Embodying Cultural Memory in Songhay Spirit Possession / La Mémoire culturelle incarnée dans les rituels de possession Songhay - article ; n°1 ; vol.79, pg 53-68

Paul Stoller

Description

Archives des sciences sociales des religions - Année 1992 - Volume 79 - Numéro 1 - Pages 53-68
16 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Archives-des-sciences-sociales-des-religions
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1992
• Nombre de lectures: 77
• Langue: Français
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Paul Stoller
Embodying Cultural Memory in Songhay Spirit Possession / La
Mémoire culturelle incarnée dans les rituels de possession
Songhay
In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 79, 1992. pp. 53-68.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Stoller Paul. Embodying Cultural Memory in Songhay Spirit Possession / La Mémoire culturelle incarnée dans les rituels de
possession Songhay. In: Archives des sciences sociales des religions. N. 79, 1992. pp. 53-68.
doi : 10.3406/assr.1992.1547
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/assr_0335-5985_1992_num_79_1_1547Arch de Sc Soc des Rel. 1992 79 juillet-septembre) 53-68
Paul STOLLER
EMBODYING CULTURAL MEMORY IN SONGHAY
SPIRIT POSSESSION
une anthropologie Avec cette ethnologie de la possession de la possession valable chez pour les ensemble Songhay du auteur monde propose noir Il
établit un parallèle entre et roman folkloriste ou blues pour dé
gager cette mémoire profonde des hommes Une analyse bibliographique cri
tique atteste des progrès accomplis par les sciences sociales dans ce domaine
conclut que ce est pas seulement la vision qui déclenche la possession
mais tout autant les odeurs les sons et les rythmes La possession lui apparaît
comme un phénomène dont la fonction est orienter les interrogations des
hommes sur leur identité personnelle une part et autre part comme une
manière aborder les manifestations extérieures qui les assaillent Les diffé
rents sens sont évoqués en parallèle avec la littérature anthropologique con
cernant le blues nord-américain noir en même temps que la dure
quotidienneté actuelle
Con este an lisis de la posesi entre los Songha el autor propone una
antropolog de la posesi lida para el conjunto del universo cultural de
las sociedades africanas Establece un paralelo entre posesi novela fok-
rica para poder desprender la memoria profunda de los hombres Al cono
cimiento minucioso del terreno se superpone una investigaci cr tica de la
bibliograf que permite comprender la progresi los avances que las
ciencias sociales han realizado en este sector El autor llega la conclusi
que no es nicamente la visi que provoca la posesi sino en igual medida
los olores los sonidos los ritmos Presenta la posesi como un fen meno
que tiene por funci orientar la interrogaci de los hombres sobre su iden
tidad personal por una parte por otra como una manera de abordar las
manifestaciones exteriores que les acometen Las diferentes significaciones son
evocadas en paralelo con la literatura anthropol gica relativa los blues
norteamericanos Al mismo tiempo es la cotidianidad dura concreta que es
evocada en el estudio
53 ARCHIVES DE SCIENCES SOCIALES DES RELIGIONS
Possession possessed me one afternoon in the town of Tillaberi Niger
when the haunting cries of the one-string violin drew me over dune to wit
ness my first ceremony of Songhay possession During the following 20 years
have visited and lived in villages and was eventually asked to join
the Tillaberi possession troupe as servant to the spirits gathering ritual
plants and resins and costuming male mediums My experience during those
years impelled me to write Fusion of the Worlds which is an ethnographic
attempt to evoke the Songhay world of possession In those pages the public
world of Songhay spirit possession Hashes with bright costumes rocks with
the ribald laughter of mediums spirits and priests and resonates with the cry
of the monochord violin and the clack of the gourd drum In Fusion also
describe the tragic underside of Songhay possession the spitefulness du
plicity and sometimes murderous competitiveness of spirits mediums praise-
singers and musicians wrote Fusion in style to evoke the world of
possession and to stress the centrality of performance to Songhay and Afri
can religion and healing see Meyer 1989 1991 One of the problems of
evocative writing in anthropology however is that the critical argument is
often embedded in narrative rendering implicit the theoretical contribution
of the text In this essay pursue theoretically explicit exegesis on the
relation between possession and cultural memory In what follows briefly
survey the major theoretical positions on possession pointing out both
strengths and weaknesses My argument is that although the major theorists
