Citation

Roberts M. Anthropol. Today 2008; 24(3): 22-23.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-8322.2008.00587.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This comment criticises the facile manner in which both scholars and journalists have accepted the Tamil Tiger organization's presentation of itself as “secular”; while expressing surprise that some Sri Lankan scholars have also bought into this viewpoint. It focuses on the embodied activities of LTTE personnel and their keen supporters to argue that religious symbolism and metaphors of ash and seeds enable the LTTE to organize rituals and pageants that appeal to Tamil Christians as well as Saivites. Central to their iconography, poetry and rite is the energizing Indic notion of sakti.