2 - Encountering weikza through a biographical account of a Burmese medaw

In this paper, I will examine how naga Daw Saw speaks about her life trajectory as a Burmese ritual specialist pertaining to the weikza field of practice. Through analyzing her biographical account, I will determine how she came to encounter weikza and make them her partners in her practice of ritual specialist across contemporary Burma, from the military dictatorships’ time to the aborted political transition (1990-2021). Particularly, I will trace how she built her relationship to weikza as a distinctive one qualifying her practice contrastively to other ritual specialists whose practice is characterized by spirit (nat) possession. In so doing, weikza will emerge as beings whose specific agency and ontology - more readily workable with the brand of urban Buddhism that has developed in contemporary Burma - give access to followers and clients from new social strands eager to tap in these sources of potency. This speaks of the interstitial location of the weikza field of practice in the overall religious field of Burma.