Moreover, when looking at Geer…

Moreover, when looking at Geertz book “Religion as a Cultural System” Geertz paid more attention to the ways in which religion is articulated, how religion connects with the spiritual aspects and sorcery, his definition of religion is that “Religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations”. Religion is mostly used in ways that it paints a picture of how a person should live and the way things really are, everyone has specific values that they hold but it might differ from another individual’s morals and value they hold. Each person performs religious practices differently but the interpretation of religion is the one gets everyone confused. For example the Indigenous view dream time as a religion where they sing and write stories for generations, witchcraft and sorcery might also be viewed as a religion to some people and then we have Islamic, Christianity and science, which people also beliefs and that belief might have a certain affect on them including their prospective of how they view the world.

As Greetz mentioned “Some of the most important effects of the religious perspective come through a redefinition of our daily life in life of religious perspectives” (Geertz 1973, clothing perceptions…”pp.

24-35).Additionally, In comparison to Linda H. Connor and Geoffrey Samuel’s book “Healing Powers and Modernity” focuses more on the indigenous healings and Islamic perception of sorcery. He believes that many people luck proper education in Indonesia therefore are unaware of western healings compared to the men’s who are educated. The connotation of illness still largely constituted through social relations that have persisted from one generation to the next. Sorcery has a continuity of meaning from pre-Islamic times to the present because it has always provided an explanatory link between illness and ever-present strains in village social relationships. From the villagers’ point of view, local variants of biomedicine are part of state-promoted modernist discourse.

Until such time as a different engagement with the date evolves through redistributions of power and knowledge, rural people will continue to favour those healing resources that are given to them and that could involve sorcery in other hand sorcery can easily be accessed to compared to western medicine due to the cost of medication while traditional healing is less expensive or might even be free depending on agreement, which are embedded in the social field of the village.Healing and power in Indonesia are formed into two medical systems, which are the biomedicine and indigenous medicine. The, Elah villagers have access to both. The Indigenous healings are made through body customary medical practices performed by numerous skilled Belian. The curing practices of Belian originated in the Waktu Telu religion. There are approximately thirty seven Balinese people who lives in the Elah village, mostly in their forties and older. When illnesses or diseases occurs in that village, it is usually treated through different magic practices such as teeth treatment, illnesses, deliverance of babies, producing love magic and sorcery, (Hunter 2001).

Even though there is other safer ways to delivering baby apart from using magic the Belian still choose to do sorcery because they believe it works better and most people feel that its cheaper to access. In regards to John P. Taylor’s book, he describes Nakaemas, which is another word for sorcery/witchcraft in the Vanuatu society to be resonated in an everyday life of people in Vanuatu. Nakaema is not defined as broader practice of magic that involves discussions of sorcery or witchcraft in the academic literature but rather a wicked practices that is seen mostly in the North Efate, some of the practices includes poisoning, bodily possession, transforming people into certain animals such as Dogs and sometimes transforming them into devil itself, they control human body and mind and even death can occur through Nakaemas. Throughout the text Taylor had mentioned that victims are usually attacked due to jealousy, wealth, gossips and ownerships. He believes that those practices are a combination of the moral, physical and sacred sacred force.Furthermore, the anthropologists believe that when taking a spiritual belief one has to search and know which agency they are from and who it affects.

They believe that humans are both the sources and bearers of agency, individual such as politicians, lawyers, and presidents also undergo self-protection and secure themselves from the forces attacks of witchcraft; those protections are done through a spiritual healers called “Klevas” who uses multiple traditional medicine such as plants and other healing practices to protect the individuals from witchcraft. Klevas also helps reveal the causes done by “Nakaema”, protect people from a curse and also bring an end to a curse and other form of Nakaemas power. (Taylor 2015). Taylor describes Kleva as the human interaction between sacred power of Christianity and sorcery with the combination powers of ‘black’ and ‘white’ magic”.