p.

influence

188

"holy men (sg. wadaad) and saints (sg. weli) ... perform ... through the blessing (baraka) ...

189

their mystical influence which includes the power of applying the curse (babaar) or sorcery (sibir) to uphold their authority ... . ...

This mystical coverage is extended to include destitute old women whom it is dangerous to treat with contempt and rewarding to treat with kindness; and

the position is much the same with ... the Yibir soothsayers who wander from camp to camp, blessing newly married couples and newly-born children. ... . ... there are such as the Yibirs whose mystical force derives from sources which are closely connected with the devil (shaydaan) {s`ayt.an}."

p. 191

"mischievous powers which as Muslims the Somali know under the name of jinns" : "These spites, which are anthropomorphic in character, ... are thought to frequent deserted houses, and old camp sites, caves, forests, particular trees ... . During the day, particularly, they live in the shade, often underground, but appear at night ..., and a shooting star is picturesquely said to be one struck down by an angel. ... The hyena, ... sometimes attacking the unwary shepherd as he sleeps at night, is considered to be particularly closely connected with jinns. ... More

p. 192

specifically, a species of large lizard (maso <agalay), and a smaller fat-tailed lizard, ... should not be killed since they are believed to be the wives of jinns." "No living thing except the date palm is immune from their ... attentions."

Women "are not admitted to the mosques where men regularly pray ... . ... They are not expected to be ostensibly devout, as men are, and the fact that they very rarely observe the obligatory daily prayers excites little adverse attention."

p.

public attitudes

200

"passionate feelings between the sexes cannot traditionally be directly vented in public. ... for a man to express openly any attachment to a woman is shameful in the extreme."

204

However, where "liberal attitudes ... have ... been adopted towards relations between the sexes, the dance ... has ... been adopted under the name of baabilaawe {cf. /BABaLAWo/ (Yoruba priest)} or baar<adde in certain rituals associated with ... the cult of Shaikh Husseyn Babiale, whose tomb in southern Ethiopia is one of the most widely frequented shrines in North East Africa (cf. Lewis 1959)."

p.

saar

198

"The most general term in Somali for possession by a spirit is gelid, meaning literally ‘entering’ (from the verb gal, to enter), and the victim is said ... to be ... held in its thrall to the extent that he speaks with its voice and voices its demands."

199

"The most personalized ... notions of spirit-possession come into play when a young many exhibits ... symptoms".

199-200

"The spirit, in successful treatments, responds ... by a series of stereotyped formulae indicating the line of its retreat. It promises to withdraw from the body of the victim through his chin, through his nose, his ears, and other points on his frame. But not until the spirit says that it is coming out by ‘the little finger of the left hand’ is the exorcism considered complete and the patient discharged as cured."

201

When a youth in these circumstances becomes hysterical, his companions mount a dance, known as ‘beating the sprite’ {so-called on account a similarity to "beating around the bush" in order to scare up game-animals while hunting?}, for his relief ..., and it is essential that girls should participate in the dance if it is to be effective. {Is the girls’ participation an enactment of the myth of the participation by Prokris (GM 89.g) in the hunting by Kephalos?} The dancers form a loose circle round the possessed boy and begin dancing slowly to the accompaniment of hand-clapping and the singing of a standardized chorus ... . The tempo mounts and the afflicted youth begins gyrating in the centre of the circle, his movements becoming wilder and wilder as he sings his solo song, again of a

202

standardized form ... . This of course is said to be the sprite singing in him; and, as the tension mounts, ... the sprite possessing him shouts ‘Catch me; do not catch me’ as he darts towards and then away from his companions."

The spirit and the seas have grown small" {like the Aral Sea, whose supply-rivers have been drained into irrigation-projects}.

I am herded with the stars ... . ...

203

Whatever I suffer, I will never give up the saar."

"the phrase ‘to beat the saar’ is a colloquialism for sexual intercourse."

p.

saar

204

"By far the most common form of possession in Somaliland is that affecting women and generally attributed to ... the same category of sprites ... (i.e. saar) ... . ... A number of distinct, named saar sprites are recognized as the agents responsible ..., and treatment ... is always by a woman specialist or shaman[ess] (alaaqad) who is described as having ‘authority’ over the spirits. Such experts are almost invariably widows, childless women, or divorcees, and not infrequently managers of brothels ... . All are women who have in the past been, or are recurrently subject to spirit possession".

