A 'Dalithos' reading of a Markan exorcism: Mark 5 : 1-20

An attempt is made to read the story of the Gerasene Demoniac (Mark 5:1-20) using Dalithos, or the ethos of the Dalit community, as a hermeneutical premise. Taking into consideration the subversive role of 'possession' as an accepted form of Protest among the Dalit communities in their highly constrained life situation, where other social mechanisms of coping with oppression are few, employing Dalithos as a hermeneutical category helps engage in a liberative appropriation of the passage for the Dalits. Certain salient features of Dalithos - pragmatism, the Primacy of community and solidarity, and emancipatory re-mythologization - are used as parameters in appropriating the story for the Dalit context.