Iranian Journal Of Antheropology

Iranian Journal Of Antheropology

A Study on Religious and Mythological Roots of Zār Rite According to the Eliade᾿s “Dialectic of the Sacred”

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Mehdi Aslemarz 1
Saied Zavieh 2
Iraj Dadashi 3
1 Ph.D. in art research, Tehran university of art,
2 associate professor, Tehran university of art
3 assistant professor, Tehran university of art
Abstract

One type of the rites in different religions that plays an important role in human life is healing rite, one of which is Zār ritual that is a combination of technology and ideology and study of its religious and mythological aspects illustrates important phases of this kind of therapy in order to help us apprehend the worldview and cosmology of holder traditional societies and consequently conduct us to understand their ideas about disease and healing concepts in this framework. One of the most important characteristics of such rites is having belief to other world with different order and beings which create both illness and healing. Perhaps this ideology is a factor that points out function of religion and myth in the healing. So this article is about this rite aiming to study the religious and mythological roots of  this rite from theology point of view with focus on Mircea Eliade and his interpretation of dialectic of the sacred .This is a qualitative field research that has been used documents, observation and interview in data gathering. We traveled to different cities of Hormozgān province and two cities: Ābādān and Arvand-Kenār in Khozestān province to directly observe the ceremonies of two types in Bandar-Abbās and Mināb and also we interviewed with holders including healers, healeds and local informants. As documents we used books, articles and documentary Farsi and non-Farsi films.
Keywords
Zār rite
myth
religion
dialectic of the sacred
Mircea Eliade
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