DOCSLIB.ORG

UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Incorporating Divine Presence, Orchestrating Medical Worlds: Cultivating Corporeal Capacities of Therapeutic Power and Transcendence in Ifa Everyday Practice Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/45z5n187 Author Gardner, Amy Harriet Publication Date 2010 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Incorporating Divine Presence, Orchestrating Medical Worlds: Cultivating Corporeal Capacities of Therapeutic Power and Transcendence in Ifá Everyday Practice by Amy Harriet Gardner A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Joint Doctor of Philosophy with the University of California, San Francisco in Medical Anthropology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Lawrence Cohen, Chair Professor Judith Justice Professor Sharon Kaufman Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes Professor Ula Taylor Spring 2010 Incorporating Divine Presence, Orchestrating Medical Worlds: Cultivating Corporeal Capacities of Therapeutic Power and Transcendence in Ifá Everyday Practice © 2010 by Amy Harriet Gardner Abstract Incorporating Divine Presence, Orchestrating Medical Worlds: Cultivating Corporeal Capacities of Therapeutic Power and Transcendence in Ifá Everyday Practice by Amy Harriet Gardner Joint Doctor of Philosophy in Medical Anthropology with the University of California, San Francisco University of California, Berkeley Professor Laurence Cohen, Chair This dissertation focuses on the cultivation of specialized corporeal capacities of therapeutic power and transcendence among Ifá medical-ritual specialists in Yorùbá communities in contemporary Nigeria (and the resonance and implications of their practices within a global context). Rather than interrogate “medical (and/or religious) knowledge” as the object of inquiry, this project explores the power of the learning process –– as a practice of everyday living –– to cultivate, within student-apprentice and healer-sage alike, a distinctive (sonically and spiritually informed) somatic mode of being-in, perceiving, interpreting, and attending-to-the-world, and thus, to orchestrate Ifá’s distinctive medical and religious life-world. In so doing, this dissertation seeks to redress the historical stigmatization of African and Diasporic religions, subjectivities, and knowledges within the scholarly and popular imaginations and to contribute to recent scholarship on sensuous and sacred ways of knowing. An ethnography of embodiment, the senses, and practices of everyday living, this work is fundamentally informed, methodologically and theoretically, by a phenomenological approach and the author’s embodied experiences (as a professionally trained dancer; as a physician; and –– in her extensive training and continuous, on-going learning process –– as an Ifá healer- specialist). Focusing on the embodied and the sensorial as formative principles in, respectively, the mundane and specialized medical-devotional (Ifá) life-worlds of the Yorùbá, this project explores the ways in which the sonically-informed sensorium of Yorùbá society –– as articulated through common and specialized practices of everyday living –– cultivates (and naturalizes) particular ways of being-in, attending-to, and making-sense-of intersubjective experience and the phenomenally given world for the populace at large and for Ifá specialists, in particular. Specifically, this research claims that in the training and devotional development of Ifá apprentices and priests/esses, embodied techniques of everyday scholarly-devotional practice that cultivate a corporeal resonance with the earth are key. These distinctive embodied practices initially engender shifts and ruptures in the apprentice’s mundane habitus, while simultaneously facilitating the gradual incorporation of the priestly habitus with its associated sensibilities of “coolness,” permeability, and containment. These practices of everyday living also facilitate conscious, dispassionate communion with Divine Presence, and thus revelatory knowledge (the embodied certainty known as erí okòn). Gradually, with experience and practice, the healer- priest/ess is able to consciously direct aspects of Divine Presence-as-healing-force for the therapeutic benefit of others. Finally, after years of daily scholarly-devotional practice, these musical-embodied practices are refined and body forth a special –– sonic and incorporative –– somatic mode