This digest
began with Sunthar Visuvalingam�s exchanges on the Roma diaspora (just prior to
our first visit to Spain in December 2000) with Anthony Gunaratne, a
conversation that was continued with Joaqu�n Albaic�n (who has since
become moderator of the Indo-Roma Yahoo! forum
and the Indo-Roma outreach site at
svAbhinava), whom Sunthar got to know immediately prior to
his first-ever experience of a corrida (bull-fight) in Madrid.
Starting with the sheer contemporary experience (even for the tourist),
intricate technicalities, and ritual underpinnings of the Spanish bullfight,
Part I explores the deeper significance of this �sport� by delving into its
roots in Minoan bull-leaping and Egyptian bull-sacrifices. The revival of this
discussion in May 2005 (Part II), through its extension to Austric
(Austronesian and Austro-Asian) buffalo-sacrifices in the context of funerary
cult and ancestor-worship, further facilitated a decipherment of the logic of
acculturation behind the adoption of the bull-sacrifice by �Indo-European�
cultures and its impact on the treatment of the war-horse.
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