EVIL SPIRIT SICKNESS, THE CHRISTIAN-DISEASE - THE INNOVATION OF A NEWSYNDROME OF MENTAL DERANGEMENT AND REDEMPTION IN PAPUA-NEW-GUINEA

This essay analyses the cultural and historical processes involved in the emergence of Evil Spirit Sickness, a form of mental or behavioral derangement that appeared among the Bosavi people of Papua New Guinea during a period of intense Christian evangelization and religious exci tement. It explores the the emergence of the disorder both as a form o f psychological breakdown under the burden of intolerable life stress and a socially innovated, ritually structured, and performatively achi eved mode of seeking redemption in a Papuan Christian context.