Women's Preponderance in Possession Cults: The Calcium‐Deficiency Hypothesis Extended

Abstract

diucrtation (Haward 1964) w~" T h e C h a t DMCC &&onin S a h t c h m a n . Canada," for which she did field m a r c h among the PI& C m and Dakota in that province. The Northem P l a h hsl bem her area of primary raeuch. both ethnographic (Cm, Dakota, Blackfoot. Saulteau) and archaeological (Francoh' H o w . a contact-period fur trade p t ; the M m e Mountain "medicine wheel"; biaon driva); much of her fieldwork h a been in collaboration with her huband, Th~mpl F. Kehoe. Her She served on the board of governon of the latter.Her primary profaional activity WM in an editorial businem that #he cstabluhed and ran, in which she called henelf a wordsmith. She w e d academic. buineu, and p v e mmmt profemiondo in editing and pobhing manusctipu of variolu types. She was a h actin in conununity &ah, plnicularly the women's mowmmt. In all this time. ihe continued a red interat in anthropology, especially in the are-of European anthropology; the V i n l p and the mgsl; and the role of the nonpemn in diffrrent laietics.Dody Ginti died on 6 Febmary 1981 of cancer.Copyright @ 1981 by the American Anthropological Association THE PREPONDERANCE OF WOMEN in possession cults may be causally associated with sumptuary rules and economic patterns that limit women's access to adequately balanced nutrition, particularly the nutritional needs of pregnant and lactating women. This proposal is based on two hypotheses: (1) if individuals' intake of vitamins and minerals necessary for normal metabolism is insufficient over a prolonged period, then they will develop symptoms of deficiency; and (2) if deficiency symptoms are endemic in a class of a population, then these symptoms will be culturally recognized and labeled. One label, we suggest, for nutritional deficiency symptoms common in women in many societies of Eurasia, Africa, and their transoceanic colonies is "spirit possession." Two kinds of explanations dominate the anthropological literature on spirit possession: one is psychiatrically oriented, claiming that such a condition is evidence of psychological disturbance; the other is quasi-political, claiming that such conditions are really roles performed by overtly powerless people to gain otherwise unobtainable goods or attention. This literature assumes that low status-that of women and that of lower-class men in relation to upper-class male controllers of power and wealth-in itself engenders frustrations that actuate such states of dissociation among low-status individuals. These explanations propose that personating a spirit relieves such frustrations. Cynical anthropologists further allege relief is achieved by constraining those in power to gratify the wishes of the deprived. Both explanations are handicapped by dependence upon inferences about unconscious processes or about unacknowledged deception.Our suggested explanation for women's preponderance in spirit possession groups derives from demonstrable relationships between diet and behavior. There is a strong correlation between populations subsisting upon diets poor in calc...

Toward More Holistic Explanations: Cross-Cultural Research and Cross-Level Analysis

“…In an earlier article (Raybeck et al, 1989), coauthors and I build on the contribution of Kehoe and Giletti (1981), although we disagree with a portion of their model. We accept the probable influence of calcium levels on the manifestation of certain possession symptoms but argue that stress, with its attendant changes in epinephrine and glucocorticoid levels, significantly reduces the body's ability to retain calcium irrespective of diet.…”

“…TESTABILITY, PROCESS, NEW PERCEPTIONS, AND THE CASE FOR CALCIUM DEFICIENCY The preponderance of women as patients in curing ceremonies is a phenomenon that has been noted by a variety of observers (Kehoe & Giletti, 1981;Lewis, 1975;Messing, 1958;Raybeck, 1974). Kehoe and Giletti have argued that this pattern is best explained by a variety of dietary inadequacies, particularly by a deficiency of calcium resulting in tetany, convulsions, hallucinations, and other disorders that could easily foster a belief that such individuals are possessed.…”

Optimizing Energy - The Epistemology of Primitive Economic Man

“…There is a relatively large, anthropologically-oriented literature that has been published on human nutrition over the past 75 years (e.g., Arnott, 1976;Eaton et al, 1988;Harding and Teleki, 1981;Harris and Ross, 1987;Jenike, 2001;Kehoe and Giletti, 1981;Newman, 1962;Quin, 1959;Richards, 1932;Schwarcz and Shoeninger, 1991;Stini, 1971;Underwood, 1975;Vayda, 1970;Wing and Brown, 1979). In addition, the American Anthropological Association incorporated a human nutrition interest group in 1974 called the Council on Nutritional Anthropology, and since 2004 is known as the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (American Anthropological Association, 2006).…”

Women, Stress, and Participation in Possession Cults: A Reexamination of the Calcium Deficiency Hypothesis

“…Indeed, we maintain that the stress model, which emphasizes the role of physiological, psychological, and sociocultural variables, can better account for many of the ethnographic examples cited by Kehoe and Giletti than can their own explanations.he preponderance of women as patients in possession cults and their susceptibility to trance states have been noted by a variety of researchers. Ex-T planations for these phenomena are varied and range from arguments concerning sociogenic factors (such as political powerlessness [e.g., Lewis 1971]), to psychological disturbance and stress (e.g., Messing 1958; Raybeck 1974), to physiological models emphasizing the importance of diet and calcium levels (e.g., Kehoe and Giletti 1981). As in most interpretive disputes within anthropology, there has been a tendency for proponents of each position to deemphasize or even denigrate the utility of alternative explanations.…”

“…In this article, we focus on the contribution that the physiological level may make to our understanding of the susceptivity of women to trance states across cultures. However, we do so by employing psychological and physiological variables to link major independent and dependent variables that are sociocultural.The stimulus for this article was provided by Kehoe and Giletti (1981), who argue that a deficiency of dietary calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D may be responsible for behaviors such as convulsions and cognitive disorganization, which may be identified as symptoms of possession and associated with trance 139 140 MEDICAL ANTHROFQLOGY QUARTERLY…”