Selected Paper/ Paper Seleccionado
The role of insects in human life and afterlife: Philippine cases
Abstract (English)
Insects play diverse roles in the tropical areas, where they are especially abundant. It is primarily here that they are regarded directly as an important food resource, one of the bases of human food security and livelihoods. As such, insects maintain human health, whereas disease carrying insects put human health at risk; they also play all kinds of sanitary roles, including one in the decomposition of human corpses.In the Philippines insects often occupy a vital if not the central place in traditional understanding of etiology of illness, diagnostics and treatment. No wonder therefore that they are endowed with important functions in mythology, oral epics and ritual. The paper treats about various aspects of insect- human relationships, widely using the narratives of the Ifugao and other indigenous groups of the archipelago and other materials, collected during decades of field work.
Keywords (Ingles)
Philippines, Ifugao, insect- human relationships, entomophagy, folk medicine, ritual and mythologypresenters
Maria V. Stanyukovich
Nationality: Russian Federation
Residence: Russian Federation
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences: Saint Petersburg, RU
Presence:Face to Face/ On Site