Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:37:20.145Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Things Fall Apart: Material Religion and the Problem of Decay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2017

Laurel Kendall
Laurel Kendall*
Affiliation:
Laurel Kendall (lkendall@amnh.org) is Curator of Asian Ethnology; Division Chair, Division of Anthropology, at the American Museum of Natural History; and adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.
Get access

Abstract

In popular religious traditions in Korea, Vietnam, and Myanmar, spirits (or gods) become visible through their material realization in the corporeal bodies of shamans and spirit mediums and via ensouled statues and paintings that give the gods or spirits presence on altars. This discussion concerns a basic problem of material religion, that even ensouled, numinous, or otherwise empowered materials are subject to material decay. In the three cases presented and in many other places as well, the images are produced in commercial workshops where knowing craftsmanship entangles (what we commonly call) technique with what we might (more cautiously) call magic to produce an efficacious or agentive image. Questions of object efficacy are also linked to the prospect of decay, which may be hastened or postponed in relation to both individual choices and enveloping circumstance, from questions of climate to political economy.

Keywords

comparisondecayKoreamagicmaterialitymaterial religionMyanmarshaman paintingstatuesVietnam
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 76 , Issue 4 , November 2017 , pp. 861 - 886
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Bekker, Sarah M. 1988. “Transformation of the Nats: The Humanization Process in the Depiction of the Thirty-Seven Lords of Burma.” Crossroads 4(1):40–45.Google Scholar
Bekker, Sarah M. 1993. “Talent for Trance: Dancing for the Spirits in Burma.” In Tradition and Modernity in Myanmar: Proceedings of an International Conference Held in Berlin from May 7th to May 9th, 1993, eds. Gärtner, Uta and Lorenz, Jens, 287–98. Münster: Lit.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 1969. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Arendt, Hannah, 217–51. New York: Schocken Books.Google Scholar
Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bentor, Yael. 1996. Consecration of Images and Stupas in Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Bentor, Yael. 2004. “The Consecration of a Buddha Image.” In Buddhist Scriptures, ed. Lopez, Donald S. Jr., 200–211. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Brac de la Perrière, Bénédicte. 1992. “La Fête de Taunbyon: Le Grand Rituel du Culte des Naq de Birmanie (Myanmar)” [The Taungbyon Festival: The grand ritual of the nat cult of Burma (Myanmar)]. Bulletin de l’École Française d'Extrême Orient 79(2):201–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brac de la Perrière, Bénédicte. 2002. “‘Royal Images’ in Their ‘Palaces’: The Place of the Statues in the Cult of the 37 Nats .” In Burma: Art and Archaeology, eds. Green, Alexandra and Richard Blurton, T., 99–105. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Brac de la Perrière, Bénédicte. 2005. “The Taungbyon Festival: Locality and Nation-Confronting in the Cult of the 37 Lords.” In Burma at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, ed. Skidmore, Monique, 65–89. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Brac de la Perrière, Bénédicte. 2007. “To Marry a Man or a Spirit? Women, the Spirit Possession Cult, and Domination in Burma.” In Women and the Contested State: Religion, Violence, and Agency in South and Southeast Asia, eds. Skidmore, Monique and Lawrence, Patricia, 208–28. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Brac de la Perrière, Bénédicte. 2009. “‘Nats’ Wives or ‘Children of Nats’: From Spirit Possession to Transmission among the Ritual Specialists of the Cult of the Thirty-Seven Lords.” Asian Ethnology 68(2):283–305.Google Scholar
Brac de la Perrière, Bénédicte. 2016. “Spirit Possession: An Autonomous Field of Practice in the Burmese Buddhist Culture.” Journal of Burma Studies 20(1):1–29.Google Scholar
Brinker, Helmut. 2011. Secrets of the Sacred: Empowering Buddhist Images in Clear, in Code, and in Cache. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Cooler, Richard M. 2016. “A Buddha Image for Exorcism.” Journal of Burma Studies 20(2):335–72.Google Scholar
Davis, Richard H. 1997. Lives of Indian Images. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. [1980] 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Massumi, Brian. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
