What are the social implications of being possessed by spirits?

Spirit possession, although a phenomenon neither unique nor restricted to Africa, has nonetheless become
a focus of and a catchphrase in African studies. While the belief in the existence of spirits can be construed as
intrinsic to the forms of spirituality and religions traditional to African cultures (along with beliefs such as
witchcraft and shamanism), and even today is a widely accepted facet of daily life, the being possessed by spirits
and being involved in spirit possession cults are active endeavours, culturally situated, with social implications,
distinct from passive belief. Ethnographic examinations and anthropological analyses ave attempted to locate spirit
possession in African cultures. As with many such phenomenons, generalization across the entirety of Africa can
threaten understanding, obscuring specificities and assuming the need for an universal explanation; various forms
exist across the continent, each socio-culturally and temporally specific, and have changed throughout time. Not
only have many possession traditions have spread (with migration and slavery) across regions and been adopted or
perhaps rephrased into local conceptions, but all such practices seems to share several recurrent elements: the
majority of spirit possession seems to primarily involve women (as participants in the surrounding rituals and even
more predominantly as those possessed), often resolves with negotiation (rather than exorcism) of spirits, and has
much to do with social structure in terms of identity, definition by contradistinction, public entertainment,
catharsis and therapy.
“Spirit possession commonly refers to the hold exerted over a human being by external forces or entities
more powerful than she. These forces may be ancestors or divinities, ghosts of foreign origin, or entities both
ontologically and ethnically alien.” (Boddy 1994, 407) Possession refers both to lifelong “symptoms” of the afflicted
and the trances into which they fall and through which they communicate with their spirits: “acting” out the roles
of the spirits by whom they are possessed. Any variety of illnesses can be ascribed to spirit possession – from what
the Western world would term psychological or neurotic to those which are more generally physical. (Raybeck
1989) After “diagnosis” a ritual to draw out, identify, and negotiate with the spirit is undertaken by a spirit
possession “cult”, into which the individual is usually initiated. (Peters 1980) “Possession.... is... an integration of
spirit and matter, force or power and corporeal reality, in a cosmos where the boundaries between an individual
and her environment are acknowledged to be permeable, flexibly drawn, or at least negotiable.” (Boddy 1994, 407)
Public affirmation resulting from a woman's participation in spirit possession – and her initiation ritual – is
often the focus of analysis, interpreting the phenomenon as a means for personal and cultural confirmation, much
as in the demonstration of a rite of passage, by a “peripheral” method. (Sered 1994, 488) The leading explanation
of spirit possession cults can be traced largely to Lewis' (1966) theory of peripherality and his idea of central and
peripheral cults – central cults reinforcing the mainstream social values and peripheral cults serving to empower,
or at least temporarily enable, the socially disenfranchised. Women's involvement in spirit cults as “compensation
for their exclusion and lack of authority in other spheres” (310). Lewis felt that women could “exert mystical
pressures upon their superiors in circumstances of deprivation and frustration when few other sanctions are
available to them” (318) and that the exclusion of women, a contradiction of social values in which fertility is often
central, is in some ways dealt with by spirit possession (321). Lewis' elaboration of the social mechanism which
spirit possession cults seem to embody has been criticized for, among other issues, de-emphasizing the role of
intra-gender conflict, as between co-wives, and for imposing an ethnocentric view of women's deprivation by
assuming that “women in 'male-dominated' societies have an ethnographer's view of their society, internalise it,
get disturbed by it, and protest by succumbing to spirits” (Wilson 1967, 372). However, studies following continue
to highlight the elements of social implication that he identified: spirit possession as a means – among a dearth of
options – for self-expression and the acceptance of social roles and, primarily, a way of classifying, explaining, and
treating illness (Lewis 1966, 321).