of being-in and attending-to-the-world particular to Ifá, known as “a stomach as 1 deep as a calabash” (inú t’ó jìnlè bi igbá), in which Divine Presence is incorporated, as co- presence, within the corporeality and being-in-the-world of the healer-sage. And this particular sonically-informed mode of being-in-the-world is characterized by corporeal capacities of phenomenologically potent therapeutic power and transcendence. Thus, this research proposes that Ifá practice is a techne of musical corporeality, wherein the healer-sage consciously and dispassionately orchestrates aspects of Divine Presence for the therapeutic, aesthetic, existential/transcendent enhancement of the individual, the priesthood, and the community. This dissertation also asserts the primacy of engagement in everyday scholarly-devotional practices, over time, in bodying forth wisdom, knowledge, and healing power among Ifá healers and sages; and therefore, claims that the historical privileging of “initiations” of “ritual” and/or ethnomedical specialists in anthropological and religious scholarship is both misplaced and misleading. In West Africa, Ifá specialists are trained for years before being recognized or accepted as qualified practitioners. And it is through the individual practitioner’s engagement in the formative practices of the learning process –– much more than in an overly mystified “initiatory moment(s)” –– that Ifá’s specialized life-world, orientations, and corporeal capacities of therapeutic power and transcendence are made real and palpable. In Ifá practice, the sensuous and affective body is the pregnant nexus from which, and through which, innovative knowledge, healing (regenerative therapeutics) and subjectivity continually emerge. Thus, in contrast to Bourdieu’s (1977) privileging of the conservative and congealing aspects of practice and habitus, Ifá practice highlights (and cultivates) the body’s inherent plasticity and malleability, and its capacity to incorporate –– literally to embody –– innovation, as sonically-informed sensibilities. This embodied agency has the potential to transform inter-subjective relations in/and the phenomenally given world. In particular, the phenomenological and therapeutic power of Ifá’s healing orchestrations dramatically highlight that, in addition to the technological instrumentality of biomedicine, there are other ways of constituting real and effective therapeutic power. And, given the shifts and flows of globalization as well as the emergence of complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine within biomedical institutions and practices, this has significant implications, theoretically and practically, for the challenges inherent in attending to the complexities of human suffering in the contemporary global moment. 2 To all those upon whose shoulders I stand Mo Dúpé Òrúnmìlà, Mo yín ború. Òrúnmìlà, Mo yín boyè. Òrúnmìlà, Mo yín bosíse-o. i Acknowledgements To the members of my dissertation advisory committee –– VèVè Clark, Lawrence Cohen, Judith Justice, Sharon Kaufman, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, and Ula Taylor –– I am extremely grateful for your generosity, diligence, and intellectual rigor; for your encouragement and support, academically and personally; and for serving as shining examples of academic mentorship as well as critically engaged and socially responsible scholarship. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with you. Thank you. To my family –– to my parents, Marlyn and Bernard Gardner; and to my ex-husband Adékúnlé Elutilo and his extended family –– I thank you for your support and for the ways in which our relationships have informed, and enriched, my work and my being-in-the-world. To my Ifá family –– especially to Asèdá Àgbáyé, Awo Kékeré, Fágbémi Fásína, Fela Sowande, and Àdùnní Olórìsà –– words cannot adequately express my gratitude for your guidance and shepherding; for the profound substantive and ephemeral nourishment our relationship has afforded me; for your abiding Presence in (the organic unfoldment of) my life. Mo dúpé gan-an. To the following persons who have informed and enriched my life and this project, assisting me in various ways, over many years –– Roland Abiodun, Biodun Adediran, Clara Aisenstein, Akintunde Akinyemi, Kitty Allen, Dawn Arens, Fanny Arnovitz, Peshel Arnovitz, Linda Barnes, Gay Becker, Diane Bell, Roberto Belmar, Jasmine Berke, Priya Bhogaonker, Phyllis Bischoff, Nestor