Pain, Play and Music - by Giorgio Scalici (Paperback)

About the Book

"This book explores how the Wana people use music and religion to control their emotions in situations of emotional crisis, such as funerals and shamanic rituals"--

Book Synopsis

The Wana people of Morowali accept the experiences of pain, illness and loss and transform them into something positive: rituals that celebrate life, friendship and the community. Through fieldwork with the Wana people of Morowali, Central Sulawesi, Giorgio Scalici shows how music serves as a connection between the human world and the hidden world of spirits and emotion.

By examining rituals such as the momago, the main Wana healing ritual, and the kayori, the funeral, this book investigates how music is used by the Wana to heal people, control emotions, reinforce the sense of community and to mark the cultural death of the community member. In this study, music transforms the pain of loss into a playful event that heals the community and assures its future.

This book will be of interest to the wider academic study of religion, anthropology and ethnomusicology as it looks as at funerals as healing rituals for the community which lead the living and the dead through critical times.

Review Quotes

Giorgio Scalici's book helps us meet far away people, the Wana of Indonesia, and their values. Interdisciplinarity, critical thinking and spontaneous curiosity are some of the more valuable guidelines of the researcher. In the age of globalization, this kind of work allows us to understand the sense of human dignity in a specific and highly refined form of realization.
Alessandro Saggioro, Professor in History of Religions, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

About the Author

Giorgio Scalici is a research fellow at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, President
of the Italian Network on Death and Oblivion and Membership Secretary of the
Association for the Study of Death and Society.