Possession by spirits is a “public performance by women during which men, particularly their husbands,
bestow on them a mark of favour” (Wilson 1967, 374). This is particularly true of the beliefs and rituals surrounding
the Zar cult. Primarily practised in Arabic-influenced Muslim regions, the Zar cult has been so frequently
referenced and studied as to become representative of African spirit possession in general. Boddy (1988) detailed
its practice in the Sudanese village of Hofriyat, which she characterized as being focused on the idiom of
“interiority” as a “general organizing principle and aesthetic standard” (5). Women are “made virgins” by Pharonic
circumcision (the excision of the labia and clitoris and near complete infabulation) which enables them to bear
“legitimate” children (Boddy 1988, 6); the sexes are defined in opposition, men concerned with the external and
exposed, women controlled by their carnal natures and less rational and wise than men (Boddy 1988, 5). Women's
lives are largely concentrated on their fertility and on maintaining their segregation. “Forever a jural minor” (Boddy
1988, 9) in Sudanese society a woman has few acceptable forms of expression; emotional displays are considered
vulgar. While women enact rites regarding circumcision, marriage, and childbirth, (Constantinides 1985, 687) they
are excluded from daily religion: illiterate, they cannot read the Qu'ran and cannot enter mosques – thereby, they
are not expected to be familiar with liturgy and doctrine and are, in a sense, less constrained by it as they are
assumed to be too weak to uphold and maintain it own their own (Boddy 1988, 9). They are possessed due to their
frailty (Boddy 1988, 10). Zar possession is considered to be both a symptom and a cause of women's illnesses, as
Zar are attracted to those who are stressed or ill, but considered capable of bringing on the illness and all of its
symptoms. Zar possession is considered a lifelong and incurable, although manageable, condition. (Boddy 1988,
11) After diagnosis, women are induced into a trance in which they accept and accommodate their spirits; the
spirits identify themselves and demand certain, often expensive and characteristically feminine, gifts. (Boddy 1988,
12) Zar are hedonistic, they enter humans to be entertained. (Boddy 1988, 11) The spirits that possess the women
of Hofriyat are foreign: examples of all the societies with which the Hofriyat have come into contact within the last
few centuries; they are believed to subvert local values whilst simultaneously being attracted to them. The Zar rite
is both a cure and a party. (Boddy 1988, 12)
Boddy notes that, considering the nature of its initial symptoms, it is tempting to consider possession as an
idiom for neurosis – but this does not explain the entirety of the cases nor the social ramifications. In addition to
providing an explanation and an excuse for behaviours that do not otherwise mesh with the society's world view,
and serving as a means to express the dissonance between that which a woman may experience and that which
she is expected to experience. (1988, 14) Boddy addresses the issue of self-conceptualization; identity as a process
of interaction with the world. Spirit possession, she posits, is an opportunity for women to view themselves from
an outside (or, at least what they would perceive to be an outside) perspective – as Zar spirits are quintessentially
foreign, so are the behaviours which they induce. (1988, 22) “Possession trance encourages reflection, a limited
dismantling of the taken-for-granted world, enabling the possessed, in its aftermath, to see her life in a very
different light” (Boddy 1988, 20) and by accepting the diagnosis of possession, a woman dissociates from those
elements of herself which are in conflict with social expectation, turning the internal contradiction into an external,
public, and communal confrontation. “The Zar rite is a cultural therapy; its curative powers derive less from a
virtual experience of trance than from the entire possession context that renders it, and countless other
experiences, meaningful.” (Boddy 1988, 12) Zar possession can be considered a dialogue regarding a woman's
understanding of herself, that takes place via trance and her behaviours during trance – which she is not supposed
to remember; true trances being amnesiac (Peters 1980, 402) – which are reported to her afterwards by those who
observed them. The recurrence of trance and continuing nature of possession, as women continue to be involved
in the cult and to manifest their spirits as other women are diagnosed, presents this as an ongoing situation.
That possession is an attractive to the sufferer relates not only to the fact that it explains their “illness” in a
manner for which they are not responsible, but also to the role of the cult and the “support group” of women that
they gain by entering it (Constantinides 1985, 688). Zar rituals are generally held in the home of the afflicted and
involve the gathering of all female kin – including the cult leader, who is often female. The leaders, although
referred to by various names, are often the most powerful and independent women in the village or region, with
strength and prestige – and a great deal more freedom than is the norm, as they are allowed to visit homes of
strangers and to receive large numbers of strangers into their own homes. Further, they often arbitrate disputes
and are turned to for advice.(Constantinides 1985, 690) Despite these opportunities for female “advancement”
and the general challenge which it presents, most scholars feel that, overall, the Zar cult serves to maintain the
status quo rather than to challenge it. Sered (1994) discusses the role of “sisterhood” and women's religious
groups, building a model in which she distinguishes those for “Temporary and Individual Interests” (where she
places the Zar cult) and those which are “Ongoing and Collective Interests”; although using different criteria than
Lewis' model of central and peripheral cults, many of the same implications apply – the Peripheral or Temporary
groups serving to resign its members to a less than ideal situation whereas the Central or Ongoing groups more
actively support, enable, and even change its members' lives. Perhaps the most significant similarity is that in
neither model are the groups mutually exclusive, representing a continuum as opposed to a binary. While Sered
considers the Zar cult Temporary, she cites Boddy in noting that as it strengthens matrilinieal bonds and ideology,
it strengthens the women's power base in the community (4).
