Healing the Individual, Healing the Community Shamanic Rituals and Funerals of the Wana People of Morowali

This thesis offers an intricate analysis of three Wana rituals developed over a period of five years’ research reflection, focusing in depth on two of the rituals, the momago (healing ceremony) and kayori (funeral). It posits that Wana shamanism provides opportunities for creating ‘a sense of community’ (kasintuwu) at the same time that it can address individual ills, by bringing people together on ritual occasions. This idea is developed into a concept of 'density', with rituals cast as 'rites of densification' that temporarily recreate the primordial unity of the community. These concepts are then related to a conceptualisation of space-time in which the Wana remain at the origin and centre of the world, while those who have been dispersed (including to the West) have thrived at the physical periphery. Scalici also describes a concept of power in which local and visible people are powerless while those who have dispersed and are invisible, including spirits, are more powerful: this also maps on to a gender division in which women remain at home while men, and especially shamans, wander. Music is interpreted as being essential to the rituals because of its ability to connect people to the invisible realm and enable the wandering of shamans, as well as to control emotions

the ritual music of wana people

Very ancient practice, shamanism is usually found in the nomadic or semi- nomadic cultures. Given the dependence on the hunt for these populations, one of the fundamental roles of the shaman was to mediate between man and nature, especially between men and the lords of the animals that make possible the success of a hunting expedition. Shamanism has, however, shown a great ability to adapt to historical events, managing to keep up to us maintaining its uniqueness. Threatened by the arrival of progress and the world religions, has been able to respond actively and to influence the Western culture, as evidenced by the New Age movement and the presence of shamans in many movies, books and videogames. These fascinating, complex and archaic belief has always attracted the interest of the West, evidenced by historical, literary and academic publications, and it seems that still shamanism still has not exhausted what has to offer the world. In this article I am going to describe which the situation of the Wana religion to the present day is and which the rituals of this culture are. The Wana have two shamanic rituals - the momagu and the molawo ‒that face the disease with music, showing us the central role of music in the ritual life of this community, affirming - once again‒ the importance of music not just to Wana but also to humankind, and its relationship with the hidden world

Marginalized centre: Wana people and the geography of power

Joint JISASR-JBASR Special IssueThe Wana of Morowali (Indonesia) are nowadays a small endangered community marginalized by the Indonesian government, world religions and the other communities in the area but, according to their own mythology, they are not the periphery of the world, but the real centre of it. Their cosmogonic myth tellshow the Wana land (Tana Taa) was the first land placed on the primordial waters and it was full of mythical power, apower that, when the land was spread around the world to create the continents, abandoned the Wana to donate wealth and power to the edge of the world: the West. This myth has a pivotal role in the Wana worldview, their categorization of the world and the power relationships in it. The Wana reverse the traditional relationship between centre and periphery, placing themselves in a powerless centre (the village or the Tana Taa) that gave all its power to a periphery(the jungle or the West) that must be explored to obtain power and knowledge. This relationship not only expresses a clear agency in shaping the relationship of power with forces way stronger than the Wana (Government and world religions) but also creates internal hierarchies based on the access to this knowledge; granted to men and partially precluded to women due to the cultural characterizations of these genders. Indeed, the majority of shamans, called tau walia(human-spirit), are men, and they are the only one that can travel between the human and the spiritual world, obtaining a spiritual and social power.In this article, we will see how Wana categorise the world and use religion, rituality and gender to express their agency to cope with the marginalization by the government, the world religions and the other community in the are

Necronym: the effects of bearing a dead little sibling’s name

This study analyses the emotional experiences of people who bear the necronym of a deceased sibling in order to describe the 5 possible psychological implications of this experience. Using the grounded theory approach in interviews with 22 Italian participants and qualitative analysis of resulting texts, we found that some of the main themes that emerged confirmed the figure of the ‘replacement child’ described by previous literature. The three 10 fundamental themes were: ‘complicated grief, removal and fear of death’; ‘identity problems related to the necronym’; and ‘sad gratitude’. The study highlights some existential difficulties that spring from this experience and, after reviewing these themes in detail, we present a brief discussion on whether to dissuade 15 bereaved parents from naming a new child with the necronym of a deceased child

Reconstructing Social Relationships in a Post-Lockdown Suburban Area of Southern Italy Using Pastoral Counselling

UIDB/00472/2020 UIDP/00472/2020The growing interest in spirituality has enabled numerous avenues of pastoral counselling support, which can be a useful resource for improving quality of life in the context of significant social deprivation. The aim of this research was to investigate the role of the spiritual dimension of pastoral support interventions created to help the inhabitants of a strongly deprived territory in Southern Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight people between the ages of 28 and 67 took part in the study. A qualitative research design was applied via online interviews with the participants, who were operators of a pastoral counselling service located on the outskirts of a suburban town. The main emergent themes were the importance of religiosity and spirituality in the lives of the participants, the role that these two aspects play in the lives of those who carry out activities devoted to helping others, and the ways in which these dimensions are used within support programmes responding to the needs of an area characterized by socioeconomic and psychosocial problems. The interviews revealed how pastoral counselling can be useful in situations of stress in highly deprived areas.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin

Performance of the first reverse electrodialysis pilot plant for power production from saline waters and concentrated brines

