Experiencing ritual : a new interpretation of African healing / Edith Turner with William Blodgett, Singleton Kahona, and Fideli Benwa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Turner, Edith L. B., 1921-2016.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania. Press.

Series:

Series in contemporary ethnography

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ndembu (African people)--Rites and ceremonies.

Ndembu (African people).

Ndembu (African people)--Religion.

Ndembu (African people)--Medicine.

Shamanism--Zambia.

Shamanism.

Healing--Zambia--Religious aspects.

Healing.

Medicine, African Traditional.

Zambia.

Mental Healing.

Religion and Medicine.

Medical Subjects:

Medicine, African Traditional.

Zambia.

Mental Healing.

Religion and Medicine.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 239 pages) : illustrations, maps.

Other Title:

Penn Press e-books.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [1992]

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

"The scene is Zambia in 1985. A patient has been invaded by the tooth of a dead hunter, a spirit object which causes her much pain. Only a drum ritual can cure it. The company starts to sing and drum, and when at last the dramatic climax breaks, the anthropologist sees a six-inch blob--a kind of plasma or gray spherical ghost--emerging from the patient's back." "Experiencing Ritual is Edith Turner's account of how she sighted a spirit form while participating in the Ihamba ritual of the Ndembu. Turner's experience with the Ndembu is extensive; from 1951 to 1954 she and her husband, the preeminent anthropologist Victor Turner, conducted fieldwork among them. This fieldwork formed the basis for Victor Turner's highly influential work, The Drums of Affliction. In that study, Victor Turner analyzed the Ihamba in terms of its social and psychological functions, but dismissed the Ndembu view that the real context of the Ihamba is spiritual." "When Edith Turner returned to the Ndembu in 1985, she learned what she and Victor did not learn during their early fieldwork--how to understand the Ihamba in Ndembu terms. Through her richly detailed analysis of the ritual and her willingness to make the spirit central to her analysis, she presents a view not common in anthropological writings--the view of millions of Africans--that ritual is the harnessing of spiritual power." "This provocative and challenging work will be of interest to students and scholars of anthropology, African studies, and religious studies."--Jacket.

Contents:

Introduction. Two books on Ihamba: the effect of Victor Turner's study. Theorists of ritual. The groundings of the present ethnographic method

The field context of the Ihamba rituals in 1985. Time factor: history continues separately for Ndembu and Turners. Returning to Mukanza Village. The Ihamba tooth

The medicine quest for the first Ihamba. Medicine collection. Medicine preparation

The first Ihamba: the performance for Nyakanjata. The first tooth. Commentary. The second tooth

Discussion of the first Ihamba. Sakutoha. Nyakanjata. Healing and hunters. Mazu ("words"). Childbirth medicines in Ihamba. The ambiguities in Ihamba. The sequences and processes involved in extraction

Background to the second Ihamba. The Kawiko vicinage. Quarrels in the past. The hunters' conference: the significance of the hunter. Trouble with Morie

The second Ihamba: the performance for Meru

Ritual and the anthropology of experience. The event as fact: subjectivity and objectivity. The human tooth

Seeing spirits. The difficulties of the healer mode

Coda

African spirit healing and Ihamba

Types of spirit healers

Medicines and hallucinogens

Cupping with horns

Music and drumming

Drums, Ngoma

Drumming in Ihamba

Songs

The extraction of harmful intrusions

A composite Ihamba scenario

Old and new Ihamba compared

Matriliny, rituals, and religions: the 1985 Ndembu

Maps

Abridged genealogy of the Kahona family.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-227) and index.

Description based on print version record.

Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010.

Other Format:

Print version: Turner, Edith L.B., 1921- Experiencing ritual.

ISBN:

0585116938

9780585116938

9780812203981

0812203984

OCLC:

44957201

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.