Africa
May 1, 2011
Meera Venkatachalam
ABSTRACTThis article focuses on a number of Ga spirit mediums located in Teshi, a neighbourhood of the Ghanaian capital, Accra. These individuals host foreign spirits from areas north of Ga territory, such as the modern Ashanti, Gonja and Dagomba regions. Such encounters of cross-cultural spirit possession have often been analysed in the scholarly literature as an embedded history of contact...
Africa
1994
Susan J. Rasmussen
5 citations
Abstract Among the Kel Ewey Tuareg of north-eastern Niger, particularly in noble circles, spirit possession is associated with Sudanic/servile cultural origins; so, too, are dancing and drumming. I argue that, in performing a sideways swaying motion of the head and shoulders referred to locally as a dance, women in possession trance transform Sudanic culture. The head dance as flowing,...
Africa
April 1, 1993
Norbert L. Vecchiato
30 citations
Abstract This article examines patterns of continuity and change in spirit possession phenomena among the Sidamo of southern Ethiopia. Traditional possession rituals appear to be losing cultural relevance, owing to the increasing popularity of possession and exorcistic healing enacted within the ritual context of independent religious movements. Such movements emerged in the region as a...
Africa
1991
J. P. Kiernan
9 citations
Abstract One of the most conspicuous aspects of religious experience in Zulu Zionist Churches is the bright colours that are worn and otherwise employed. Surprisingly, this highly visible feature has attracted only passing attention from those who have studied these Churches; certainly no serious effort has been made to uncover the ritual significance of their colour symbolism. Against the...
Africa
July 1, 1987
Simon Charsley
1 citation
Opening Paragraph Sampling provided the rationale of my previous account of ‘Dreams in an Independent African Church’ (1973). I took a set of ninety-five dream reports, and a handful of visions, as individual events which could be summed and categorised in a variety of ways. I had been able to garner these over a period of five months' study, from the services of this ‘Independent African...
Africa
July 1, 1964
Richard P. Werbner
Opening ParagraphFor Kalanga of Southern Rhodesia hereditary guardian spirits known as mazenge are a sanction on correct relations among kinsmen and affines. Only women are possessed by these captious guardian spirits; and I shall refer to such spirit-possessed women as mazenge hosts. Kalanga perform a ritual of atonement seasonally and whenever the illness of the host or of any of her...