and Tamar Bittelman, Stanley Brandes, Alison Brooks, Mary Ann Burris, Stephanie Chatman, Connie Chiba, Kamari Clarke, John Coltrane, Beverly Davenport, Katherine Dunham, David Eaton, Marie Ekpere, Marion Ekpuk, Brad Erickson, Gaylon Ferguson, Marianne Ferme, Yvette Flores, Bill Foreman, Harriet Iris Gardner, Maurice and Bella Gardner, Ned Garrett, Kathryn Geurts, Gail P. Gordon, Karen Greene, R. Richard Grinker, Sonya Haggett, Barry Hallen, Geon Soo Han, India Harville, Teddy Holiday, Sarah Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Yoko Kamitani, Eliana Korin, Cathy Kresik, Carol Kress,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Introduction: Introducing Yemoja
    1 2 3 4 5 Introduction 6 7 8 Introducing Yemoja 9 10 11 12 Solimar Otero and Toyin Falola 13 14 15 16 17 18 Mother I need 19 mother I need 20 mother I need your blackness now 21 as the august earth needs rain. 22 —Audre Lorde, “From the House of Yemanjá”1 23 24 “Yemayá es Reina Universal porque es el Agua, la salada y la dul- 25 ce, la Mar, la Madre de todo lo creado / Yemayá is the Universal 26 Queen because she is Water, salty and sweet, the Sea, the Mother 27 of all creation.” 28 —Oba Olo Ocha as quoted in Lydia Cabrera’s Yemayá y Ochún.2 29 30 31 In the above quotes, poet Audre Lorde and folklorist Lydia Cabrera 32 write about Yemoja as an eternal mother whose womb, like water, makes 33 life possible. They also relate in their works the shifting and fluid nature 34 of Yemoja and the divinity in her manifestations and in the lives of her 35 devotees. This book, Yemoja: Gender, Sexuality, and Creativity in the 36 Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas, takes these words of supplica- 37 tion and praise as an entry point into an in-depth conversation about 38 the international Yoruba water deity Yemoja. Our work brings together 39 the voices of scholars, practitioners, and artists involved with the inter- 40 sectional religious and cultural practices involving Yemoja from Africa, 41 the Caribbean, North America, and South America. Our exploration 42 of Yemoja is unique because we consciously bridge theory, art, and 43 xvii SP_OTE_INT_xvii-xxxii.indd 17 7/9/13 5:13 PM xviii Solimar Otero and Toyin Falola 1 practice to discuss orisa worship3 within communities of color living in 2 postcolonial contexts.
    [Show full text]
  • Fabricating Girls: Clothes and Coming-Of-Age Fiction by Women of Color
    Fabricating Girls: Clothes and Coming-of-Age Fiction by Women of Color Margaret D. Stetz Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Delaware 34 West Delaware Avenue Newark, DE 19716, USA E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract: Given the long history of prejudice against clothing as a serious subject of scholarly analysis, dress has remained insufficiently explored in literary criticism as a feature of the bildungsroman, or the coming-of-age fictional narrative. Choice of dress has been, however, a crucial element in the establishment of identity and in the process of maturation, particularly in narratives about girls and most especially in late-twentieth and early-twenty-first-century works about girls of color. This essay examines the role of dress in three representative texts by women of color—one Australian, one Afro-British, and one Chicana. Keywords: dress; fashion; coming-of-age narratives; bildungsroman; girls of color; identity formation What happens when we focus on the intersection of two subjects that traditionally have been considered of lower status in many academic settings—i.e., girlhood and clothes? These two topics may long have attracted interest among popular audiences, but when it comes to literary criticism, in particular, they are only now beginning to accrue prestige, or what is often called “cultural capital.” They have been long neglected, in particular, in the very place where they might have been expected: studies of the bildungsroman, which tracks the progress over time of an individual fictional protagonist. Conventional discussions of maturation in coming-of-age narratives, and conventional formulations of that genre, have mainly reflected masculine notions of development, pivoting on what Maureen Corrigan describes as episodes of “male extreme adventure”—i.e., “a one-shot testosterone expenditure of physical courage that pits man against nature/man/himself, with man (the narrator usually) left standing, bloody but unbowed” (Corrigan 2005, 5).