206

"In the most elaborate cathartic seances (which I have not myself seen, men being rigorously excluded) the spirit medium {more accurately, the invokeress of the spirit into the spirit-medium patient} is said to wear black clothes while her female attendants are dressed in red and the patient herself is clad in her oldest clothes. When cured at the end of the rite, she too is expected to put on red clothing. These sprites ... are sometimes identified with a ‘red wind’; they are also said to take a person’s blood ... . In the seance, the afflicted woman is placed on top of an ox {cf. the carrying-off of Europe by Zeus in his bull-guise (GM 58.b)} while the other women sing saar songs conjuring up the sprite, or ‘beating the saar’ as it is again described ... . Drums ... are beaten in an increasingly fast tempo and the women attendants uncover and dishevel their hair ... . ... The presiding medium stands in the centre, often wielding a sword, while the victim is led round on the

207

ox’s back wriggling her body and shoulders in time with the rhythm."

"The Lugbara are Sudanic-speaking ... living on the high plateau of the Nile-Congo divide."

"the surface of the earth ... occupied by wild beasts and the aspect of Spirit known as Andro, an anthropomorphic figure, white and cut in half lengthwise".

"the individual organism, in which are two distinct elements, the soul (orindi {cf. Iroquois /OReNDa/ ‘magical power’ (ZFT, p. x)}), and the individual spirit (adro); at death they separate, the soul becoming a ghost living in its shrine in its descendants’ compound, and the spirit going to the bushland when its becomes part of the collectivity of androanzi (‘Spirit-children’)."

by listening to persons who come from it. These various persons are ... mediums".

p.

situation

specialists

223

sacrifice to the dead

elders

"control of famines and epidemics"

rainmakers

impact of Europeans

prophets

224

other

diviners

p.

diviners

224

The possession typically occurs about the onset of puberty. The girl wanders naked into the bushland and is ‘seized’ by Adro. She is initiated on her return into the status of diviner, and sets up a shrine for Adro in her compound. She may practice during her marriage, but if so she should not be at that time

225

Diviners act as midwives; at the mortuary rites for a dead person a diviner is called to contact the soul (orindi) which leaves the body at death and flies through the sky to be with Spirit (Adroa), until a diviner contacts it to bring it back to its new shrine, so that it becomes a ghost (ori {/ORI/ is ‘soul’ in Yoruba}); diviners purify returning hunters ... . But their main everyday role is to identify manifestations of Spiritual power. They do this, in the darkness of a hut, with the use of a diving-gourd (weke or koyo), which is used as a rattle. And they divine while in a state of possession. Possession while divining is induced ... by the chewing or consumption in water of pieces of the bulbs called ojo ... . ... Lugbara diviners are putting on a dramatic performance of some skill, ... so that it is irrelevant

226

whether they are fully ... possessed or not. This is the reason that ... in Lugbara perhaps no possession is ‘real’ in any medical sense, yet it is perfectly ‘real’ in the context of divination. {This is similar to the "real praesence" of Christ in the sacramental wine during the mass : just as that wine may inspire the Christian priest, so the ojo-bulb (when intaken as eucharist) may inspire the Lugbara diviner.}

small pieces of granite represent fireflies {in Chattisgarh "the traditional healers use fireflies as first aid case of injury. Freshly collected crushed Fireflies are used as styptic to stop the bleeding." ("TKMI")} which are the corporeal vehicles for the adroanzi (‘the children of Spirit’)". {As these androanzi are the revenant dead, cf. the Japanese fireflies as Valhalla-like dead : "The Mayans believed that fireflies carried light from the stars; the Japanese say fireflies are the souls of dead soldiers; in the Phillippines they are the graceful guardians of the star apple tree" ("LDP", referring to "IWM:F").}

227

"Many diviners dress in rags, often with long uncut hair, and usually present an extremely bizarre appearance."

p.

Yakan

227

In the late 19^th to early 20^th centuries (Chr.E>), "Rembe was ... a Kakwa ... who came and himself established the cult of Yakan or Dede, based on the drinking of the magic water. ... He is said to have

228

kept an oracle in a pool, with the body of a giant rainbow-coloured lizard and with a man’s head".

"Yakan is today the name of a distinct spirit entity ... who ...

229

possesses people, both men and women, who ... have wandered ... into the bushland near the river beds. They are overcome with shaking and trembling, and maintain shrines, known as Yakanijo (‘Yakan-houses’) in which they place small offerings".

"Finally, there are many other spirits in Lugbara that can possess people, usually by ‘seizing’ them and making them shake and tremble. Some of them are fairly common, such as ... oyakiya or ajukuja, a spirit manifest in earth-tremors".