African Divination Systems: Ways of KnowingPhilip M. Peek Georgetown University Press, 1991 - 230 pages The essays in this collection provide a very useful overview of both the diversity of African divination systems and of recent approaches to their study. The introduction critically reviews the preoccupations of earlier students of African divination. The essays that follow are divided into five sections that explore, in turn, the identity of the diviner; comparative and historical issues; the central role of divination in the articulation of cultural ideas, norms, and values within society; the making of knowledge through the divinatory process; and the integration of normal and nonnormal ways of knowing within the divination process. Although all of the essays provide rich ethnographic data, the essays in the fourth and fifth section are the most interesting from a theoretical perspective. They provide the clearest critique of previous positivist approaches to divination, which focus on the outcomes of the divinatory process while failing to appreciate the meanings and truths that inhere to, and are articulated by, the process itself. Of particular interest are the facinating articles by Rosalind Shaw and Philip Peek. Highly recommended for advanced undergraduates. |
Contents
The Study of Divination Present and Past | 1 |
Becoming a Diviner | 23 |
The Initiation of a Zulu Diviner | 27 |
The Search for Knowledge | 37 |
Nilotic Cosmology and the Divination of Atuot Philosophy | 41 |
The Antemoro Case and the Diffusion of Divination | 53 |
Cultural Systems within Divination Systems | 69 |
Diviners as Alienists and Annunciators among the Batammaliba of Togo | 73 |
Divination Epistemology and Truth | 133 |
Epistemological Aspects of Temne Divination | 137 |
Knowledge and Power in Nyole Divination | 153 |
Simultaneity and Sequencing in the Oracular Speech of Kenyan Diviners | 173 |
Toward a New Approach to Divination | 191 |
NonNormal Modes of Cognition | 193 |
Afterword | 213 |
Contributors | 223 |
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Common terms and phrases
adviser afflicted African divination African Systems Amatongo an-bere ancestors animal Antemoro Anthropology Arabic associated Atuot Azande Batammaliba behavior bridewealth Burkina Faso Callaway causes child cognitive consultant context cult cultural curse death Devisch Dinka divination session divination systems divination's divinatory diviner and client diviner's Dogon dream essay Evans-Pritchard forest Giriama gourd rattles human hunters illness individual initiation interpretation inyanga Itongo kill knowledge lamuli Lienhardt Lobi London Lugbara Madagascar Malagasy mbolongo means medicines Mediumship metaphoric misfortune Ndembu Nuer Nyole Nyole divination ombiasy oracle oracular Oxford Pagibeti Pale Fox pattern person poison oracle problem questions reference relations revealed ritual role Rosalind Shaw sacrifice semantics sickness sikidy social society sorcery speak spirit possession suggests Suuta's Swahili symbolic Temne thila thought tiet tion tradition truth University Press uterine village vintana Whyte witchcraft women Yaka Yaka diviner Yoruba Zande Zulu ㅁㅁ