    [Show full text]
  • Yoruba Art & Culture
    Yoruba Art & Culture Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology University of California, Berkeley Yoruba Art and Culture PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY Written and Designed by Nicole Mullen Editors Liberty Marie Winn Ira Jacknis Special thanks to Tokunbo Adeniji Aare, Oduduwa Heritage Organization. COPYRIGHT © 2004 PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PHOEBE A. HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY ◆ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720-3712 ◆ 510-642-3682 ◆ HTTP://HEARSTMUSEUM.BERKELEY.EDU Table of Contents Vocabulary....................4 Western Spellings and Pronunciation of Yoruba Words....................5 Africa....................6 Nigeria....................7 Political Structure and Economy....................8 The Yoruba....................9, 10 Yoruba Kingdoms....................11 The Story of How the Yoruba Kingdoms Were Created....................12 The Colonization and Independence of Nigeria....................13 Food, Agriculture and Trade....................14 Sculpture....................15 Pottery....................16 Leather and Beadwork....................17 Blacksmiths and Calabash Carvers....................18 Woodcarving....................19 Textiles....................20 Religious Beliefs....................21, 23 Creation Myth....................22 Ifa Divination....................24, 25 Music and Dance....................26 Gelede Festivals and Egugun Ceremonies....................27 Yoruba Diaspora....................28
    [Show full text]
  • The House of Oduduwa: an Archaeological Study of Economy and Kingship in the Savè Hills of West Africa
    The House of Oduduwa: An Archaeological Study of Economy and Kingship in the Savè Hills of West Africa by Andrew W. Gurstelle A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) in the University of Michigan 2015 Doctoral Committee: Professor Carla M. Sinopoli, Chair Professor Joyce Marcus Professor Raymond A. Silverman Professor Henry T. Wright © Andrew W. Gurstelle 2015 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I must first and foremost acknowledge the people of the Savè hills that contributed their time, knowledge, and energies. Completing this dissertation would not have been possible without their support. In particular, I wish to thank Ọba Adétùtú Onishabe, Oyedekpo II Ọla- Amùṣù, and the many balè,̣ balé, and balọdè ̣that welcomed us to their communities and facilitated our research. I also thank the many land owners that allowed us access to archaeological sites, and the farmers, herders, hunters, fishers, traders, and historians that spoke with us and answered our questions about the Savè hills landscape and the past. This dissertion was truly an effort of the entire community. It is difficult to express the depth of my gratitude for my Béninese collaborators. Simon Agani was with me every step of the way. His passion for Shabe history inspired me, and I am happy to have provided the research support for him to finish his research. Nestor Labiyi provided support during crucial periods of excavation. As with Simon, I am very happy that our research interests complemented and reinforced one another’s. Working with Travis Williams provided a fresh perspective on field methods and strategies when it was needed most.
    [Show full text]
  • Third-Generation Women Writers and the New Nigerian Novel
    “Half and Half Children”: Third-Generation Women Writers and the New Nigerian Novel Jane Bryce Research in African Literatures, Volume 39, Number 2, Summer 2008, pp. 49-67 (Article) Published by Indiana University Press For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ral/summary/v039/39.2.bryce.html Access Provided by University of Warwick at 02/01/12 4:41PM GMT “Half and Half Children”: Third-Generation Women Writers and the New Nigerian Novel JANE BRYCE University of the West Indies, Cave Hill ABSTRACT The paper looks at seven novels by women published since 2000, and asks in what ways they reconfigure realism and the social text of the recent Nigerian past. Their authors are engaged in a lively dialogue with their literary precursors, male and female, using their interpretation of the past. Though realism is their preferred mode, it is a realism that bears the trace of pre-existing non-realist modes of expression and belief. By reclaiming the traditionally negative icon of the abiku child, they effect a retrieval of the feminine repressed, casting the feminine double as shadow or negative to the paradigmatic male protagonist of Nigerian fiction and reinserting it into the postcolonial national narrative. Like one of the protagonists, these novels ask the urgent question: “What was the country I loved? The country I would fight for? Should it have borders?” n this article, I consider the novels by mostly young women with at least one Nigerian parent, whether domiciled in Nigeria or elsewhere, which have been published since the year 2000: House of Symbols (2001) by Akachi Ezeigbo; Purple IHibiscus (2004) and Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Everything Good Will Come (2005) by Sefi Atta; Sky-High Flames (2005) by Unoma Azuah; The Icarus Girl (2005) by Helen Oyeyemi; and 26a (2006) by Diana Evans.
