Wombs and alien spirits : women, men, and the Zar cult in northern Sudan / Janice Boddy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Boddy, Janice Patricia.

Series:

New directions in anthropological writing.

New directions in anthropological writing

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Muslim women--Sudan.

Muslim women.

Zār--Sudan.

Zār.

Islamic marriage customs and rites--Sudan.

Islamic marriage customs and rites.

Spirit possession--Sudan.

Spirit possession.

Sex customs--Sudan.

Sex customs.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 399 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, c1989.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Based on nearly two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a Muslim village in northern Sudan, Wombs and Alien Spirits explores the zâr cult, the most widely practiced traditional healing cult in Africa. Adherents of the cult are usually women with marital or fertility problems, who are possessed by spirits very different from their own proscribed roles as mothers. Through the woman, the spirit makes demands upon her husband and family and makes provocative comments on village issues, such as the increasing influence of formal Islam or encroaching Western economic domination. In accommodating the spirits, the women are able metaphorically to reformulate everyday discourse to portray consciousness of their own subordination. Janice Boddy examines the moral universe of the village, discussing female circumcision, personhood, kinship, and bodily integrity, then describes the workings of the cult and the effect of possession on the lives of men as well as women. She suggests that spirit possession is a feminist discourse, though a veiled and allegorical one, on women's objectification and subordination. Additionally, the spirit world acts as a foil for village life in the context of rapid historical change and as such provides a focus for cultural resistance that is particularly, though not exclusively, relevant to women. -- Publisher description

Contents:

The human world. Departures ; Enclosures ; Boundaries and indeterminacies; Women, men, and spirits. Zār ; Possession, marriage, and fertility ; Zaineb and Umselima : possession as a family idiom ; Hosts and spirits; Allegories of the spirit world. The parallel universe ; Two ceremonies ; Arrivals : allegory and otherness

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 363-383).

ISBN:

9786612788161

9781282788169

1282788167

9780299123130

0299123138

OCLC:

651859169

Publisher Number:

2027/heb04685 hdl