The Possession Of Kuir Summary

The Possession of Kuru: Medical Science and Biocolonial Exchange In this article, The Possession of Kuru: Medical Science and Biocolonial Exchange by Warwick Anderson, he focuses on how the people learning about kuru obtain the information that they did. The Fore people live in the highlands of Papua New Guinea who were experiencing a fatal disease of the brain which seemed to be caused by a virus like agent. With the war, some Australian patrol officers went into Fore land where they were urged to stay. They were also handed a lot of food, thus many new foods were introduced to the Fore people. But with new foods and new people came new diseases. Epidemics of measles and mumps were becoming relevant and with that came sorcery deaths. These sorcery deaths were always seen as intense shaking which then was adopted the name kuru. Once the Fore started to experience this symptom there was no way they would survive it. Although there
At first they wanted to see the social relationships of the Fore, the kinship and language they built their lives around. They were trying to barter to get information out of the Fore. But the Fore saw it as their ancestors coming back as Europeans to distribute the goods of the Europeans so they did rituals and magical performances for them. Because of this, the Berndts thought the Fore to be emotionally insecure.
Within the Fore there was cannibalism. After death of their family member, the women in the family would immediately cook them then consume them. Although many people liked the method of burying the body then exhuming the body a couple days later, because they believed it made it taste more flavorful. The Fore believed that this was their family members wish - to be eaten after they died so they thought of it as respecting what they wanted. Fore also believe that eating the body of their dead family member would increase their food