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Werner M. Egli: The Sunuwär of Nepal and their Sense of Communication: A Study in the Culture, Psychology and Shamanism of a Himalayan People. 533 pages. Zürich and Münster: LIT. 2014.
Werner M. Egli's monograph on the Sunuwär, one of the Kirāt groups of Eastern Nepal, is a valuable contribution to the emerging research field of the anthropology of the senses. Mainly based on field research in the 1990's in the village of Khīji, the monograph is one of the few substantial accounts on the Sunuwär in English language at all, as an earlier book of his, Bier für die Ahnen (beer for the ancestors), is only available in German language. While generally speaking a great majority of Nepal research tends to be dominated by studies in text, language, recitation and mythology, The Sunuwär of Nepal clearly stands out with its approach, as it is one of the rare works on Nepal that focuses on bodily practices, performance and the senses. The author shares his in-depth knowledge of theories in cultural psychology, phenomenology and the anthropology of the self, the person, and the senses, measuring the pros and con- tras of the different branches of these theoretical approaches - and many others - with great care. The theoretical density, for sure, is one of the greatest strengths of the book. A general weakness, of which however the author is well aware, is the scarcity of first hand ethnographic data. Dense ethnographic accounts are only available for a few chosen topics, and sometimes the discussed local Sunuwär concepts to which theoretical thoughts are applied are difficult to be retraced by the reader due to the lack of ethnographic evidence. Egli skilfully counterbalances this problem by extensively including and analysing accounts on other Nepalese groups from literature, which also makes this monograph interesting as a source on Nepalese (shamanic) societies from a comparative view.
Broadly speaking, the book is divided in two bigger parts with a shorter intersection in the middle. It starts with a general ethnographic overview of Sunuwär society, followed by a discussion on theories in cultural psychology, and closes by applying theories on the senses, phenomenology and habitus to Sunuwär local notions and practices. The first general ethnographic part (up to p. 287) begins...