Here is an article from the most recent NY Times Magazine you may find interesting. Jeff ------------------------------------- http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/magazine/06LATAH.html May 6, 2001 Regional Disturbances By LAWRENCE OSBORNE Americans get anorexia. Nigerians get 'brain fag.' Malaysians suffer from 'hyperstartle syndrome.' How culturally specific is mental illness? The little house looks like most of the others in the Malaysian jungle hamlet of Kampung Sebiris. The louvered windows are trimmed with heavy curtains, the tiled floor is immaculate and cushioned chairs line the walls. Even though it is over 90 degrees, there is no fan; outside, humid forest spreads out beneath a mist-wrapped mountain. As in many rural Malay homes, in the front room there is an ornate display cabinet filled with knickknacks: teapots, wooden pineapples, gaudy silk flowers. The jungle comes right up to the glass slats, and the whistling of insects is deafening. But this is no typical home. Sitting on a woven mat in the center of the room is a gray-haired woman named Dibuk ak Suut. Wrapped in a pale green sarong, the slender 59-year-old matriarch is comfortably surrounded by her husband, daughter and grandchildren -- but her eyes flash nervously from side to side. Her husband, Sujang, has just served us cups of weak hot chocolate. He is in a playful mood. "Watch this," he whispers to me in Malay. Standing up, he suddenly claps his hands. Dibuk gives a start, shudders and leaps to her feet. Everyone roars with laughter. Dibuk's delicate, slightly lopsided face goes into a glassy trance. She begins shrieking: "Grasshopper! Grasshopper! GRASSHOPPER!" Sujang then winks like Popeye, and Dibuk does the same. The family howls in merriment. Sujang goes into a comical dance, shaking his shoulders slinkily and wiggling his hips. Still locked in her seeming trance, Dibuk does likewise. She waves her hands in front of her face and mops her cheeks with a small cloth. She sweats profusely and bares her teeth in hysterical laughter. After a few minutes, Sujang goes up to her and taps her firmly on the shoulder. The mimic-trance is over. Dibuk sits down and mops her face. "Are you O.K.?" her daughter, Catherine, asks. "Was I talking nonsense again?" Dibuk asks. "Not too bad this time," Catherine says. "You didn't say anything obscene." The family recomposes itself, and we drink our lukewarm chocolate. Then, a few minutes later, a cat creeps up to Dibuk from behind. Suddenly noticing it, she gives another violent start and begins pawing the air in front of her. "Cat," she cries. "Cat! Cat!" She then starts screaming a Malay slang word for penis. Sujang leans over to me. "It's cats that get her the most," he murmurs. "They make her more latah than anything." The Suuts are farmers living in the hills behind the tiny trading town of Lundu in Sarawak, the Malaysian side of Borneo. The kampungs, or villages, here are incredibly isolated, connected by a solitary road winding through plots of coconuts and pineapples. Outsiders rarely visit. Yet in recent years, Western scholars have become intrigued by women like Dibuk. She is a latah, suffering from an intriguing mental disturbance known in the West as hyperstartle syndrome....... [For rest of article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/magazine/06LATAH.html] -- Jeffry P. Ricker, Ph.D. Office Phone: (480) 423-6213 9000 E. Chaparral Rd. FAX Number: (480) 423-6298 Psychology Department [EMAIL PROTECTED] Scottsdale Community College Scottsdale, AZ 85256-2626 Listowner: Psychologists Educating Students to Think Skeptically (PESTS) http://www.sc.maricopa.edu/sbscience/pests/index.html
