Possessed and dispossessed youth: Spirit possession of school children in Northwest Madagascar

Spirit possession is a common experience shared by many women in northwest Madagascar. In the town of Ambanja, possession by volatile and dangerous Njarinintsy spirits is an affliction which strikes young, adolescent schoolgirls. When Njarinintsy is contrasted with tromba, another well-known class of spirits found in this region, it becomes clear that Njarinintsy possession is a relatively recent phenomenon, and its victims form a discrete and unusual group. These girls are, in essence, young migrants, who have moved alone to town in order to attend school. Close examination of their experiences reveals that these young girls must cope, on their own, with the conflicts and contradictions that plague the shift from rural to town life, and from youth to adulthood. Such problems are further complicated by those associated with educational policy in Madagascar. These children, more than any other members of this community, suffer from the contradictions of a fragmented world. Possession provides them with a means through which to express the chaos inherent in their daily lives.     

Reluctant Muslims: embodied hegemony and moral resistance in a Giriama spirit possession complex

This account of a form of spirit possession widely experienced among Giriama people of coastal Kenya challenges prevailing theories of possession as resistance. Giriama are routinely possessed by Muslim spirits which hold their bodies hostage, afflicting them with illness and vomiting until they agree to abandon their customary practices and embrace Islam. Those possessed apparently somatize a hegemonic system of oppressive meanings according to which Giriama ethnicity is essentially different from, and polluting to, Islam. Yet the same individuals who embody hegemony in this way may reflect upon their possession experience by articulating a defiant ideology of resistance against both the possessing spirit and the Muslim ethnic groups that the spirit represents. These observations thus highlight the complexity of the relationship between hegemony and the individual; they also provide a reminder that the idiom of possession does not necessarily articulate with power structures in a predictable and straightforward fashion.     

The dialogical collective: mediumship,pain, and the interactive creation of Ndyuka Maroon subjectivity

This article explores how pain ritually assists in producing Afro‐Surinamese Ndyuka Maroon understandings of subjectivity and the self. Ndyuka discourses conceive persons as composites of multiple human and spirit others. I describe how these discourses emerge dialogically during oracular interactions between possessed mediums and their patients. Beginning as inarticulate sensations, personal pain is ritually transformed into identifiable spirits who expose their hosts as embodiments of past and present social relations. Over the course of oracular interactions, the qualities of physical pain are made to communicate that the pain is both an identity and a vital part of the sufferers’ embodied self. In parallel to this process, spirit mediums perform pain in possession to establish the origins of their authority in relations with spirits. Ritually transforming pain into identities of relation, Ndyuka oracular mediumship persuades patients to re‐evaluate their subjective experiences as innate evidence of Ndyuka social ideology.     

'It's All To Do With Words': An Analysis of Spirit Possession in the Venezuelan Cult of María Lionza

Humans possessed by spirits are often described as ill or distressed, lacking power, control, and agency, and spirit possession has been described as a kind of ventriloquism in which mediums acquire a voice more powerful than their own as humans. What remains unsaid and unheard is what the spirits and humans talk about during possession episodes. This article suggests that the tendency to focus on the form and not the content of possession episodes has allowed for another form of ventriloquism, in which anthropologists themselves use the mediums to speak to their own agendas. Against this tendency, participants in the cult of María Lionza see words as central to the cult, to be listened to carefully. An analysis of the content of their possession episodes reveals how, far from being passive, deprived of agency, and 'muted', the possessed in the cult are actively engaged in an ongoing conversation with anthropologists, historians, the media, and the state.     

Temporality of Post‐mortem Divination and Divination of Post‐mortem Temporality1

When an Ambonwari person dies divination may be used to consult spirits as to the cause of death. Listening to the tapping of a bamboo pole—where the rhythm reflects totemic signals usually beaten on a slit‐drum—a diviner examines the links between people's wrong doings and other past deeds and events. The aim of post‐mortem divination is to reconstitute and rearrange the relationships between village clans, between clans and their land, between clans and their spirits, both of the dead and of the bush. The aim of divination is to place the events, deeds, relationships, historicity and temporality in good order again, to avoid chaotic unpredictability and the possibility of collective misfortune or even destruction. Though to a lesser degree than in initiation rituals, divination, by reordering and realigning social relationships, reconstructs society at its base. As with initiation, the aim of divination is to reconstruct time.     

