Legrip-Randriambelo, Olivia <br/><br/>
Drinking well, drinking badly. Perspectives on the intoxication of Malagasy healers 

 -  2018.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 12 
<br/><br/> ‪The consumption of artisanal or industrial rum and/or beer is an invariant of the rituals of care engaged by the Malagasy healers-diviners, whether possessed by spirits or not. This article proposes to look at the views of patients on drunkenness and on the resistance to alcohol consumption of their therapist. I will discuss the “good drinking” with the case of a possessed woman known for her lack of drunkenness during rituals yet strongly alcoholic, and “bad drinking” with the example of a healer-diviner drinking disproportionately, and whose patients depreciate the skills. In other words, I question, based on practitioners’ discourses, of how skills are proportional to the measure of alcohol ingested and self-control. The consumption of ritual alcohol oscillates between a betting of magico-religious power and a detrimental dependence on the ritual of care. Thus, alcohol finds its place in the ritual and justifies its magico-religious aspect, but it can also lead to failure: excesses related to the consumption of alcohol are permitted only within the limit of ritual activity, to the ritual extent. Ritual action is then the only legitimate context for its use.