Ph.D. Candidate, Cultural Policy-Making and Anthropologist, Iran
The Author would like to express her gratitude to the amicable people of Southern regions of Iran neighboring the Persian Gulf and Chāh Bahār.,In addition, she would like to extend her thanks to Mr. Shervin Moazami Goudarzi for his kind effort to review and edit this paper.
Govātī or Govāt is kind of wind that blows though the human being's body and unbalances the mental and physical equanimity and sickens him/her. The inhabitants of the region, the Iranian Baluchistan, believe that the agents of such an illness are winds or devilish ghosts and jinns. The conductor of this ceremony is called "Govātī Māt" meaning Mother of Govātī. Dancing with monotonous and harmonious physical movements is an integral part of the ceremony. Continuous repetition of rhythm and similar melody lead to monotonous physical movements and the patient reaches consciousness and ecstasy and he/she will finally led to the complete unconsciousness level. If, in this phase, the wind goes out of the patient's body, the ceremony ends and if not, the ceremony will be re-administered. If the ceremony is administered by men and/or the participants are men, it is called "Dāmāl" and the conductor is called "Caliph" or "Khalīfa". Contrary to the manly Govātī that cannot be conducted by a woman, the feminine Govātī can be conducted by a man.
Ceremony, Govātī, Baluchistan, Patient, Wind
