Contentment and Suffering
Author: Douglas Wood Hollan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 1994
Total Pages: 316
ISBN-13: 9780231084239
DOWNLOAD EBOOKContentment and Suffering, a psychocultural ethnography of the Toraja wet-rice farmers of Indonesia, provides a rich portrait of Torajan life and contributes to debates on the relationship between culture and individual psychology. Hollan and Wellenkamp describe the central aspects of Torajan personal experience -emotion, identity, and sense of self- and a variety of fascinating cultural practices, including possession trance, kickfights, elaborate mortuary customs, dream interpretation, and buffalo sacrifice. Presenting exceptionally detailed ethnographic data through a person-centered perspective and extensive use of open-ended interviews, Contentment and Suffering engagingly expresses how the Toraja understand their lives.