on possession make significant contributions to social theory they fail to con
sider adequately the centrality of the sentient body in possession and the
relationship between bodily practice possession) and cultural memory or in
digenous conceptions of history By concentrating our analytical gaze on the
embodiment of possession suggest we are likely to sense it as phenome-
nological arena in which cultural memory is fashioned and refashioned
The Scope of Possession in Anthropology
Anthropologists have long been enthralled by the spector of spirit pos
session Numerous articles and books have been written on possession and
there are several memorable if not controversial films like Jean Les
Maîtres Fous that attempt to capture the carnivalesque nature of the phe
nomenon Scholary writing on possession has not been limited to ethnographic
description Many anthropologists have used their materials on spirit posses
sion to expound upon theories of society or of social meaning Writers have
employed five dominant forms of explanation to analyze possession function
alist psychoanalytic physiological symbolic interpretive) and theatrical
Functionalist writers most notably I.M Lewis use as datum
that putatively reveals underlying frictions in social structure For Lewis and
others possession exposes battle of the sexes Most spirit mediums
Lewis and others argue are women and afflicted group in society Women
participate in possession ceremonies to vent their frustrations the argument
goes so they might enjoy fleeting moment of social prestige Although
functionalist writers pay careful attention to descriptive detail they are in
variably comparative analysts considering the relation of mediumship gender
and social structure in variety of societies Lewis 1971 1986 Bourguignon
54 EMBOYING CULTURAL MEMORY
1976 Goodman 1988 1989 The strength of functionalist analysis is that it
highlights possession as social process with social consequences The weak
nesses of the model are three-fold it focuses entirely upon mediumship
it fails to consider the social perspective of experience see
Coombe 1991 and it overlooks the cultural and bodily dimensions of pos
session
Like the functionalist theorists writers who use psychoanalytic models
to explain possession also focus attention on spirit mediums Unlike the
functionalists who concentrate on social structure writers like
Monfouga-Nicholas 1972 and Zempleni 1968 consider the psychodynamics
of mediums Some of these writers consider pré-possession malady tantamount
to psychotic episode that society treats through initiation into the pos
session cult see 1957 account of possession as hysteria The ini
tiation it follows is cathartic Following initiation mediums perform useful
social functions Recent psychoanalytic studies are more nuanced Writing on
the Hausa bori in the Republic of Niger Monfouga-Nicholas 1972 uses the
Freudian notion of ambivalence to analyze possession data The best known
and most sophisticated accounts are those of Obeyesekere of
Sinhalese possession see 1981 Although much useful historical information
about the psycho-dynamic development of spirit mediums is provided this
kind of analysis often fails to address either the social and/or the cultural
symbolic dimensions of possession Like the functionalists psychoanalytic
writers usually consider complex local phenomenon in terms of western
categories This tack usually results in studies that fail to address the impor
tance of social meaning
Writers seeking biological explanations of possession consider the phys
iology of the trance state Many of these writers suggest that possession states
alter brain waves Pidoux 1955 Other scholars have probed the relation of
music to the onset of trance Jackson 1968 Sturtevent 1968 Gell 1980
traces the onset of trance in India to disturbances of the inner ear brought
on by rhythmic swaying Kehoe and Geletti 1981 argue that possession is
the biological result of food prohibitions Using wide array of cross-cultural
data they assert that mediumship devolves from calcium deficiencies It goes
without saying that the physiology of trance is fascinating subject Assuming
that contingent sociocultural phenomena can be explained by immutable bi
ological principles these scholars neglect the sociology and symbolism of
possession and reduce the body to its physiochemical essentials
While the functionalist psychoanalytic and biological models of posses
sion analysis focus on aspects of the individual medium writers taking sym
bolic approach start from Georges 1971 premise that possession
is form of intellectual communication Students of symbolism
probe the cultural content of possession as text that embodies cultural know
ledge text that transmits information about themes of cultural significance
the relati