ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on studying and reconstructing the system of symbolic representation that connects causes of illness and the female deity/wild animal spirits beliefs of the Kavalan people. Specifically, the shamanic “illness of initiation” to become a shaman (mtiu) and the “bitten by animal spirits illness” of males are compared. These representations of gendered illness still affect the Kavalan and are at the heart of their cultural revitalization. The author attempts to point out that shamanism is closely connected to categorization and conceptualization of gender in Kavalan matrilineal and matrilocal society, and there is a much bigger difference between their symbolic representation and current illness/injury meaning than in most societies. Beginning discussion from this point, the intention is to enrich the ethnography of female shamans and female deities in matrilineal society, as well as to clarify the complex relationship between gender construction and religious symbolic representation and develop another symbolic view outside of economic patterns and the influence of colonial politics.
