Fortune and the Cursed: The Sliding Scale of Time in Mongolian Divination (Epistemologies of Healing, 11)

Innovation-making is a classic theme in anthropology that reveals how people fine-tune their ontologies, live in the world, and conceive of it as they do. This ethnographic study is an entrance into the world of Buryat Mongol divination, where a group of cursed shamans undertake the "race against time" to produce innovative remedies that will improve their fallen fortunes at an unconventional pace. Drawing on parallels between social anthropology and chaos theory, the author gives an in-depth account of how Buryat shamans and their notion of fortune operate as "strange attractors" who propagate the ongoing process of innovation-making. With its view into this long-term "cursing war" between two shamanic factions in a rural Mongolian district, and the comparative findings on cursing in rural China, this book is a needed resource for anyone with an interest in the anthropology of religion, shamanism, witchcraft, and genealogical change. A race against time: Mongolian fortune and the anthropology of magic Buryat cosmology and the timescales of religious practice Fortune, the soul and spiralling returns Curses, khel am and the omnipresence of witchcraft Divination and the inextensive distance to cursing rivals An unconventional timescale: the immediate rise of fortune Glossary of vernacular terms.