Author: Stroeken, Koen

Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 12, Number 4, December 2006 , pp. 785-802(18)

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Abstract:

Among Sukuma (Tanzania) the Chwezi spirit society operates in the shadow of, and in tension with, the lineage cults domesticating the dead. As this ethnography describes, Chwezi candidates are initiated into spirit possession by `stalking the stalker', that is, by seeking synchrony with intrusion. Recognition of the healing and of the power/resistance in spirit performances once resuscitated anthropology from its crisis of representation, but now arrests advance. Both functions obscure possession itself, which, unlike rituals, has a subversive, `quaternary' structure that reveals the gap between experience and communication, and thus decentres both self and society. Spirit possession exposes the plurality of experiential structures. This may better account for its role world-wide in dialectics of social resistance and of cathartic healing.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2006.00363.x

Publication date: 2006-12-01

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