A˜‘a Kwara'ae: The Meaning of Tabu in a Solomon Islands Society

This paper examines the concept of tabu as employed by the Kwara'ae people of Malaita in Solomon Islands. Building upon previous studies of Malaitan societies, it shows how tabu not only governs relationships between ancestor spirits and men by opposing them to defiling relationships with women, but also forms a governing principle of all relationships in Kwara'ae society. Ultimately tabu appears to be a means of mediating relationships of power among both the living and the dead, and this is the source of its religious and cosmological significance.     

The Morbid Nexus: Reciprocity and Sorcery in Rural East Java

For the past few decades, the idea that witchcraft and sorcery are closely linked with the experience of capitalism has proven captivating. Leading international anthropologists, such as the Comaroffs, Geschiere, Ong and Taussig have argued for the modernity of the supernatural. They have demonstrated that, instead of declining in the modern period, beliefs and practices associated with evil spirits and magic are regularly invoked to explain the experience of capitalism. As useful as this approach is, focusing on capitalism's connection with evil spirits and magic does not necessarily imply a break from the classical anthropological accounts of reciprocity. In Banyuwangi, a district of Java, Indonesia, harmful magic is deeply embedded in reciprocity and local relationships as much as in relationships of capitalism. In other words, these classical accounts of intimate ties between harmful magic and reciprocity can be usefully married with the ideas of the modernity of the supernatural.     

A garden experiment revisited: inter‐generational change in environmental perception and management of the Maya Lowlands,Guatemala

This study reports ethnographic and experimental analyses of inter‐generational changes in native Itza' Maya and immigrant Ladino populations of Guatemala's Petén rainforest concerning understanding of ecological relationships between plants, animals, and humans, and the perceived role of forest spirits in sustaining these relationships. We find dramatic changes in understanding ecological relationships and the perceived role of forest spirits. Itza' Maya conceptions of forest spirits (arux) are now more often confounded with Ladino spirits (duendes), with Itza' spirits no longer reliably serving as forest guardians. These changes correlate with a shift in personal values regarding the forest, away from concern with ecologically central trees and towards monetary incentives. More generally, we describe how economic, demographic, and social changes relate to the loss of a system of beliefs and behaviours that once promoted sustainable agro‐forestry practices. These changes coincide with open access to common pool resources.     

Women and affliction in Maharashtra: A hydraulic model of health and illness

The anthropological literature on spirit possession cults offers a distinction between voluntary possession or mediumship and involuntary possession or illness. Fieldwork was carried out in a Mahanubhav healing temple. Contradictory interpretations of trance and affliction were found to be held by the different temple inhabitants.Beliefs about the nature of spiritual affliction, its epidemiology and aetiology vary according to gender, family structure and position within the family. One manifestation of affliction is thought to be madness. However, the experience of mental affliction is very varied, for example, the number of family members accompanying an afflicted person, the amount of money made available for treatment, the length of treatment, as well as the less tangible but equally important aspects of treatment such as the degree of empathy and concern felt, all vary according to the afflicted person's gender and status within the family. The inferiority of women's position in society and their precarious belonging in their husband's family comes to the fore in cases of mental illness. The greater shame attaching to women's mental illness means that more women seek temple treatment alone and that the level of family support and involvement is less for women. Recently married women and older childless women fare particularly badly in the division of concern and responsibility for the afflicted. In Maharashtra the recognition and experience of mental affliction varies according to the stage of family development and, most importantly, according to the gender of the patient.The material on which this paper is based was originally presented in Venice in September 1988 at the 10th European Conference for Modem South Asian Studies. An earlier version of this paper will be included in the Proceedings of that conference, Gender, Caste, and Power in South Asia— Social Status and Mobility in Transitional Societies, forthcoming, Manohar Publishers, New Delhi.     

