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Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2005 73(1):111-132; doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfi006
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Nailing Heads and Splitting Hairs: Conflict, Conversion, and the Bloodthirsty Yaksi in South India

Corinne Dempsey

University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point in Stevens Point, WI 54481

The yaksi, once a pan-Indian figure of female fecundity and awesome power, has been relegated to the margins of Indian traditions during the past millennium. In Kerala she lives on as a shape-shifting, vampiric maiden, memorialized in folklore, cinema, and as a focus for propitiation. Appealing to Christian and Hindu sentiments the yaksi is as versatile as she is enduring. This article explores how the yaksi, cast as a foil against which religious adepts prove their mettle, complicates easy distinctions between religious traditions, good and evil, and questions whether conversion is a desirable aim. Using similar strategies to fight a common foe Christian and Hindu holy men appear to inhabit common religious turf. Upon close inspection, this turf is the yaksi’s as well; she is not an Other to eliminate but an opponent with whom holy men are interdependent. The de-centered contemporary yaksi has her own de-centering job to do.

Oru pattikya oru pattiye kandukuta.

A dog’s worst enemy is another dog.

—Malayalam proverb


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