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WHAT IS THE `KHWAN'?

I conclude with a question, one which I hope is not merely rhetorical.
What does the khwan, a metaphysical concept of spirit essence, `objectify'
as a spirit substance?

I have already contrasted the khwan with winjan, and rites of life
intensification (sukhwan) with mortuary (winjan) rites. There is another
contrast to be made.

The sukhwan, as noted earlier, is a prophylactic cum therapeutic ritual.
The khwan, we have seen, leaves the body in certain situations; its flight
from a person connotes a particular mental state, an agitation of the
mind. The khwan must be recalled and aggregated to the body in order
to make the person whole. We can translate this as follows. A part of
me, my spirit essence, becomes alienated from me and disperses into the
outside world; it is as if my mind is elsewhere. It is significant that, in the
texts cited, the spirit essence is thought of as having gone to that part of
the external world which is the very opposite of society and human
habitation (village)—the forest, cave, mountain, river—lured there by
animals of the forest. How insistently the ritual calls the khwan from these
places! In other words, the escape of the spirit essence from an individual
is suggestive of the escape of a person from his village and community
members and into the forest and its non-human inhabitants. Typically,
we note that the sukhwan is an imperative at certain rites of passage (ordination
and marriage), at situations of reintegration into the village or
social group, or at moments of actual or potential departure from them.
These are contexts wherein the interests of the village, or elders, or family
require the individual to bring his attention to bear on the situation at
hand and to conform to norms, assume a new status, or return to a previous
status. From the society's point of view in these situations there is the
danger that the individual may actually withdraw from its requirements
or be unhappy about, or unequal to, fulfilling them. When the elders
call the khwan and restore it to the body, it is they who are charging the
celebrant with the vital social force of morale, and they thus enable the
celebrant to accept and bind himself to what is expected of him.

This interpretation of what the khwan signifies will have greater
credibility if the exact reverse of the relations represented here are to be
found in a different therapeutic situation. The reverse is that situation
where a person is disturbed or ill because an alien external agent has
penetrated or entered him (rather than some part of him escaping into
the outside world). The agent or force from the outside world, by penetrating
the individual, creates a kind of alienation from society represented

by withdrawal and conduct that is not normal in society. The individual
is out of contact with society, he is inwardly directed and preoccupied.
In such a hypothetical situation, the therapy must consist of expelling
or extracting the foreign agent and re-establishing contact with society.
Such a class of rituals indeed exists in the village and will be examined in
Chapter 18.