Publication details
Experimentálna antropológia na Mauríciu: Meranie nákladnosti extrémneho náboženského rituálu
| Title in English | Experimental anthropology in Mauritius: Measuring the costs of extreme religious ritual |
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | In January I took part in a research visit in Mauritius with team LEVYNA. The month we spent with data collection presented the first phase of a long-term project investigating the costs of participation in a Tamil extreme religious ritual Cavadee in Quatre Bornes in the west of the island. Cavadee ritual consists of a procession lasting several hours, leading to the main temple resting on the foot of a hill above the city, whereby people pierced with ritual decorations (hooks, needles, skewers) walk barefoot on hot asphalt, carrying and some also dragging with their skin Cavadee (decorated construction on shoulders or a cart with hooks). Our task was to document the extent of participation for as many participants as possible and at the same time to demographically map the surrounding area. These data were collected for the purpose of testing the theory of costly signalling, as developed in evolutionary biology, that understands ritual behaviour as communication between signaller and receiver in which it is mainly the signaller’s quality that is communicated. Our main hypothesis is that individuals at the periphery of the local social network will spend more resources on Cavadee than those in the centre in order to better their life situation via benefits acquired through ostentatious costly ritual participation |
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