Constructing a Hindu Healing Practice: The Case of a Kali-possessed Woman
Open this record in the interactive library
- Catalogue identifier
- kali-fifty4-006
- Alternate titles and import identifiers
- KALI-50B4-006
- Author or attribution
- Vivienne Kondos
- Record type
- Article
- Language
- English
- Date / edition
- 1990
- Source / repository
- Kailash — Digital Himalaya archive
- Access
- Open access
- Subjects
- 50 Full-Text Sources — Batch 4, November 2026; Scholarship and historical studies
Description and curator notes
This ethnographic article studies a Kathmandu woman whose healing practice is understood by some participants as the embodiment of Kali. Kondos asks how professional authority and the expectation of a cure are established rather than attempting to prove supernatural healing. The account examines the healer’s bodily discipline, personal history, ritual conduct and public self-presentation, together with comments from spectators and patients. Shared understandings of Kali as a protective power help make the proceedings intelligible, but the article also records doubt, disagreement and competing judgments of authenticity. Its later discussion engages theories of ritual and practice, including Bourdieu, to argue against assuming that participants unreflectively share a single interpretation. For the library, this offers substantial documentation of a female religious specialist and of Kali’s presence in a living Nepalese social setting. It should be read as an account of situated religious experience and scholarly argument, not clinical evidence that possession or ritual can cure illness, and not a description of all Nepalese Kali worship.
Curator source KALI-50B4-006. Scholarship and historical studies. Research supplement dated 5 November 2026.
Except where specific checks are described below, source access, completeness and scholarly or devotional assessments are supplied by the curator document, not a new independent verification by this library. Comparative goddess identities, healing claims and devotional interpretations are attributed, not established universal or clinical facts. Full source content is linked, not reproduced.
06. Constructing a Hindu Healing Practice: The Case of a Kali-possessed Woman
Author/editor: Vivienne Kondos | 1990
Type / language: Complete scholarly journal article | English
This ethnographic article studies a Kathmandu woman whose healing practice is understood by some participants as the embodiment of Kali. Kondos asks how professional authority and the expectation of a cure are established rather than attempting to prove supernatural healing. The account examines the healer’s bodily discipline, personal history, ritual conduct and public self-presentation, together with comments from spectators and patients. Shared understandings of Kali as a protective power help make the proceedings intelligible, but the article also records doubt, disagreement and competing judgments of authenticity. Its later discussion engages theories of ritual and practice, including Bourdieu, to argue against assuming that participants unreflectively share a single interpretation. For the library, this offers substantial documentation of a female religious specialist and of Kali’s presence in a living Nepalese social setting. It should be read as an account of situated religious experience and scholarly argument, not clinical evidence that possession or ritual can cure illness, and not a description of all Nepalese Kali worship.
Read the complete source: Open full-text document
https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/kailash/pdf/kailash_16_0102_03.pdf
Access check: Complete freely readable archival PDF downloaded without payment or registration on 2026-11-05.
Source links:
https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/kailash/pdf/kailash_16_0102_03.pdf
Source access
Read or locate the original source at Kailash — Digital Himalaya archive
Rights and reading conditions
Curator-reported free reading is not a blanket republication licence. Follow each source's copyright and reuse conditions; third-party images may have different rights from the article text. No full texts or scans are reproduced here. Complete freely readable archival PDF downloaded without payment or registration on 2026-11-05.
Citation
Vivienne Kondos. Constructing a Hindu Healing Practice: The Case of a Kali-possessed Woman. Kailash — Digital Himalaya archive. 1990. https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/kailash/pdf/kailash_16_0102_03.pdf
This page supplies catalogue metadata and links. It does not reproduce the underlying source text. Historical, religious, healing and interpretive claims belong to the cited sources, not to an independent verification by this catalogue.