This work reports experimental data collected for the first time on a full-scale RED pilot plant operated with natural streams in a real environment. The plant - located in the South of Italy - represents the final accomplishment of the REAPower project (www.reapower.eu). A RED unit equipped with almost 50m2 of IEMs (125 cell pairs, 44x44cm2) was tested, using both artificial and natural feed solutions, these latter corresponding to brackish water (≈0.03M NaClequivalent) and saturated brine (4-5M NaClequivalent). A power output up to around 40W (i.e. 1.6W/m2 of cell pair) was reached using natural solutions, while an increase of 60% was observed when testing the system with artificial NaCl solutions, reaching up to ≈65W (2.7W/m2 of cell pair). The unit performance was monitored over a period of five months under, and no significant performance losses were observed due to scaling, fouling or ageing phenomena. Such results are of paramount importance to assess the potential of the technology, towards the successful development on the industrial scale. A scale-up of the pilot plant is planned through the installation of two additional RED modules, with an expected power output in the order of 1 kW

Euryhaline Aliens Invading Italian Inland Waters: The Case of the Atlantic Blue Crab Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896

none6Alien invasive species represent a major threat in Italian freshwaters. Despite national and European regulations aimed at the control and prevention of new invasive species, the number of allochthonous species is increasing and so is the rate of spread. One of the most widespread invasive animals in coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea is the blue crab Callinectes sapidus, a native of the Western Atlantic from Nova Scotia to Argentina. The species is euryhaline, and besides coastal waters, it is also commonly recorded in upper estuaries and lower reaches of rivers. Considering its fast adaptability and invasiveness, the main purpose of this work is to assess whether its biological plasticity and invasive capability may represent, in addition to marine and coastal habitats, also a potential threat for inland waters. Samples were collected in seven sites distributed between Southern and Central Italy. The new records are herein presented, starting from the original introduction by ballast waters and the actual westward migration in inland waters of Latium and Tuscany. In addition, the threat to biodiversity is also discussed, considering the blue crab aggressiveness toward both vertebrates and invertebrates, which may limit the distribution of native freshwater fish and macrofauna.Massimiliano Scalici, Stefania Chiesa , Giorgio Mancinelli, Pietro Maria Rontani, Andrea Voccia, Francesco Nonnis MarzanoScalici, Massimiliano; Chiesa, Stefania; Mancinelli, Giorgio; Maria Rontani, Pietro; Voccia, Andrea; Nonnis Marzano, Francesc

RIPARIANET - Prioritising riparian ecotones to sustain and connect multiple biodiversity and functional components in river networks

Europe has committed to upscale ecosystems protection to include 30% of land and sea. However, due to historical overexploitation of natural assets, the available area for biodiversity protection is severely limited. Riparian zones are natural ecotones between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, contributing disproportionately to regional biodiversity and providing multiple ecosystem functions and services. Due to this and their branching geometry, riparian networks form a vast system of ‘blue-green arteries’ which physically and functionally connect multiple ecosystems over elevation gradients, despite covering a relatively small area of the basin. Hence, RIPARIANET argues that developing approaches able to optimise the spatial conservation of natural stream-riparian networks represent a flagship example of biodiversity protection in the EU. Although the integrity of riparian zones is fundamental for the achievement of multiple EU environmental objectives, the lack of a standardised framework for biodiversity assessment and protection across Member States has led to extensive impairment of riparian areas and frequent stakeholder conflicts. The main objective of RIPARIANET is to leverage the increasing resolution of remote sensing information to provide practitioners with evidence-based guidance and approaches to biodiversity conservation. Key questions include: i) how can we remotely assess riparian integrity and identify areas which provide effective connectivity allowing species biodiversity and ecosystem functions to persist through meta-ecological processes? ii) how can we disentangle the influence of local- and network-scale stressors and processes on riparian biodiversity to better implement river basin management schemes? iii) to what extent do currently existing protected areas in rivers account for the geometry of riparian networks and their multifunctionality? We will address these questions in riparian networks within six river basins in Europe, including Boreal, Continental, Alpine, Temperate and Mediterranean systems. First, we will gather local needs and interests from key stakeholders together with satellite imagery and GIS environmental data for all basins. Then, riparian and river ecosystems functions will be modelled and ecological hotspots will be identified through a GIS-based multi-criteria approach, including stakeholder inputs. Then, we will collect in situ data to assess multiple biodiversity and stressors at the local scale and, subsequently, scale-up this information to the network scale using geostatistical tools and advanced modelling. This knowledge will be conveyed to managers at local and EU scales in the form of decision-support tools allowing decision-makers to identify protection gaps and ecological hotspots along riparian networks, based on multiple biodiversity, functional and connectivity criteria

A DIC-based study of flexural behaviour of roving/mat/roving pultruded composites

This paper reports a study of the flexural behaviour and resultant failure modes in E-glass/polyester pultruded composites. The digital image correlation (DIC) method is used to estimate the effect of fibre orientation on failure behaviour in thick beams, taking into account the presence of continuous filament mat layer (CFM) in the stacking sequence. In particular, the tests were carried out for specimens with off-axis angle of 0\ub0, 7.5\ub0, 15\ub0, 30\ub0, 45\ub0 and 90\ub0.The crack initiation and the failure mechanisms depend on the mutual interaction between the stiffness properties of different areas in the stacking sequence. An influence index (I) was introduced to evaluate the magnitude of these phenomena.For small orientation angle (i.e. less than 7.5\ub0), the failure mechanism is not influenced by the central mat layer and the crack starts from the tension region. For angles between 15\ub0 and 45\ub0, the influence of the central mat layer is predominant and delamination occurs at the interface between the mat layer and the adjacent one. For 90\ub0 angles, the CFM layer does not influence the typical fracture mechanism and transverse matrix cracking occurs