Using a broadly Aristotelian framework I propose poetic form as a means for distinguishing historicities. I analyze Sakalava performances of possession by royal ancestors as the creative production of a kind of history, distinguish it from a dominant occidental model of history, and elaborate the chronotope on which it is based and the heteroglossia and historical consciousness it enables. I...
When the identities of the spirits that possess particular individuals in communities of Malagasy speakers in Mayotte are taken into account, it becomes evident that spirits are frequently passed on from generation to generation and thus associated, though not exclusively, with particular families. The paper presents a number of case studies of spirit succession, attempting to draw out some of...