Tovil

Exorcism and healing rites

Entrenched in a culturally prestigious past from where the religious and cultural traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism have entwined, the healing rites of Sri Lanka find their most brilliant expression in the exorcisms known as Yak Tovil, which are practiced on the south and south west coast of the island. This book of which the photos were taken at a time which now considered the golden age of modern Tovil, was born from a meeting between an Australian anthropologist and a French photographer-journalist.