Fieldwork in Sri Lanka

Description

The goddess Pattini is the most important female deity in the Sri Lankan pantheon revered by both Sinhalese Buddhists and Tamil Hindus. The deity is particularly popular with women and is honoured by inviting groups of women, so-called “milk mothers” (usually 7 or multiples of seven) for a special pre-dawn ceremony. Despite the growing popularity of the milk mothers these events have not yet been researched adequately. I visited one of the main Pattini shrines in Sri Lanka, documented a predawn ceremony involving "milk mothers", interviewed “milk mothers” and generate audio visual research data for an article.

Period	3 Jun 2017 → 30 Jun 2017