The Pepo cult is described by Giles (1987) as a type of syncretic cult common throughout the Islamic world
and sub-Saharan Africa in particular (234). Like Zar and other spirit possession cults, it is associated primarily with
women, and secondarily with “lower class members of stratified societies” (234). Detailing examples from the
Swahili coast, in which various localized cults are largely autonomous and focused around the cult leaders (239)
and having often assimilated local traditions – such as the belief, particularly strong in Pemba, of the spirits as
guardians of the community, perhaps referencing previous pre-Islamic religious practices (247). Spirits may be
inherited or sent by witchcraft and initially manifest through illness or misfortune. Although many spirits are
indeed exorcised, some are deemed “useful” and appeased – generally through sacrifices and material gifts. The
more “possessive” of possessing spirits “demand” that their hosts be initiated into the cult, in which “the human
may agree to become the regular mount of the spirit” (241) and some spirits demand that their host be continually
initiated to higher ranks within the cult – requiring more ritual and, of course, more fees. Giles strongly objects to
the characterization of cult members as “marginal” to Swahili society. Although a minority of the population is
involved in cult activity or initiated, they come from all backgrounds and socio-economic levels, including those
with higher education and whom have lived abroad. Indeed, the majority of the population posits “potential”
members with the belief being, if not universal, at least considerably more widespread than the practice, and far
more so than may be apparent. (242) Many who do not attend ceremonies say they are afraid of “catching” a spirit
at a ceremony – and many cult members report first being possessed as spectators. (246) Giles agrees with
Constantinides and others in noting the role that the cult serves in “providing members with a close-knit group of
'family' for support in a heterogeneous and complex social setting, especially in urban areas” (247). Cult-
relationships are often expressed in kinship-terms: parent-child relationships between both the cult leaders and
members and an initiate and her appointed mentor, and the division of the cult into generations with those
initiated at the same time considered siblings. Different cults are organized around different spirits and many
people are members of more than one. (248) While women constitute a surprising involvement in cult activity,
relative to the rest of Swahili life, the Pepo cults are not as female-dominated as the Zar cult; women are the
majority of members, but cult leaders are equally male and female; cult activity is significant, however, as one of
the few realms of Swahili life in which men and women come together as equals (248).
The spirit possession cult practised by the Oyo-Yoruba is a prime example of syncretism. The Oyo-Yoruba
traditionally “since the farthest reaches of collective memory” (Matory 1994, 496) recognized the existence of a
high god and a pantheon of spirits, or orisa, who frequently possessed, or “mounted” the initiated priests, referred
to as “brides”. This belief system was central to their understanding of their feudal system and political structures:
the possession priests made up the majority of bureaucrats and functionaries and represented the king's power
and authority by displaying their subservience to him, and symbolizing his subservience to the gods (Matory 1994,
499) While the Oyo-Yoruba high god was amalgamated with Allah, after Islam became predominant, and fitted into
the new narrative, the priesthood, or the spirit possession cult, became a political focus for resistance to
colonisation and today continues to serve mainly as a means for the new urban population to relate to their in the
villages and the villages themselves. Participation in orisa rites identifies one with a village – and gives one the right
to make claims regarding inheritance, property, and habitation: unwelcome female divorcees, for example, may
turn to the possession cult in order to legitimize their return to their natal home (500) and participation is
necessary to claim hereditary titles (499) by demonstrating one's “ultimate commitment” to the village (500). Orisa
possession had traditionally been wrapped in gendered metaphor and priestesses had carried authority within the
cult; oppression of the “pagan” activity has resulted in the continued and increased oppression of female authority
and matrilineal inheritance (503).
“Spirit assertions of difference or identity are metastatements: coded mora and political acts of the
humans they possess, derived from thinking about one's relationships to others by thinking through the Other writ
large.” (Boddy 1994, 423) Spirit possession – being possessed, accepting the possession, and enacting it – is a way
of locating oneself within the community and tradition. Spirit possession cults, as extended families, build
relationships and support networks. It ties contemporary Africans to the ancestor worship and traditions of their
past. It can initially be a communication of confusion or dissatisfaction, and can then serve to accommodate and
resign one to a certain social position – as many suggest of the Zar cult – or to change one's position as women are
empowered through leadership in the cults. Although the social implications are many, as spirit possession is an
ongoing dynamic, much of spirit possession cults are concerned with identity and relationship: the questioning of
such and the search for – within social and communal bounds. In many African societies to be possessed is to
disclose an insecurity, inadequacy, or fault – and to ask for the community's help in addressing and curing it. Spirit
possession, perhaps fundamentally, implies the need for social acceptance and understanding.

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