    [Show full text]
  • Cantos De Las Communidades Haitianas En Cuba
    CANTOS DE LAS COMMUNIDADES HAITIANAS EN CUBA DANIEL MIRABEAU Los cantos de este artículo han sido recolectados con la ayuda de cantantes en Cuba, así como a partir de grabaciones comercializadas y a partir de captaciones vídeos disponibles en la toila. Las traducciones, las transcripciones musicales y las anotaciones son del autor. Las letras de canciones comprenden dos o tres entradas lingüísticas: criollo cubano, criollo haitiano y castellano. El lado criollo cubano respeta la escritura y pronunciación de las personas que ha transmitido los cantos. El lado criollo haitiano acerca a escritura contemporánea del criollo en Haití1. El lado castellano intenta acercar el sentido del texto original. Para los nombres propios y los nombres de estilos musicales, el contexto de la frase hace preferir la escritura en criollo cubano, criollo haitiano o en castellano. Dentro de la letra de canción, la parte solista figura sobre la columna de izquierda y la respuesta del coro sobre la columna de derecha, en itálico. Respecto a las partituras musicales, la voz solista y el coro se diferencian por su tipo de letra. Las microvariaciones en las repeticiones del solista son una interpretación libre del autor. Todas las transcripciones musicales de canción son voluntariamente unificadas sin alteraciones, excepto las accidentales. A cada uno de los intérpretes de transponer las partituras con arreglo a su tesitura de voz. Aparecen en este artículo los cantos interpretados por los grupos siguientes: Babul (Guantanamo), Ban Rara (Guantanamo), Cai Dijé o La Bel Kreyol2 (Camagüey), Conjunto Folklorico de Oriente (Santiago de Cuba), Cutumba (Santiago de Cuba), Galibata (Santiago de Cuba), Grupo Thompson (Santiago de Cuba), La Caridad (Palma Soriano), Lokosia (Guantanamo), Pilon de Cauto (Palma Soriano), Renacer haitiano (Ciego de Avila).
    [Show full text]
  • A Walk Through the Gallery 5
    A WALK THROUGH THE GALLERY MARGARET PLASS The new African Gallery has been designed to exhibit, simply and honestly, a selection of sculptures from our permanent collections. Proudly we present them as works of art; where possible they are arranged in tribal groups for convenience and comparative study. They are labeled briefly and clearly. Here are the materials from which our visitors may form a just view of the special characteristics and merits of Negro art. For more than half a century our Museum has been enriched by acces- sions of African sculpture, mainly by purchase and partly by gifts, to the end that our permanent collections are the largest and most varied in style in America. The following descriptive notes are not to be construed as an attempt at a catalogue of the exhibition; the serious student may have access to fully documented formal catalogues should he apply to the Museum staff. In Dr. Coon's introduction he has given us the anthropological and ethno- grapbical background of the people who produced this art, working within the framework of their tribal traditions. Here in this book, with their photographs, are small synopses of what we know of these sculptures, and what we guess. We all have conscious, and sometimes unconscious, difficulty in understanding such works of art; the philosophical barrier that lies in the way of full appreciation is almost too difficult to hurdle. Many writers have tried to explain the magico-religious significance, the strength and directness of African art; few have succeeded. Perhaps these notes are mere hints and suggestions, but we hope that they may sometimes be stimulating as well as factual.
