"Ordinary Household Chores": Ritual and Power in a 19th-Century Swahili Women's Spirit Possession Cult

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact

The Archaeology of Slavery

“…Spirit possession rituals were not uncommon during the nineteenth-century on Zanzibar (Alpers 1984;Craster 1913), although they are declining today, increasingly challenged in relation to Islamic orthodoxy (Giles 1995, p. 92;Larsen 1998). During the nineteenth-century, missionaries were doubly flummoxed by spirit possession, adding to their regular failure to understand Zanzibari society.…”

Queens, Prostitutes and Peasants: Historical Perspectives on African Women, 1971–1986

“…The best-known use of mission records for women's history is probably Wright's reproduction of mission women's autobiographies in her Women in Peril (1984). (See also Wright 1983a andAlpers 1983.) Robertson also used women's personal testimonies effectively when she interwove them between chapters in Sharing the Same Bowl (1984; see also Robertson 1983).…”

“…A large number of the best-known male historians have written one or more articles specifically focusing on aspects of women's history. (See, for example, Alpers 1983 and1984a;Klein 1983;Crummey 1982;Mandala 1984;Chanock 1982;Thornton 1983;Spaulding 1982;Morrow 1986l.…”

Possession cults on the Swahili coast: a re-examination of theories of marginality

“…31 Also referred to as waganga wa ngonta ('waganga of the dance/drum') or waganga via kichwa ('waganga of the head', since spirit possession is seen as taking place in the head). , and Strobel, 1976, as well as Caplan, 1975, 1982and Alpers's (1984 34 Gray (1980) reports that the traditional bull-baiting ceremonies were held during the dry season to bring rain needed for crop planting.…”