| Deadly Words Contributor(s): Favret-Saada, Jeanne (Author) |
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ISBN: 0521297877 ISBN-13: 9780521297875 Publisher: Cambridge University Press OUR PRICE: $49.39 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 1981 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Body, Mind & Spirit | Magick Studies - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social |
| Dewey: 133.430 |
| LCCN: 79-41607 |
| Series: Msh |
| Physical Information: 0.64" H x 6" W x 9" (0.92 lbs) 284 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This 1980 book examines witchcraft beliefs and experiences in the Bocage, a rural area of western France. It also introduced a powerful theoretical attitude towards the progress of the ethnographer's enquiries, suggesting that a full knowledge of witchcraft involves being 'caught up' in it oneself. In the Bocage, being bewitched is to be 'caught' in a sequence of misfortunes. According to those who are bewitched, the culprit is someone in the neighbourhood: the witch, who can cast a spell with a word, a touch or a look, and whose 'power' comes from a book of spells inherited from an ancestor. Only a professional magician, an 'unwitcher', has any chance of breaking the succession of misfortunes which befall those who have been bewitched. He undertakes a battle of magic with the suspected witch, a battle which is eventually fatal. |