    [Show full text]
  • African Concepts of Energy and Their Manifestations Through Art
    AFRICAN CONCEPTS OF ENERGY AND THEIR MANIFESTATIONS THROUGH ART A thesis submitted to the College of the Arts of Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Renée B. Waite August, 2016 Thesis written by Renée B. Waite B.A., Ohio University, 2012 M.A., Kent State University, 2016 Approved by ____________________________________________________ Fred Smith, Ph.D., Advisor ____________________________________________________ Michael Loderstedt, M.F.A., Interim Director, School of Art ____________________________________________________ John R. Crawford-Spinelli, D.Ed., Dean, College of the Arts TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………….. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS …………………………………… vi CHAPTERS I. Introduction ………………………………………………… 1 II. Terms and Art ……………………………………………... 4 III. Myths of Origin …………………………………………. 11 IV. Social Structure …………………………………………. 20 V. Divination Arts …………………………………………... 30 VI. Women as Vessels of Energy …………………………… 42 VII. Conclusion ……………………………………….…...... 56 VIII. Images ………………………………………………… 60 IX. Bibliography …………………………………………….. 84 X. Further Reading ………………………………………….. 86 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Porogun Quarter, Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria, 1992, Photograph by John Pemberton III http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/cosmos/models.html. ……………………………………… 60 Figure 2: Yoruba Ifa Divination Tapper (Iroke Ifa) Nigeria; Ivory. 12in, Baltimore Museum of Art http://www.artbma.org/. ……………………………………………… 61 Figure 3.; Yoruba Opon Ifa (Divination Tray), Nigerian; carved wood 3/4 x 12 7/8 x 16 in. Smith College Museum of Art, http://www.smith.edu/artmuseum/. ………………….. 62 Figure 4. Ifa Divination Vessel; Female Caryatid (Agere Ifa); Ivory, wood or coconut shell inlay. Nigeria, Guinea Coast The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org. ……………………… 63 Figure 5. Beaded Crown of a Yoruba King. Nigerian; L.15 (crown), L.15 (fringe) in.
    [Show full text]
  • Orisha Journeys: the Role of Travel in the Birth of Yorùbá-Atlantic Religions 1
    Arch. de Sc. soc. des Rel., 2002, 117 (janvier-mars) 17-36 Peter F. COHEN ORISHA JOURNEYS: THE ROLE OF TRAVEL IN THE BIRTH OF YORÙBÁ-ATLANTIC RELIGIONS 1 Introduction 2 In recent years the array of Orisha 3 traditions associated withtheYorùbá- speaking peoples of West Africa has largely broken free of the category of “Afri- can traditional religion” and begun to gain recognition as a nascent world religion in its own right. While Orisha religions are today both trans-national and pan-eth- nic, they are nonetheless the historical precipitate of the actions and interactions of particular individuals. At their human epicenter are the hundreds of thousands of Yorùbá-speaking people who left their country during the first half of the 19th cen- tury in one of the most brutal processes of insertion into the world economy under- gone by any people anywhere; the Atlantic slave trade. While the journey of the Middle Passage is well known, other journeys under- taken freely by Africans during the period of the slave trade – in a variety of direc- tions, for a multiplicity of reasons, often at great expense, and sometimes at great personal risk – are less so. These voyages culminated in a veritable transmigration involving thousands of Yorùbá-speaking people and several points on both sides of 1 Paper presented at the 1999 meeting of the Société Internationale de la Sociologie des Religions. This article was originally prepared in 1999. Since then, an impressive amount of literature has been published on the subject, which only serves to strengthen our case. A great deal of new of theoretical work on the African Diaspora in terms of trans-national networks and mutual exchanges has not so much challenged our arguments as diminished their novelty.