How is Afflictive Possession ‘Learned’? Gender and Motility in South India

This paper examines forms of affliction that are understood as a kind of possession, all the more afflictive because they are experienced as ‘coming out of nowhere’. It is easier to specify the kind of learning associated with valued forms of possession, which occur in the context of ritual performances that entail informal apprenticeships. The sense in which afflictive possession is ‘learned’ is far more diffuse, and occurs much earlier than the point at which diagnosis occurs. This paper traces such learning to early forms of socialisation into gender, focusing on motility and bodily comportment, as central to the way in which the lived body of gender moves between different practical environments. In an environment that includes spirits and deities, female movement acts as guarantor, not only of social stability, but of cosmological order and disorder.     

Ólavsøka: The faroese national holiday*

In many cultures with male‐dominated religions, women are subject to illnesses which are attributed to spirit‐possession. Two main alternative therapies are usually available. Treatment is effected either by exorcism, or by domesticating the spirit ‐ a process which de Heusch calls ‘adortism’. In the latter case, women are recruited through illness into female‐centred ‘cults of affliction’, regarded as superstitious and subversive by men, who try to prevent their wives from becoming involved in these cults, preferring exorcism as therapy. Exorcism thus becomes an instrument of male power in the struggle to control women's incipient religiosity. The paper examines the interplay of exorcism and adorcism in relation to gender in Christian, Muslim and Buddhist settings. It concludes by considering the implications of women as well as men practising exorcism, and suggests that the consequences of the formal distinction between exorcism and adorcism may not always be as sharply opposed as appears at first sight.     

An approach to the teaching of host/parasite population modelling

Computer-aided learning is considered to be useful in the teaching of host/parasite population modelling. The STELLA programme for the Apple Macintosh microcomputer allows dynamic models to be developed by drawing a diagram of the interactions and then defining the relationships between variables in terms of simple mathematics or as graphs. Our experience in using this programme for project-based teaching is described.     

Converting the Spirit Spouse: The Violent Transformation of the Pentecostal Female Body in Maputo,Mozambique

This article discusses the forceful transformation of the female body in Brazilian Pentecostalism in urban Mozambique and argues for an understanding of Pentecostal conversion as embodying spiritual warfare. Presenting the case of avenging spirits, such as the spirit spouse, it explores how spirits interfere in women's new socio-economic positions and intimate relationships. Pentecostal women learn to stay in control of their body under guidance of the Holy Spirit and a ‘violent’ war against the spirit spouse unfolds. The prevalence of ‘violence’ implies that we should critically question a perception of conversion as bringing healing and harmony.     

Spiritualism, Psychoanalysis, and psychodrama

The term "fluids" of spiritualism seems related to the libido concept in psychoanalysis. A mental breakdown explained as possession by spirits with whom the patient has been in contact in another existence (existential situation) seems to have affinity with a phenomena similar to what psychoanalysts call a "flooding of the ego by a return of the repressed." When compared with psychotherapeutic practice, spiritualism reveals clear affinities with psychodrama.     

Dissociative Symptoms and Reported Trauma Among Patients with Spirit Possession and Matched Healthy Controls in Uganda

Spirit possession is a common, worldwide phenomenon with dissociative features. Studies in Europe and the United States have revealed associations among psychoform and somatoform dissociation and (reported) potential traumatic events. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships among spirit possession, dissociative symptoms and reported potentially traumatizing events in Uganda. One hundred nineteen persons with spirit possession, diagnosed by traditional healers, were compared to a matched control group of 71 nonpossessed persons. Assessments included demographic items and measures of dissociation and potentially traumatizing events. Compared to the nonpossessed group, the possessed group reported more severe psychoform dissociation and somatoform dissociation and more potentially traumatizing events. The associations between these events and both types of dissociation were significant. Yet, consistent with the cultural perception of dissociative symptoms, the participants subjectively did not associate dissociative symptoms with potentially traumatizing events. In conclusion, spirit possession deserves more interest as a possible idiom of distress and a culture-specific expression of dissociation related to potential traumatizing events.     