DiGregorio, Michael, and Salemink, Oscar. 2007. “Living with the Dead: The Politics of Ritual and Remembrance in Contemporary Vietnam.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38(3):433–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drazin, Adam, and Küchler, Susanne, eds. 2015. The Social Life of Materials: Studies in Materials and Society. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.Google Scholar
Eck, Diana L. 1985. Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. Chambersburg, Penn.: Anima.Google Scholar
Eiseman, Fred B. Jr. 1990. Bali: Sekala & Niskala. Vol. 2, Part IV. Singapore: Periplus Editions.Google Scholar
Endres, Kirsten W. 2010. “’Trading in Spirits’?: Transnational Flows, Entrepreneurship, and Commodifications in Vietnamese Spirit Mediumship.” In Traveling Spirits: Migrants, Markets and Mobilities, eds. Hüwelmeier, Gertrud and Krause, Kristine, 118–32. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Endres, Kirsten W. 2011. Performing the Divine: Mediums, Markets and Modernity in Urban Vietnam. Singapore: NIAS Press.Google Scholar
Fjelstad, Karen, and Hiên, Nguyễn Thị. 2006. “Introduction.” In Possessed by the Spirits: Mediumship in Contemporary Vietnamese Communities, eds. Fjelstad, Karen and Thị Hiên, Nguyễn, 7–18. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications.Google Scholar
Fraser-Lu, Sylvia. [1994] 2002. Burmese Crafts: Past and Present. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fraser-Lu, Sylvia, and Stadtner, Donald M.. 2015. Buddhist Art of Myanmar. New Haven, Conn.: Asia Society Museum in association with Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gell, Alfred. [1988] 2002. “Technology and Magic.” In The Best of Anthropology Today, ed. Benthall, Jonathan, 280–87. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gell, Alfred. [1992] 2010. “The Enchantment of Technology and the Technology of Enchantment.” In The Craft Reader, ed. Adamson, Glenn, 464–82. New York: Berg.Google Scholar
Gell, Alfred. 1998. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hallam, Elizabeth, and Ingold, Tim. 2008. “Creativity and Cultural Improvisation: An Introduction.” In Creativity and Cultural Improvisation, eds. Hallam, Elizabeth and Ingold, Tim, 1–24. New York: Berg.Google Scholar
Harvey, Penny, et al. , eds. 2014. Objects and Materials: A Routledge Companion. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hasinoff, Erin, and Kendall, Laurel. Forthcoming. “Making Spirits, Making Art, Nat Carving and Contemporary Painting in Pre-Transition Myanmar.” Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief.Google Scholar
Hingorani, Alka. 2012. Making Faces: Self and Image Creation in a Himalayan Valley. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian. 2012. Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holland, Eugene. 2013. Deleuze and Guattari's ‘A Thousand Plateaus’: A Readers Guide. London: Bloombury Academic.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim. 2007a. “Discussion Article: Materials against Materiality.” Archaeological Dialogues 14(1):1–16.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim. 2007b. “Writing Texts, Reading Materials. A Response to My Critics.” Archaeological Dialogues 14(1):31–38.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim. 2010. Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials. NCRM Working Paper Series 15, 2–14. Manchester, UK: ESRC National Centre for Research Methods.Google Scholar
Ingold, Tim. 2013. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keane, Webb. 2003. “Self-Interpretation, Agency, and the Objects of Anthropology: Reflections on a Genealogy.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45(2):222–48.Google Scholar
Keane, Webb. 2013. “On Spirit Writing: Materialities of Language and the Religious Work of Transduction.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 19(1):1–17.Google Scholar
Kendall, Laurel. 2015. “Can Commodities Be Sacred? Material Religion in Seoul and Hanoi.” In Handbook of Religion and the Asian City, ed. van der Veer, Peter, 367–84. Oakland: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendall, Laurel, Hà, Vũ Thị, Thanh Tâm, Vũ Thị, Văn Huy, Nguyễn, and Hiền, Nguyễn Thị. 2013. “Is It a Sin to Sell a Statue? Catholic Statues and the Traffic in Antiquities in Vietnam.” Museum Anthropology 36(1):66–82.Google Scholar
Kendall, Laurel, Thanh Tâm, Vũ Thị, and Thu Hương, Nguyễn Thị. 2008. “Three Goddesses In and Out of Their Shrine.” Asian Ethnology 67(2):219–36.Google Scholar
Kendall, Laurel, Thanh Tâm, Vũ Thị, and Thu Hương, Nguyễn Thị. 2010. “Beautiful and Efficacious Statues: Magic, Commodities, Agency and the Production of Sacred Objects in Popular Religion in Vietnam.” Material Religion 6(1):60–85.Google Scholar
Kendall, Laurel, and Yang, Jongsung. 2014. “Goddess with a Picasso Face: Art Markets, Collectors and Sacred Things in the Circulation of Korean Shaman Paintings.” Journal of Material Culture 19(4):401–23.Google Scholar
