Sri Lanka's Devil Dancers
An Exorcist Healing Ritual – or Age Old Alternative Medicine?
Mar 14, 2009
It is one of the most amazing experiences that visitors to Sri Lanka can witness. An authentic Devil Dance performed in the dark of a balmy tropical night truly is a never to be forgotten sight.
Yakun Natima – The Devil Dance
The exorcist healing ritual – called Yakun Natima or simply a Thovile takes place in an earthen clearing, the smell of burning resin from blazing copra torches assailing the nostrils of onlookers. To the throbbing of native drums the Kattadiya (Devil Dancer) steps – backs, actually – into the arena. His task – to cure the patient who lies motionless in a corner.
Thus begins the Devil dance, an age-old ritual that traces its origins far back into Sri Lanka's pre-Buddhist history. The term 'Devil dancing' is actually a misnomer, because this has nothing to do with watching demons dancing. It is merely an exotic form of complementary medicine which involves a masked medicine man undertaking the task of getting rid of the organism causing a patent’s ailment.
The only difference between this and modern western medicine is that the pathogen deemed responsible is not a bacterium or a virus – but a devil.
Alternative Forms of Therapy and Complementary Medicine
Masked medicine men and devils may sound incongruous in 21st century America but such alternative therapies still flourish in the less affluent parts of our planet. These days when patients in the US alone spend over $30 billion annually on alternative forms of therapy, it is perhaps reassuring that traditional medicine is still alive and well in Third World countries like Sri Lanka.
Modern Theories of Psychosomatic Disease
While this is certainly a form of traditional dance – a religious practice perhaps – it has overtones of the occult, combining an "alternative medicine" belief in pathogenesis that is not at variance with modern theories of psychosomatic disease. An authentic devil dance is not just a charade choreographed for the entertainment of gullible tourists
it is a carefully crafted ritual that combines primeval concepts of disease causation with deft psychological manipulation.
The Kattadiya’s philosophy is simple. Diseases are caused by demons entering a body – so the obvious remedy is to persuade the demon responsible for that disease to leave the body. The concept is not new . In ancient Palestine, so the Bible says, Jesus Christ also cured sick people by expelling the devils from their bodies and driving them into herds of swine.
Devil Dancer's Mask
To perform his task the Kattadiya has to be suitably gowned and masked – rather like today’s surgeon who has to dress up in appropriate clothing before entering the operating theatre. His gown is colourful but it is his mask which is the piece de resistance. Blackened cheeks, bulging eyes, protruding ears and leering mouth – the very sight of it should cause even the most hardened demon’s stomach to churn.
By the light of flaming torches and the reverberating throb of oriental drums, the resplendent Kattadiya begins to dance. He utilizes all the tactics at his command to make the demon leave the patient. Polite and respectful at times, at others aggressive and abusive, he threatens, he appeals, he commands, he cajoles. What takes place is a battle of wits between devil-dancer and demon. It is a long and tiring process.
When dawn breaks, the Kattadiya is exhausted – but the patient– limp and bathed in sweat – is febrile. The fever, inexplicably, has left and over the next few days he would be expected to gradually recover and get stronger.
Hypnotism or Black Magic?
Perhaps the moral of this story is that there is much more to healing than pills, scalpels and laparoscopes.
Is the Katadiya’s cure effected by hypnotism? Is it all done by suggestion and psychotherapy? Is it simply Black Magic?
Questions such as these are not easy to answer.
But how much more lively, how much more colourful, how much more human is the dance of the masked medicine man when compared to the cold, impersonal and sterile performances of masked surgeons in our 21st century operating theatres!
Note: One of the best photos of a Sri Lankan Devil Dancer on the web is by Shanaka de Silva.
 |
 |