    [Show full text]
  • Alfred M Traux
    The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult Volume 19 Doctor Alfred Métraux spent many years on the study of religious phenomena and diverse cults. He often visited Haiti, sometimes spending long periods there. From 1948 to 1950 he was head of a sociological survey of the Marbial Valley. He became the trusted friend of several hungan and mambo, the priests and priestesses of Voodoo, from whom he gained a great deal of the insight and understanding which is revealed in this book. Voodoo ALFRED MÉTRAUX Translated by Hugo Charteris First published in Great Britain by Andre Deutsch Ltd 1959 Copyright © Alfred Métraux 1959 Preface copyright © Schoken Books Inc 1972 Published by Sphere Books 1974 Introduction copyright © Dennis Wheatley 1974 To the memory of LORGINA DELORGE mambo of La Salines whose sacred name was ‘Dieu devant’ and to MADAME ODETTE MENNESSON-RIGAUD ‘certified’ mambo without whose help this book could never have been written Contents Introduction by Dennis Wheatley 7 Preface by Sidney W. Mintz 9 I. THE HISTORY OF VOODOO Origins and History of the Voodoo Cults 19 II. THE SOCIAL FRAMEWORK OF VOODOO 1. The Social Framework of Voodoo 38 2. Voodoo Clergy and Cult-groups 40 3. The Sanctuaries 48 III. THE SUPERNATURAL WORLD 1. Gods and Spirits in Haitian Voodoo 52 2. The Power of the Loa 59 3. The Voodoo Pantheon 61 4. Possession 73 5. Epiphany of the Gods 85 6. Dreams 86 7. The Cult of Twins 88 8. Animist Beliefs 92 IV. RITUAL 1. Ritual 95 2. The Ritual Salutations 96 3. The Flag Parade 97 4.
    [Show full text]
  • The Role of Sculptures in Yoruba Egungun Masquerade Author(S): R
    The Role of Sculptures in Yoruba Egungun Masquerade Author(s): R. O. Rom Kalilu Source: Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1, African Aesthetics in Nigeria and the Diaspora (Sep., 1991), pp. 15-29 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784494 Accessed: 27-10-2016 14:30 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Black Studies This content downloaded from 141.213.142.215 on Thu, 27 Oct 2016 14:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE ROLE OF SCULPTURES IN YORUBA EGUNGUN MASQUERADE R. 0. ROM KALILU St. Andrew's College of Education A vast body of literature already exists on African sculpture, largely because of the more than century-old fascination it has held for the Western world, which pioneered the study of African arts. The contents of this literature, however, have generated a lot of controversy. Appreciation of the functions of the sculptures has suffered because the initial criticism has largely been done by writers unfamiliar with African cultures.
    [Show full text]
  • Art in Ancient Ife, Birthplace of the Yoruba
    Art in Ancient Ife, Birthplace of the Yoruba Suzanne Preston Blier rtists the world over shape knowledge and ancient works alongside diverse evidence on this center’s past material into works of unique historical and the time frame specific to when these sculptures were made. importance. The artists of ancient Ife, ances- In this way I bring art and history into direct engagement with tral home to the Yoruba and mythic birthplace each other, enriching both within this process. of gods and humans, clearly were interested in One of the most important events in ancient Ife history with creating works that could be read. Breaking respect to both the early arts and later era religious and political the symbolic code that lies behind the unique meanings of Ife’s traditions here was a devastating civil war pitting one group, the Aancient sculptures, however, has vexed scholars working on this supporters of Obatala (referencing today at once a god, a deity material for over a century. While much remains to be learned, pantheon, and the region’s autochthonous populations) against thanks to a better understanding of the larger corpus of ancient affiliates of Odudua (an opposing deity, religious pantheon, Ife arts and the history of this important southwestern Nigerian and newly arriving dynastic group). The Ikedu oral history text center, key aspects of this code can now be discerned. In this addressing Ife’s history (an annotated kings list transposed from article I explore how these arts both inform and are enriched by the early Ife dialect; Akinjogbin n.d.) indicates that it was during early Ife history and the leaders who shaped it.1 In addition to the reign of Ife’s 46th king—what appears to be two rulers prior core questions of art iconography and symbolism, I also address to the famous King Obalufon II (Ekenwa? Fig.
    [Show full text]