Aquatic plants are open flexible structures – a reply to Sukhodolov

1. Aquatic plant stands are flexible, mesh‐like open structures that undergo modification in shape and experience a cascade of declining flow velocities and micro‐scale Reynolds numbers with increasing distance into the stands. It is not possible to define or measure the frontal area of this open flexible plant structure. Total wetted area was used as a reference area for drag because it can be measured with high accuracy and it was the most suitable measure of plant size impeding the flow and absorbing light for photosynthetic production. What is important is that it is made absolutely clear which type of reference area that is used. 2. Numerous important relationships in biology are open to discussion because of differences in dimensions between variables. Relating dimensionless drag coefficients to dimensionless Reynolds numbers resolve such discussions, but defining Reynolds numbers cause other problems. Relating drag coefficients to macro‐scale Reynolds numbers would result in exactly the same form of relationship as to water velocity because macro‐scale Reynolds numbers changed in direct proportion to water velocity in the experiments, while kinematic viscosity and characteristic length within species remained constant.     

"Whatever feels good in my soul": body ethics and aesthetics among African American and Latina women

Ethnicity-specific differences in body aesthetic ideals and body satisfaction have been cited as a potential explanation for interethnic differences in the prevalence and presentation of eating disorders. It has been widely hypothesized that such ethnically based differences in aesthetic body ideals mitigate cultural pressures that contribute to body disparagement and disordered eating among white women. However, mechanisms by which a cultural milieu may be protective against the development of disordered eating remain poorly understood. This study investigated relationships among ethnicity, self-representation, and body aesthetic ideals among 18 college-educated black and Latina women through analysis of focus group discussion data. Rather than confirming body aesthetic ideals different from those of white culture, study respondents reframed the discussion about body aesthetics to one of body ethics. That is, study subjects both contested ideologies defining thinness and whiteness as inherently beautiful and espoused a body ethic of self-acceptance and nurturance that rejects mainstream cultural pressures to reshape bodies to approximate aesthetic ideals promulgated in the media. We conclude that understanding body image concerns from the standpoint of body ethics, rather than body aesthetics, may be a more productive and inclusive approach to the study of ethnically diverse women's embodied experience. Ultimately it is anticipated that this will better illuminate the complex relationships among ethnicity, culture, and risk for body image and eating disorders.     

Building strong relationships between conservation genetics and primary industry leads to mutually beneficial genomic advances

Several reviews in the past decade have heralded the benefits of embracing high‐throughput sequencing technologies to inform conservation policy and the management of threatened species, but few have offered practical advice on how to expedite the transition from conservation genetics to conservation genomics. Here, we argue that an effective and efficient way to navigate this transition is to capitalize on emerging synergies between conservation genetics and primary industry (e.g., agriculture, fisheries, forestry and horticulture). Here, we demonstrate how building strong relationships between conservation geneticists and primary industry scientists is leading to mutually‐beneficial outcomes for both disciplines. Based on our collective experience as collaborative New Zealand‐based scientists, we also provide insight for forging these cross‐sector relationships.     

When the Tutelary Spirit Objected: Conflict and Possession among the Using of East Java,Indonesia

This article discusses a case of possession in East Java that took place in the context of an important customary ritual, the seblang dance. In the course of this ritual, villagers meet their obligations to the spirits of fertility that allowed them to use the land on which their village and fields are located. Considerable stress was caused by a potential dancer who, perhaps for religious reasons, declined to dance although she had been specifically chosen by the spirits. This was an unheard of situation, and was feared to put the welfare of the community at risk. Further stress was caused by perceived interference by government officials whose rejection of an alternate dancer for aesthetic reasons caused the village’s tutelary spirit to become angry, jeopardising the presentation of the ritual and thereby the welfare of the community. After two and a half hours of negotiation, during which narratives reflecting both tradition and the current situation were constructed and reconstructed, the village head resolved the immediate problem by appealing to the spirit’s civic position, though leaving the door open for further problems in the future.