Religious mobility and body language in Kubandwa possession cults

Abstract

Spirit possession was first observed by European travellers in the second half of the nineteenth century, and was later studied by numerous authors during the twentieth century. This paper reflects on the trans-national dimension of the practice, analysing examples of Kubandwa rituals from various places and periods: Kubandwa tends to cross linguistic, political and temporal frontiers, reappearing in different forms, often having been renovated but still clearly recognisable. Despite the variety of the spirits – forming a dynamic pantheon which is continuously increasing – the ritual, based on the mechanism of spirit possession and a specific body language, tends to remain constant throughout the region. While the discourse of ethnicity in the Great Lakes region has come to underline political divisions and separations, this religious and healing tradition can be presented as an alternative cultural discourse of trans-nationality and multi-ethnicity.

Keywords:

• Kubandwa
• spirit possession
• Great Lakes Africa
• religious mobility
• body language
• healing

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was carried out with the support of the Italian Ethnological Mission in Equatorial Africa (Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs). The final version has been written thanks to a Visiting Fellowship kindly granted by the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University, Canberra. I am indebted to Stanley Baluku, Serena Facci, Alexandra Kirk, Henri Médard, Sylvia Nannyonga, Françoise Nordmann and Shane Doyle, who read and commented on earlier versions of this work.

Notes

1. This song, performed by Rwezaura Alfred Abdullakhifu (Mabale village, Kilimilire, April 2, 1994), speaks of Mugasha, the spirit of Lake Victoria.

2. I refer particularly to Beattie, “Initiation to the Cwezi Spirit Possession”; “Group Aspects of the Nyoro Spirit Mediumship”; “Consulting a Diviner”; “Spirit Mediumship in Bunyoro”; “Spirit Mediumship as Theatre”; “Interlacustrine Bantu Religion.”

3. The literature on different ethnic expressions of Kubandwa is wide. Among others, see Arnoux, “Le culte de la société secrète des Imandwa”; Bamunoba, “The Cult of Spirits in Ankole”; Barancira, Possession par les esprit; Bizimana, “Le language des Immandwa”; Bjerke, Religion and Misfortune; Byarunhanga, Religion in Bunyoro; Cohen, “The Cwezi cult”; Chrétien, “L'empire de Bacwezi”; Hansen, “The Colonial Control of Spirit Cults”; Kagame, “L'historicité de Lyangombe”; Kaggwa and Welbourn, “Lubaale Initiation in Buganda”; Rygby, “Prophets, Diviners, and Prophetism”; Rodegem, “La motivation du culte initiatique au Burundi”; Wrigley, “Some Thoughts about the Abacwezi”; Zuure, Croyances et pratiques religieuses des Barundi.

4. De Heusch, Le Rwanda et la civilisation interlacustre.

5. Buchanan, “The Kitara Complex.”

6. Berger, Religion and Resistance.

7. Tantala, “The Early History of Kitara.”

8. Schoenbrun, “Conjuring the Modern in Africa.”

9. I have also adopted a regional approach in Pennacini, Kubandwa. It was only by chance that I chose this perspective at the time: the 1993 Burundi crisis, where I had initially started my research, forced me to move to Buhaya (Tanzania), where I could study a different form of Kubandwa, although similar in many aspects; later I continued to study spirit possession in Buganda and more recently in the Rwenzori area.

10. I cannot quote here the abundant literature which recounts this debate, recently traced back by Doyle, “The Cwezi–Kubandwa Debate.”

11. Geertz, Interpretation.

12. A table confronting religious terms in 16 interlacustrine languages is provided in Pennacini, Kubandwa, 62.

13. Guthrie, Comparative Bantu, vol. 3, 28.

14. Byaruhanga, Religion in Bunyoro, 44.

15. Kopytoff, The African Frontier.

16. Redkal, “Cross-Cultural Healing.”

17. Redkal, “Cross-Cultural Healing.”, 458.

18. Redkal, “Cross-Cultural Healing.”

19. Grant, A Walk Across Africa, 292.

20. Beattie, “Group Aspects,” 20; Chrétien, “L'empire des Bacwezi,” 1342.

21. Schweinfurth et al., Emin Pasha in Central Africa.

22. Beattie, “Group Aspects,” 20.

23. Beattie, “Consulting a Diviner in Bunyoro” 202–17; “Consulting a Nyoro Diviner” 56–65.

24. Hoesing, “Kubandwa: Theory and Historiography.”

25. Mair, An African People.

26. Mair, An African People., 266.

27. Mair, An African People., 269.

28. The interpretation of spirit possession as a form of theatre is a classic one, due to the works of Leiris, “La possession,” and of Métraux, “La comedie rituelle dans la possession.”

29. Stoller, Embodying Colonial Memories, 7.

30. Music and dance represent the most prominent aesthetic experiences within what De Heusch has called the “Interlacustrine Civilisation” (Le Rwanda et la civilisation interlacustre).

31. Mauss, Les techiniques du corps.

32. Bourdieu, Esquisse d'une theorie de la pratique.

33. Spirits are sometime called omuyaga, a word meaning “wind” in different interlacustrine languages. This semantic use recalls the Latin word spiritus, which keeps both the meanings of “spirit” and “breath of air or wind” (see Beattie, “Group Aspects,” 11).

34. This condition, a sort of collective trance, is described by Emile Durkheim as a religious “effervescence,” one of the most elementary forms of religious life, with reference to Australian Aboriginal rituals: Durkheim, Les formes elementaires de la vie religieuse.

35. Facci, “Akazehe del Burundi.”

36. To do so, women normally have to renounce their reproductive power, avoiding pregnancy. On gender issues in Kubandwa see Berger, “Fertility as Power”; Pennacini, “Women in Kubandwa.”

37. Turner, The Ritual Process.

38. Jackson, “Knowledge of the Body,” 334.

39. De Heusch, La transe, 25.

40. A theatrical genre with religious subject, developed in Italy during the Middle Ages.

41. Beattie, “Group Aspects,” 29–30.

42. Ritual filmed in Bwera (Kasese district) during the summer of 2005.

43. Schmidt, Historic Archaeology in Africa.

44. The Scientific name of the tree is Pterygota mildbraedii.

45. Nakayima was a medium in charge of the Mubende tree in the 1930s. Some specimens collected in this period on the hill are kept in the Uganda Museum. Apparently the memory of the priestess has transformed her into a spirit – as is normal in the Kubandwa ontology of transformations – to whom now an important cult is dedicated.

46. Interviews collected at Mubende hill in August 2007.

47. Aristotle, Poetics.

48. That is why I have always believed that to study and understand Kubandwa in a form which is consistent with its peculiar logic, a visual methodology is very important. I have systematically filmed Kubandwa rituals in the different contexts where I could observe them (Burundi, Kagera region, Buganda, Rwenzori). Some extracts of Ganda rituals were included in my last documentary film, Kampala Babel, completed in 2008.

49. See Pennacini, Kubandwa.

50. Jackson, “Knowledge of the Body”; Lowen, The Language of the Body.

51. Jackson, “Knowledge of the Body,” 338.

52. See Doyle, “The Cwezi–Kubandwa Debate.”

53. Freedman, Nyabingi.

54. Pennacini, “The Rwenzori Ethnic Puzzle,” 85–6.