the actual killing of the animal, and through its stigmatising effects on certain categories of the population. The author sees sacrifice in the Hindu context of Nepal as the ultimate model of legitimate violence, the right to kill. Even though the equivalence between sacrifice and violence is mostly denied b...
]]>The author discusses the main theories of sacrifice, which are mostly based on textual material (chap 2) from the Hellenists J-P Vernant and M Détienne vs M Mauss and H Hubert, the Indianists C Malamoud vs F Staal, the Africanist L de Heusch vs the literary analyst R Girard, etc. Beyond these theories and their contributio...
]]>The buffalo sacrifice is central to the rite and the myth explains how kingship and caste society are produced by the sacrifice. Kings venerate the goddess and make an offering sprinkled with their own blood. The Dasain festival renews royal power and is celebrated with sacrifices in villages as well as in the ancient capitals of small kingdoms, of which there were once many...
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