ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses yaktovil healing rituals as complex negotiations with non-human beings. I contend that this leaves considerable scope for religious innovation. Using the case of a restless prēta, a ghost, who in her quest for justice demanded a goat to be sacrificed at the Bhadrakali temple at Munnesvaram, I analyse religious innovation at the intersection of both human instrumentality and non-human agency. Situating the ritual in the socio-political landscape of the immediate post-war period, I argue further that this religious innovation exposes the post-war identity politics surrounding animal sacrifice as “religious othering” within a transcultural, hegemonic notion of unity.