Kendall, Laurel, and Yang, Jongsung. 2015. “What Is an Animated Image? Korean Shaman Paintings as Objects of Ambiguity.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 5(2):153–75.Google Scholar
Kendall, Laurel, Yang, Jongsung, and Yoon, Yul Soo. 2015. God Pictures in Korean Contexts: The Ownership and Meaning of Shaman Paintings. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
T'ae-gon, Kim. 1989. Han'gugmusindo [Korean shaman paintings]. Seoul: Yŏlhwadang.Google Scholar
Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Appadurai, Arjun, 64–94. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 2010. On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Lý, Lê Hồng. 2007. “Praying for Profit: The Cult of the Lady of the Treasury (Bà Chúa Kho).” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38(3):493–513.Google Scholar
Lin, Wei-Ping. 2008. “Conceptualizing Gods through Statues: A Study of Personification and Localization in Taiwan.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50(2):454–77.Google Scholar
Lin, Wei-Ping. 2015. Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Religion in Villages and Cities. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Malarney, Shaun Kingsley. 2002. Culture, Ritual and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Malarney, Shaun Kingsley. 2003. “Return to the Past? The Dynamics of Contemporary Religious and Ritual Transformation.” In Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society, ed. Luong, Hy V., 225–56. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel. [1902] 2001. A General Theory of Magic. Translated by Brain, Robert. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Meyer, Birgit. 2014. “An Author Meets Her Critics: Around Birgit Meyer's ‘Mediation and the Genesis of Presence: Toward a Material Approach to Religion.’” Religion and Society: Advances in Research 5:205–54.Google Scholar
Meyer, Birgit. 2015. “How Pictures Matter. Religious Objects and the Imagination in Ghana.” In Objects and Imagination: Perspectives on Materialization and Meaning, eds. Fuglerud, Oivind and Wainwright, Leon, 160–83. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Meyer, Birgit, Morgan, David, Paine, Crispin, and Brent Plate, S.. 2010. “The Origin and Mission of Material Religion.” Religion 40(3):207–11.Google Scholar
Moilanen, Irene. 1995. “Last of the Great Masters? Woodcarving Traditions in Myanmar: Past and Present.” PhD diss., University of Jyväskylä.Google Scholar
Morgan, David. 2010. “Introduction: The Matter of Belief.” In Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief, ed. Morgan, David, 1–18. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nash, June C. 1966. “Living with Nats: An Analysis of Animism in Burman Village Social Relations.” In Anthropological Studies in Theravada Buddhism, ed. Nash, Manning, 117–36. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University.Google Scholar
Nguyễn, Hiên Thị. 2015. The Religion of the Four Palaces: Mediumship and Therapy in Viet Culture. Saarbrücken, Germany: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.Google Scholar
Nguyen, Thi Hien [Nguyễn Thị Hiên; Nguyễn, Hiên Thị]. 2006. “‘A Bit of a Spirit Favor Is Equal to a Load of Mundane Gifts’: Votive Paper Offerings of Len Dong Rituals in Post-Renovation Vietnam.” In Possessed by the Spirits: Mediumship in Contemporary Vietnamese Communities, eds. Fjelstad, Karen and Thi Hien, Nguyen, 127–42. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications.Google Scholar
Nguyễn Văn Huy, , and Hương, Phạm Lan. 2008. “The One-Eyed God at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology: The Story of a Village Conflict.” Asian Ethnology 67(2):201–18.Google Scholar
Pham Quynh Phuong, . 2009. Hero and Deity: Tran Hung Dao and the Resurgence of Popular Religion in Vietnam. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Mekong Press.Google Scholar
Pollard, Joshua. 2004. “The Art of Decay and the Transformation of Substance.” In Substance, Memory, Display, eds. Renfrew, Colin, Gosden, Chris, and DeMarrais, Elizabeth, 47–62. Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Reedy, Chandra L. 1991. “The Opening of Consecrated Tibetan Bronzes with Interior Contents: Scholarly, Conservation, and Ethical Considerations.” Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 30(1):13–34.Google Scholar
Reedy, Chandra L. 1992. “Religious and Ethical Issues in the Study and Conservation of Tibetan Sculpture.” Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 31(1):41–50.Google Scholar
Ridgeway, William. [1915] 1964. “Burma.” In The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races in Special Reference to the Origin of Greek Tragedy with an Appendix on the Origin of Greek Comedy, 228–62, 387–94. New York: Benjamin Blom.Google Scholar
