Mircea Eliade defined a shaman strictly as an ecstatic whose soul leaves
his body and ascends to the
sky or descends
to the Underworld. If this trait
were not present, said Eliade, the person was not a shaman but a healer or magician.
This definition excluded
African spirit practitioners
from the category of shamans
and had a delaying effect on the exploration
of the spirituality
of African healing and
ritual. However, since the time of his
book, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, first published (in French) in 1951, new studies of
what is clearly
shamanic work in Africa, have even
outpaced the ethnography of shamanism in Eurasia.
The anthropologist Colin Turnbull knew, but could not fully put the matter into words. "The bodies [of the
singers] were empty"-they were gone. Turnbull said that the
Mbuti's songs and their sense of the forest very
definitely included whatever is implied
by God and Spirit.
An important aspect
here is divination
where objects may be collections
of bones, figurines, or palm
nuts, the naturally formed footprints of wild animals, or the
appearance of the internal organs of a hunter's newly
caught quarry. The random pushing of a pole along the ground may
also be a divining test. These objects or circumstances tell the diviner
the nature of the trouble
the sick person is suffering, whether
it is from
ancestor affliction or from witchcraft,
what steps the rela¬tives should take, or
whether they should undertake a ritual appealing to the
ancestor spirits or an anti witchcraft
ritual or herbal treatment.
In divination, the
practitioner feels a shaking or burning,
a great sensitiveness to disturbance, and a sense of his or
her tutelary spirit taking over. In a state of heightened
awareness, the practitioner will put pertinent questions about the trouble
in question. The diviner in
the sacred state is able
to reverse a downward trend in a person's life. In some cases
the diviner (or oracle) may
not remember anything about the séance
afterwards. The diviners, therefore, are shamans; they perform extractions of harmful intrusions, reconcile a person's ancestor spirit to make him
or her a guardian and protector, and may heal with herbs
or physical treatments.
In ancient Egyptian , the spirit qualities
of bulls and jackals are noted,
the part-human, part-animal nature of gods, and the
dismemberment and rebirth theme of the
god Osiris. There existed knowledge of multiple souls, along with the
practice of trance by priests,
which brought them gifts like those of shamans.
Igbo Shamanism in Africa notes how
the primary spirit entity, Agwü, empowers the "man of knowledge" (dibïa) in his craft, and how a deceased dibïa grandfather will teach a new dibïa in his
dreams. At present the dibïas (now
frequently women) do not treat disease so much as disorders
due to lifestyle, corruption, dishonesty, and abuse. And in Hausa practices, Bori spirit doctors
in Nigeria owe the efficacy of their
healing and wisdom to the spirits.
Among the Hausa, Muslim and non-Muslim practices
sometimes intermingle and are sometimes in opposition. In the Gungawa section of the Hausa region,
shamanic mediums, often benign or
trickster figures, are held in high repute, while at the same time displays of power by any
of them are
frowned upon.
Among the Ndembu’s, the
shaman-diviner attains all the typical powers
of universal shamanism: healing, interacting with the dead
and other spirits, finding lost objects, bringing animals to the hunter,
changing the weather, and speaking from insight and foreknowledge.
African piety toward
ancestors was respected by the Greeks
of the classical
era as a good example to
be followed. For the Akan in Ghana, humans are descended
from spirits who are descended
from God. The priest-mediums of the ancestor cults
are called to their work
by supernatural agents. In their initiation there occurs a temporary paralysis, like trance.
Among the Asante, the
okomfo or priest is possessed
by spirits of nature who
impart the knowledge for the
okomfo to cure illnesses and assist people in other ways. Similarly,
in Cape Nguni, the healer-diviners
are called to their professions
by the ancestors.
More women than men become mediums
in this region of Africa.
In Mami Wata Religion" (mother of water),
the deity inhabits bodies of water and is
revered, along with water spirits,
in the West African coastal
area. Initiates are called to
the priesthood through signs of
being drawn to water. They
then set up unique individualistic
shrines to Mami Wata, incorporating non-African images and objects that were brought
into West Africa by European and Indian trade and cultural
contact since the fifteenth century.
The Swahili healers and Spirit Cult
shows the intermingling of Islamic and pre-Islamic ways of understanding
healing at all levels of the craft: contacting
and treating spirits, divination, astrology, geomancy, and magic. For healing, Qur'anic
passages are written on a cup or plate, washed
with water, and the ter, and the
water given to the patient
to drink. Possessing spirits will use humans as
their "chair"; the spirits are
ambitious and desire fine things.
The Yaka’s have
a religious view based on an awareness of the world
in which everything is alive and an ecstatic communion can take place
between humans, spirits, and the life world. Yaka
diviners often operate within the framework of
a healing church. In
"Zarma Spirit Mediums," the zima is described
as a holy man who variously combines
spirit possession, healing, and magic through ritual in an effort to manipulate spirits.
The Marabouts variously
combines divination, magic, healing, spirit manipulation, and ecstatic prayer. And the Cape Nguni’s emphasize the role
of the diviner,
who interprets the messages of
ancestors in order to heal the
patient. Herbalists also have knowledge of magic, but do not possess the occult
powers of the diviner. The author notes that
certain aspects of Xhosa ecstatic divination may be derived from
the cosmology and shamanic practices of the Kung-such as the ecstatic
healing dance.
Kung Healing, protect people from evil
spirits by entering into trance.
A major feature of Kung shamanic practices is the ritual trance
dance, also practiced by the Xhosa, a ceremony entered into in order to
placate malevolent deities; music is a key factor
in the Kung trance dances.
The Akan, a Ghanaian people include the ritual to draw
the deity into twins, showing
how the twins
are tested, fall into trance, and are finally purified.
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