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Tanbav, meaning and etiology of an infantile disease in Reunion Island |
Sciences Sociales et Santé. Volume 17, Number 3, 5, Septembre 1999, Articles
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 Résumé
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Author(s) : Laurence Pourchez |
Summary : This article analyses the etiology of an illness affecting Reunion Island children still in infancy called tanbav, the syndrome "that the physician does not know of". It endeavours to grasp its intricacies, not only describing a set of pathologies linked to the skin, the belly and the therapies associated with them, but also showing that it constitutes one of the complements to physical birth, by means of comparisons with other infancy rituals existing in the local society. Indeed, it is these various practices that will allow the child to accede to social birth by ridding him/her of all the prenatal elements that he/she still harbours and that are likely to send him/her back to the beyond he/she is born of. |
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