The Sonic Psychopomp

The drum, like the body, has been colonized in Western culture due to colonial and missionary efforts to suppress African slaves' religious practices involving possession through drum and dance. A decolonized view sees drummers as shamans or sonic soul guides whose rhythms guide dancers to numinous experiences. This view is found in Yoruba and Yoruba-diasporic traditions, where possession rituals are facilitated by trained drummers. Yoruba possession resembles the ego-transcendence of Jungian theory, and with acceptance of nonwestern forms, these drumming rituals can be accommodated as a form of active imagination, particularly in somatic dance therapy.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract: Like the body, the drum, with its immense somatic power, is colonized in Western culture, the complex cause of which is directly tied to colonialist and missionary efforts to save African slaves from the perils of their so-called demonic religious practices, which involved cultivating possession states through drum and dance rituals. Yet, there is a much better view of drummers, one that situates them in the context of shamans, or sonic soul guides whose rhythms operate through the soma to guide the dancer to profound numinous experience. Such an ameliorated, decolonized view of drumming is found among the African Yoruba and Yoruba-diasporic traditions of the Americas, which feature possession rituals facilitated by drummers trained in initiatory orders much like shamans and other technicians of the sacred found in many cultures. But Yoruba-style rituals are somewhat problematic in Jungian literature, particularly because of longstanding, Western attitudes towards bodily possession, which is also often pathologized in analytical psychology. Still, Yoruba possession is quite like the ekstasis (ego-transcendence) of Jungian theory and, with a slight refocusing and acceptance to nonwestern religious forms, the drumming rituals that facilitate it can be rather easily accommodated as a form of active imagination, particularly in somatic dance therapy.