Senoi Dream Praxis

Anthropologists who work with the people Kilton Stewart called ‘senoi’ agree that his account of how those people talk about and use dreams is rather idealized. The inaccuracies seem to stem from unconscious but systematic methodological biases which Domhoff and I have discussed at length elsewhere (Ed. Note: See note at end of article). The following account of Senoi dream praxis draws on discussions I have had with other anthropologists, notably Geoffrey Benjamin of the University of Singapore and Clay Robarchek of the University of California. Senoi themselves, however, supplied most of the information, during conversations with me while I was Living with them in 1961—1963 and 1975. This article is therefore a critique neither of Stewart’s work nor of the therapy he pro-moted, merely a presentation of dream theory in Malaya

Techniques and Antecedents: A Response to Giesler

The editor of the Lucidity Letter has asked me to respond to Giesler’s insightful comment on Ann Faraday’s and John Wren—Lewis’s (henceforward F&WL) “The Selling of the Senoi”

Techniques and Antecedents: A Response to Giesler

In this validation of Faraday and Wren-Lewis by an anthropologist and ethnographer, Dentan refers to "Comments on ‘The Selling of the Senoi’" by Patric V. Giesler. Giesler wanted to know if Faraday and Wren-Lewis were cognizant of certain fieldwork pitfalls, since they were not ethnographers. He gives as an example a difficulty he himself had when studying Jurema shamans’ beliefs about psychokinesis. When interviewing them about tales he had heard on a previous trip, he kept getting nothing but "No" answers to the question, "Have you ever seen an object move by itself?"—until he realized he had to reframe the question because of conflicting cultural assumptions. His informants didn’t believe objects moved "by themselves"—spirits moved them

This is Passion, and Where it Goes: Despair and Suicide among Semai, A Nonviolent People of West Malaysia

This paper, the only one about despair and suicide among Orang Asli (indigenous) groups of peninsular Malaysia, focuses on Sen(g)oi Semai, a Mon-Khmer-speaking group of about 30,000, famous for avoiding violence. The paper examines two empirical correlations, firstly, between suicide and “learned helplessness” and, secondly, between suicide and “modernization,” especially in terms of increasing gender disjunction and familial patriarchy. Issues ­addressed include nonviolence, gender relations, learned helplessness, the case study method, the long-term effects of violence, the effects of modernization and development, the increase in morbidity of depression in the Western world and its supposed absence among “simpler” peoples.Cette étude, unique en son genre pour les Orang Asli (indigènes de Malaysia péninsulaire), concerne le désespoir et le suicide chez les Sen(g)oi Semai, un groupe de langue môn-khmer d’environ 30 000 personnes, fameux pour son aversion de la violence. La corrélation empirique du suicide avec, d’une part, la « débilité acquise » et, d’autre part, la « modernisation » est examinée, particulièrement au vu d’une montée de la disjonction entre les sexes et du système patriarcal. Elle s’intéresse aux questions de la non-violence, des relations de genre, de la débilité acquise, de la méthode de l’étude de cas, des effets à long terme de la violence, de ceux de la modernisation et du développement, et de l’augmentation de morbidité de la dépression en Occident et de son absence supposée chez les peuples plus « simples »

The Semai: a nonviolent people of malaya

xvi,106hal.;22c

Ambiguity, synecdoche and affect in semai medicine

Semai descriptions of their beliefs about health and disease vary from person to person. Moreover, at different times the same person expresses mutually incongruent beliefs. This amorphousness and fluidity merit analysis rather than neatening. This paper details Semai beliefs, loose ends and all, and suggests that their formal peculiarities are due to the prevalence of synecdoche in conceptual organization. Their inconsistency and fluidity may stem from individualistic egalitarianism within Semai society and powerlessness in the face of nonSemai attack. Finally, it is suggested that construing indigenous medicine as a crude form of Western medicine leads to overtidiness and consequent error.egalitarian society cognition Semai Senoi medical beliefs

Schooling vs. Education, Hidden vs. Overt Curricula

In advanced capitalist countries education prepares children to live in a complex world. Schooling teaches them subordination and the skills they will need for menial jobs. Education is for the children of the rich, schooling for the children of the poor. Malaysian schooling has other “covert curricula,” e.g., Islamicization. Semai children, despite their love of education, have difficulty with schooling because their home experience involves freedom and mutual respect, qualities not salient in schooling. This paper attempts to document these processes and their results, with some suggestions for alternative forms of education.L’éducation dans les pays capitalistes avancés prépare les enfants à leur vie dans un monde complexe. L’instruction leur enseigne la soumission et les compétences nécessaires à l’accomplissement de tâches subalternes. L’éducation est pour les enfants des riches, l’instruction pour ceux des pauvres. L’instruction en Malaysia dissimule d’autres intentions, par exemple, l’islamisation. Malgré leur désir d’apprendre, les enfants semai éprouvent des difficultés à l’école parce qu’ils ont fait l’expérience, à la maison, de la liberté et du respect mutuel, deux vertus peu mises en valeur à l’école. Cet article décrit ces processus et leurs résultats et suggère des formes alternatives d’éducation