Questions of Devaru: An interview in essay form

A while back, lost in the fallow fields out behind discotejas/discotexas we had the pleasure of turning devaru over several times in the soil and getting some pretty stimulating answers

Q: ?!

Devaru: If a western person complained of the hurt caused them by the clearing of a forest, an audience of peers might either consider the speaker very abnormal or reason that the forest played some important role in the individual’s life. The possibility that feelings might penetrate the boundaries of the individual or that the forest has value in its own right might more readily come to mind in an animistic group of listeners. Devaru pervade discotejas/discotexas, and are realized as special relationships between things. One key to understanding animism is a loosening of the western conception of the individual. In the Ojibwa, Nayaka, and discotejas/discotexas myths, a person exists through relationships with the environment.

Devaru: When one performs a devaru, the relationship they present is more important than a rigid mythical heroic individual. In fact, without an audience, the devaru leaves; it cannot possess a single person, only an interaction. This notion stands in sharp contrast to western notions not only of spirits, but also of the way in which people and their environments may interact. The secular individualist myth limits experience of interconnectedness in favor of bolstering the perceived control, often exercised aggressively, of people over themselves and their environment.

Devaru: Dreams are often either perceived as pure nonsense or as indicators of hidden internal conflicts, preoccupations, or wishes. The Senoi of Malaysia, however, believe that one must learn to behave properly in dreams in order to interact successfully with the spirits who visit humans in them. This reality functions very differently from waking reality, but one’s actions and experiences within it are as important, and sometimes more so, than those in waking life.