Robson, James. 2007. Inside Asian Images: An Exhibition of Religious Statuary from the Art Asia Gallery Collection. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities.Google Scholar
Rodrigue, Yves. 1992. Nat Pwe: Burma's Supernatural Sub-Culture. Gartmore, Scotland: Kiscadale.Google Scholar
Ruitenbeek, Klaas. 1993. Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Fifteenth-Century Carpenter's Manual ‘Lu Ban Jing.’ Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Salemink, Oscar. 2008. “Spirits of Consumption and the Capitalist Ethic in Vietnam.” In Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods, ed. Kitiarsa, Pattana, 147–68. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Santos-Granero, Fernando, ed. 2009. “Introduction: Amerindian Constructional Views of the World.” In The Occult Life of Things: Native Amazonian Theories of Materiality and Personhood, ed. Santos-Granero, Fernando, 1–29. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Schober, Juliane. 2004. “Burmese Spirit Lords and Their Mediums.” In Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture, eds. Walter, Mariko Namba and Neumann Fridman, Eva Jane, 803–6. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO.Google Scholar
Schober, Juliane. 2008. “Communities of Interpretation in the Study of Religion in Burma.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 39(2):255–67.Google Scholar
Spiro, Melford E. 1967. Burmese Supernaturalism: A Study in the Explanation and Reduction of Suffering. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Swearer, Donald K. 2004. Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Philip. 2004. Goddess on the Rise: Pilgrimage and Popular Religion in Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Philip. 2007. “Modernity and Re-enchantment in Post-revolutionary Vietnam.” In Modernity and Re-enchantment: Religion in Post-revolutionary Vietnam, ed. Taylor, Philip, 1–56. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temple, Richard Carnac. 1906. The Thirty-Seven Nats: A Phase of Spirit-Worship Prevailing in Burma. London: W. Griggs.Google Scholar
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Uk, Krisna. 2016. Salvage: Cultural Resilience among the Jorai of Northeast Cambodia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Venkatesan, Soumhya. 2014. “From Stone to God and Back Again: Why We Need Both Materials and Materiality.” In Objects and Materials, eds. Harvey, Penny et al. , 72–81. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vossion, Louis. 1891. “Nat-Worship among the Burmese.” Journal of American Folklore 4(13):107–14.Google Scholar
Yang Jongsung, . 2004. “Han'guk musogŭi sin'gwa sindo” [Korean deities and divine images]. In Wŏnhyŏngŭl ch'ajasŏ t'osoksinangŭi musokhwa [Searching for the origin of folk religion: Painting of shamanism], ed. Museum, Gahoe, 149–55. Seoul: Gahoe Museum.Google Scholar
Yang Jongsung, . 2008a. “Horses and Shamanism: Shamanic Paintings from the Shrine of Shaman Seo Kyoung Ok and Her Shamanic Ritual for General Choi Young.” Journal of Equine Museum, 41–65.Google Scholar
Yang Jongsung, . ed. 2008b. Seoul kup'abal kŭmsŏngdang musok yumul mit minsok yumul chosa yŏn'gu pogosŏ [A research report concerning the investigation of shamanic and folkloric artifacts from the Kŭmsŏng Shrine in Kup'abal, Seoul]. Seoul: Committee for the Investigation of Artifacts from the Kŭmsŏng Shrine in Kup'abal.Google Scholar
Yang Jongsung, . ed. 2008c. “Seoul musoggwa kŭmsŏngdangŭi silch'e” [The essential facts about Seoul shaman practices and the Kŭmsŏngdang]. Saenghwalmunmul yŏn'gu 15:56–82.Google Scholar
Yang Jongsung, . ed. 2010. “Pokkaedangŭi naeryŏkkwa Seoul musok” [Chronicle of the Pokkae Shrine and shaman practices in Seoul]. Saenghwalmunmul yŏn'gu 26:6–24.Google Scholar
Yoon Yul Soo, [Yun Yŏl-su]. 1994. “Hwehwasaro salp'yŏponŭn han'gugŭi musindo” [Looking at Korean shaman paintings through the history of visual art]. In Kŭrimŭro ponŭn han'gugŭi musindo [Korean shaman paintings seen as paintings], ed. Yoon, Yul Soo, 7–23. Seoul: Igach'aek.Google Scholar
Yoon Yul Soo, . 2004. “Hoehuasaro salp'yŏponŭn han'gugŭi musindo” [Looking at Korean shaman paintings through the history of visual art]. In Wŏnhyŏngŭl ch'ajasŏ t'osoksinangŭi musinhwa [Searching for the origin of folk religion: Painting of shamanism], ed. Museum, Gahoe, 142–48. Seoul: Gahoe Museum.Google Scholar
Walraven, Boudewijn. 2009. “National Pantheon, Regional Deities, Personal Spirits? Mushindo, Sŏngsu, and the Nature of Korean Shamanism.” Asian Ethnology 68(1):55–80.Google Scholar
Warnier, Jean-Pierre. 2009. “Technology as Efficacious Action on Objects … and Subjects.” Journal of Material Culture 14(4):459–70.Google Scholar