Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
S E V E N
Affliction and the Limits
of Becoming
What sort of presence in our minds, what sort of whatness are they now to
have? What sort of place in the world does an “ex-primitive” have?
C l i f f o r d
G e e r t z
Every time we give up the will to know, we have the possibility of touching the
world with a much greater intensity.
G e o r G e s B a t a i l l e
Arocojnadi was a small settlement and anyone's absence was
conspicuous. One evening, I noticed that Pejei—Jochade's
nephew—was missing from his customary place around the
communal fire. Pejei didn't appear the next night or the
next or the one after that. It appeared that his entire house-
hold had left and that his shack was abandoned. No one
chopping wood or hauling water, no fire inside. But some-
one was inside. I heard moans and mutters and a scream
late at night.
Suddenly he was back. His laugh was strained, his smile
too quick, he had nothing to say. The others were careful
and gentle with him, making a point to share their food.
When I asked him where he had been, Dasua interrupted.
“His
ayipie
left him,” she said. “But now he's okay again.”
Pejei nodded and smiled. I learned that he had spent the
last three days tied to a post with coarse rope, thrashing and
moaning and trying to run away to the forest.
Pejei was one of many Totobiegosode who were suscep-
tible to a common form of madness called
urusori.
A hand-
some man in his mid-fifties with the build of a weightlifter,
