Guns & rain : guerrillas & spirit mediums in Zimbabwe http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.crp3b10005 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Guns & rain : guerrillas & spirit mediums in Zimbabwe Author/Creator Lan, David Date 1985 Resource type Books Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) Zimbabwe Source Northwestern University Libraries, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, 968.9104 L243g Rights David Lan, Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe, (c) 1995 by London: James Currey, Ltd. and Berkeley: University of California Press. Hard copies of this book can be ordered from James Currey, Ltd. at the following address: 73 Botley Road, Oxford OX2 0BS, UK; James Currey can also be contacted at: http://www.jamescurrey.co.uk/. The University of California Press can be contacted at http://www.ucpress.edu. Description In this book, David Lan assesses the relationship between ZANLA guerrillas and spirit mediums in the Zimbabwe revolution. He analyzes the impact of spirit mediums on the guerrillas and demonstrates how the guerrillas used their contact with spirit mediums to mobilize the support of peasants. He also considers the impact of war on spirit mediums by asking "What fundamental changes were worked in Dande society by the recent war?" Format extent 256 pages (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.crp3b10005 http://www.aluka.org PERSPECTIVES ON SOUTHERN AFRICA I The Autobiography of an Unknown South African. by Naboth Mokgatle (1971) 2 Modernizing Racial Domination: South Africa's Political Dynamics. by Heribert Adam (1971) 3 The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress. 1912-1952. by Peter Walshe (1971) 4 Tales from Southern Africa. by A. C. Jordan (1973) 5 Lesotho 1970: An African Coup Under the Microscope, by B. M. Khaketla (1972) 6 Towards an African Literature: The Emergence of Literary Form in Xhosa. by A. C. Jordan (1972) 7 Law. Order, and Liberty in South Africa. by A. S. Mathews (1972) 8 Swaziland: The Dynamics of Political Modernization. by Christian P. Potholm (1972) 9 The South West Africa/Namibia Dispute: Documents and Scholarly Writings on the Controversy Between South Africa and the United Nations. by John Dugard (1973) 10 Confrontation and Accommodation in Southern Africa: The Limits of Independence. by Kenneth W. Grundy (1973) 11 The Rise of Afrikanerdom: Power, Apartheid and the Afrikaner Civil Religion. by T. Dunbar Moodie (1975) 12 Justice in South Africa. by Albie Sachs (1973) 13 Afrikaner Politics in South Africa. 1934-1948. by Newell M. Stultz (1974) 14 Crown and Charter: The Early Years of the British South Africa Company. by John S. Galbraith (1975) 15 Politics of Zambia. edited by William Tordoff (1975) 16 Corporate Power in an African State: The Political Impact of Multinational Mining Companies in Zambia by Richard Sklar (1975) 17 Change in Contemporary South Africa, edited by Leonard Thompson and Jeffrey Butler (1975) 18 The Tradition of Resistance in Mozambique: The Zambesi Valley. 18501921. by Allen F. Isaacman (1976) 19 Black Power in South Africa: The Evolution ofan Ideology. by Gail Gerhart (1978) 20 Black Heart: Gore-Brown and the Politics of Multiracial Zambia. by Robert 1. Rotberg (1977) 21 The Black Homelands of South Africa: The Political and Economic Development of Bophuthatswana and KwaZilu. by Jeffrey Butler. Robert I. Rotberg. and John Adams (1977) 22 Afrikaner Political Thought: AnalysisandDocuments (3 vols.). by Andr du Toit and Hermann Giliomee (Volume 1: 1780-1850. 1983) 23 Angola Under the Portuguese: The Myth andthe Reality. by Gerald Bender (1978) 24 Land and Racial Domination in Rhodesia. by Robin Palmer (1977) 25 The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa. edited by Robin Palmer and Neil Parsons (1977) 26 The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbab'e. by Paul Berliner (1978) 27 The Darker Reaches of Government: Access to Information about Public Administration in England. the United States. and South Africa. bv Anthony S. Mathews (1979) 28 The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry. by Colin Bundy (1979) 29 South Africa: Time Running Out. The Report of the Study Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Southern Africa (1981) 30 The Revolt of the Hereros. by Jon M. Bridgman (1981) 31 The White Tribe of Africa: South Africa in Perspective. by David Harrison (1982) 32 The House of Phalo: A History of the Xhosa People in the Days of Their Independence. by J. B. Peires (1982) 33 Soldiers Without Politics: Blacks in the South African Armed Forces. by Kenneth W. Grundy (1983) 34 Education. Race. and Social Change in South Africa. by John A. Marcum (1982) 35 The Land Belongs To Us: The Pedi Polit'. the Boers and the British in the Nineteenth-century Transvaal. by Peter Delius (1984) 36 Sol Plaatje. South African Nationalist. 