Edith Turner with William Blodgett, Singleton Kahona, and Fideli Benwa.
Philadelphia :
University of Pennsylvania Press,
c1992.
xiii, 239 p. :
ill., maps ;
24 cm.
Series in contemporary ethnography
Includes bibliographical references (p. [221]-227) and index.
Introduction. Two Books on Ihamba: The Effect of Victor Turner's Study. Theorists of Ritual. The Groundings of the Present Ethnographic Method -- 1. The Field Context of the Ihamba Rituals in 1985. Time Factor: History Continues Separately for Ndembu and Turners. Returning to Mukanza Village. The Ihamba Tooth -- 2. The Medicine Quest for the First Ihamba. Medicine Collection. Medicine Preparation -- 3. The First Ihamba: The Performance for Nyakanjata. The First Tooth. Commentary. The Second Tooth -- 4. Discussion of the First Ihamba. Sakutoha. Nyakanjata. Healing and Hunters. Mazu ("Words"). Childbirth Medicines in Ihamba. The Ambiguities in Ihamba. The Sequences and Processes Involved in Extraction -- 5. Background to the Second Ihamba. The Kawiko Vicinage. Quarrels in the Past. The Hunters' Conference: The Significance of the Hunter. Trouble with Morie -- 6. The Second Ihamba: The Performance for Meru -- 7. Ritual and the Anthropology of Experience. The Event as Fact: Subjectivity and Objectivity. The Human Tooth -- 8. Seeing Spirits. The Difficulties of the Healer Mode -- Coda -- 1. African Spirit Healing and Ihamba -- 2. Types of Spirit Healers -- 3. Medicines and Hallucinogens -- 4. Cupping with Horns -- 5. Music and Drumming -- Drums, Ngoma -- Drumming in Ihamba -- Songs -- 6. The Extraction of Harmful Intrusions -- 7. A Composite Ihamba Scenario -- 8. Old and New Ihamba Compared -- 9. Matriliny, Rituals, and Religions: The 1985 Ndembu -- 10. Maps -- 11. Abridged Genealogy of the Kahona Family
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"The scene is Zambia in 1985. A patient has been invaded by the tooth of a dead hunter, a spirit object which causes her much pain. Only a drum ritual can cure it. The company starts to sing and drum, and when at last the dramatic climax breaks, the anthropologist sees a six-inch blob--a kind of plasma or gray spherical ghost--emerging from the patient's back." "Experiencing Ritual is Edith Turner's account of how she sighted a spirit form while participating in the Ihamba ritual of the Ndembu. Turner's experience with the Ndembu is extensive; from 1951 to 1954 she and her husband, the preeminent anthropologist Victor Turner, conducted fieldwork among them. This fieldwork formed the basis for Victor Turner's highly influential work, The Drums of Affliction. In that study, Victor Turner analyzed the Ihamba in terms of its social and psychological functions, but dismissed the Ndembu view that the real context of the Ihamba is spiritual." "When Edith Turner returned to the Ndembu in 1985, she learned what she and Victor did not learn during their early fieldwork--how to understand the Ihamba in Ndembu terms. Through her richly detailed analysis of the ritual and her willingness to make the spirit central to her analysis, she presents a view not common in anthropological writings--the view of millions of Africans--that ritual is the harnessing of spiritual power." "This provocative and challenging work will be of interest to students and scholars of anthropology, African studies, and religious studies."--BOOK JACKET.