%0 Journal Article
%T Flows of words and flows of blessing: The poetics of invocatory speech among the Sa¡¯dan Toraja
%A Roxana Waterson
%J Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
%D 2013
%I Brill
%X The human propensity to address the unseen is a profound anthropological and linguistic puzzle. Ethnographers of ¡®prayer¡¯ in Southeast Asia have proposed that invocations are opposed as a form of utterance to other genres such as narration. This paper challenges that assumption with the analysis of some Toraja examples having a more declarative and instrumental quality. It also expands on Schefold¡¯s observations (2001) about ¡®flows of blessing¡¯ as a characteristically Austronesian concept. Above all, the intensely poetic qualities of Toraja invocations suggest the possibility of a deeper link between prayer and poetry, as linguistic genres intended to move the hearer.
%K religion
%K cognition
%K communication
%K poetry
%K cosmology
%K blessing
%K textile trade
%K Sa¡¯dan Toraja
%K Indonesia
%U http://www.kitlv-journals.nl/index.php/btlv/article/view/8551