1876-1932. by Brian Willan (1984) 37 Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe: A Comparative Study. by Terence Ranger (1985) 38 Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe. by David Lan (1985) DAVID LAN Guns & Rain Gucrrillas & Spirit MNediums in Zimbabve For Nicholas Wright DAVID LAN Guns & Rain Guerrillas & Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe Preface by Maurice Bloch Professor of Anthropology, London School of Economics James Currey LONDON University of California Press BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES James Currey Ltd 54b Thornhill Square, Islington, London Ni IBE University of California Press / i Berkeley and Los Angeles * David Lan 1985 First published 1985 in Great Britain by James Currey Ltd and in the United States of America by the University of California Press British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Lan. David Guns and rain : guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe. 1. Guerrilla warfare-History-20th century 2. Zimbabwe-History-1965-1980 I. Title 303.6'4'09689 1 DT962.75 ISBN 0-85255-200-9 ISBN 0-85255-201-7 Pbk Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lan. David, 1952Guns and rain. Guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe (Perspectives on Southern Africa , 38) 1. Spiritualism-Zimbabwe. 2. Guerrillas-Zimbabwe. 3. National liberation movements-Zimbabwe. 4. Zimbabwe-Politics and government-1965-1979. 1. Title. II. Series. BF1242.Z55L36 1984 303.3'72 85-40287 ISBN 0-520-05557-8 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-520-05589-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) Typeset in 10/11 pt Times in Great Britain Printed and bound in Great Britain Contents List of Figures, Maps and Plates * ix Acknowledgements - xi Preface * xiii Introduction * xv Part I: The Operational Zone I 1 Guerrillas and Mediums 3 2 The People and the Land 9 Part II. The Lions of Rain 29 3 The Land and the Dead 31 4 The Great Spectacle of the Past 44 5 The Valley of Affines 72 6 The Country of Kin 112 Part III: The Sons of the Soil * 119 7 The Coming of the Guerrillas - 121 8 The Legitimacy of Resistance * 136 9 From Chiefs to Guerrillas 157 10 The Politics of Tradition 176 Part IV. To Zimbabwe and Beyond * 205 11 The Ancestors and the Party 207 12 The Ancestors and the State 217 Conclusion 225 Appendix: Methodology and Sources * 230 Bibliography * 233 Index 240 I List of Figures, Maps and Plates Figures 3.1 Major categories of spirit types and their characteristics 38 3.2 Symbolic characteristics of ancestral spirits 39 4.1 A simplified royal genealogy 58 4.2 The relationship between chief medium and mhondoro 59 4.3 The relationship between medium, mutapi and chief 64 4.4 The sources of authority as they seem when the system breaks down 66 5.1 Ties of kinship between the main mhondoro of Dande 73 5.2 The journeY from Guruuswa to Dande: 1 76 5.3 Kin relations in Myths I to V 85 5.4 Affinal relations and the control of rain 87 5.5 The source of royal lineages 90 5.6 The journey from Guruuswa to Dande: 2 104 5.7 The journey from Guruuswa to Dande: 3 106 8.1 The fission of a royal lineage 140 8.2 Post-colonial sources of authorit.v in the relationship between chief medium and mhondoro ]46 9.1 The changing sources of political authority in Dande 169 10.1 The descendants of Mutota 179 10.2 The changing lines of communication between ancestors and people 199 Maps 2.1 Dande in relation to South Central Africa 10 2.2 The chiefs and the major mhondoro, c. 1980 16 3.1 The mhondoro of southern Dande, c. 1960 33 5.1 Main tributaries of the Zambezi River in northern Zimbabwe 78 7.1 Guerrilla infiltration into Dande 126 Plates Between pp. 118-19 1 Charwe, the medium of Nehanda, with the medium of Kagubi in prison, 1898 2 A village committee chairman possessed by the hunting spirit, Kapori 3 Two village wives dancing while possessed by their recent ancestors 4 A young woman in trance wearing the ritual half-black, half-white cloth 5 Nationalist leaders Joshv:a Nkomo andRobert Mugabe being greeted at Salisbury airport in 1962 by a veteran of the 1896 uprising 6 The medium of the senior rain spirit Musuma 7 The medium of Nyamapfeka 8 The medium of Chivere 9 The medium of Madzomba wearing his spectacles Between pp.