TY  - JOUR
PY  - 1972//
TI  - Voodoo death: Some new thoughts on an old phenomenon
JO  - American anthropologist
A1  - Lester, David
SP  - 386
EP  - 390
VL  - 74
IS  - 3
N2  - <p>It has frequently been observed that members of primitive societies have died under the influence of a "voodoo" or a "hex." (Indeed, one can find historical references in less primitive societies to individuals dying as a result of "black magic".) For example, Spencer and Gillin (1899) reported that members of the tribes in Central Australia often attributed deaths to the use of a poison bone. All that was necessary was for an enemy to point the bone at you and intone a curse for a rapid death to overtake you.    Criticisms of the validity of the phenomenon of death by suggestion are reviewed and rebutted. Two theories of the mechanism of death by suggestion, proposed by Cannon and Richter, are described, and a new theory is proposed. The new theory is based on Engel's concept of the giving up-given up complex in medically ill patients and is shown to be capable of generating testable predictions about the phenomenon of voodoo death.</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0002-7294
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -