ABSTRACT
Women are subject to demonic attack as a function of their cultural typification, which places them in a special and significant relation to the demonic. It is a widely reported ethnographic phenomenon that women are more often the subjects of rites of healing and cults of exorcism than are men. This chapter addresses the symbolic identity of women, and the logic of its constitution in Sinhalese culture, as critical in accounting for the frequency of their demonic attack and exorcist treatment relative to men. Women as a category, therefore, are culturally prefigured in their identity as women as being vulnerable to demonic attack. Exorcist female attire is symbolic of the mediation of nature and culture in the identity of the female and the vulnerability of women to the attack and control by the demonic. Sinhalese women comprise in their symbolic identity the "because" motives relating to demonic attention and experience.
