1 - Introduction

Summary

Fire-walking around the world

Fire-walking is the ritual act of walking over fire or burning embers, ashes or stones with bare feet. Such rituals are performed in many parts of the world, in all continents. Accounts of fire-walking can be found in historical records, from Strabo's descriptions of such ceremonies held in Italy and Cappadocia (Geography 5.2.9; 12.2.7) over two millennia ago, to Landa's reports of sixteenth-century Maya fire-walks (1566/1864). Anthropologists and other scholars have also documented various contemporary fire-walking rituals the world over. Kingsley Roth (1936) described a ceremony performed in the Fiji islands, where participants walked on burning stones. Max Freedom Long narrated his experience with Hawaiian Kahunas who walked over hot lava (1948). R. U. Sayce (1933), who conducted fieldwork in Natal, South Africa, studied the fire-walking ceremonies performed on hot ashes by Indian populations. Marie L. Ahearn (1987) described the fire-walking rituals of Paraguay, while Gananath Obeyesekere (1978) provided an account of fire-walking rituals performed in Sri Lanka. Carl Belle (2004) has written his dissertation on the rituals of the Tamil people, who regularly perform fire-walking in India, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, the Seychelles and elsewhere. Fire-walking is also performed in Tahiti (Langley and Lang 1901), Japan (McClenon 1994), Brazil (Leacock and Leacock 1975), Haiti (Kiev 1968), Australia, Papua New Guinea and elsewhere. During the last decades, it has also been performed extensively in the contexts of several New Age movements, particularly in the USA (Danforth 1989; Burkan 2001).