Mashawe

Mashawe , also Mashave, Mashabe (plural, "ghosts"; singular Shawe ), denotes a cult of possession among various ethnic groups in the south and east of Zambia and in the north of Zimbabwe , the spirits that are responsible for the obsession and the people affected.

distribution

In several Bantu languages of southern Africa, possessive spirits and the diseases for which they are held responsible are called Mashawe . The cult has its origin with the Shona in northern Zimbabwe, where the spirits are called Mashawe or Midzimu . The history of the cult is unclear, it is likely to be relatively young. At least from the 19th century, the Mashawe cult was widespread with its center among the Tonga in southern Zambia and under this term also there among the Nsenga and from Zimbabwe on the way through Mozambique in eastern Zambia among the Chewa . Other possessive spirits in Zambia are called Chimbandu with the Ovimbundu of Angola , Vimbuza with the Tumbuka , Kayongo with the Luvale in western Zambia and Macoba and Kasheba with the Kaonde in the northwest. During the First World War, Tonga adopted the cult of possession under the derived name masabe .

Obsession cults were widespread in sub-Saharan Africa until the early 20th century. They resisted Christian proselytizing for a long time and still exist in areas where traditional African religions predominate. In African popular Islam, similar, regionally different obsession cults are practiced and often tolerated as a marginal social phenomenon. They fulfill a defined function within the superordinate new faith. This includes the Bori - and the Dodo -Kult in Nigeria, Pepo in Tanzania , the Tsar - cult in Sudan and Egypt and Morocco in the cult qandisa and Derdeba - ceremony. In general, cults of obsession are not locally limited; the cults of diverse spirits with no local reference were able to spread widely along trade routes and through labor migration in the 19th century.

context

All the spirits feared under the various names have in common that they are associated with strangers, they come from more distant peoples or are of European origin. Shawe is a wandering ghost, a ghost of a stranger who died far from home and was therefore not given an appropriate (and necessary) burial ritual. So the spirit looks for a resting place and finds it in a person who is strange to it. It can also be the spirit of an animal. The mind usually has special abilities such as hunting or healing that it already possessed in the material world. The Shawe spirit afflicts women, men and children, other possessive spirits in sub-Saharan Africa predominantly afflict women (practically only women are afflicted by the Tsar spirit in Sudan). One of the causes is assumed to be the lower social position of women in the respective societies. Membership in the groups that band together for the obsession rituals means a socially recognized way for those affected to gain prestige.

The alien mind is seen as the cause of physical suffering or mental confusion. In illness, the person wages conflict with society. An outsider may recognize hysteria or psychosomatic illness . As the first sign of the disease, the patient's legs may swell, and he involuntarily begins to sing Mashawe songs in his sleep at night.

A concept of illness that understands suffering as something that comes from outside - sent by God or an evil spirit, penetrates into and takes possession of a single person, is called affective. This differentiates Mashawe from Nyau , a mask society widespread in central southern Africa , to which a larger group of initiates belong. The masks used at Nyau ( zirombo, "wild animals") represent hyenas, crocodiles, ospreys, giants, missionaries or politicians. The imagery created is similar to that of the Mashawe cult.

The cure does not consist in performing an exorcism ; the mind should not be driven out, but addressed and stimulated to a gentle, cooperative behavior. The patient should be able to step out of his marginalized position and experience self-confidence in the group. The first point of contact and at the beginning of the healing ritual its leader is the Nganga. The traditional healer is mostly only credited with knowledge of herbal medicine that is considered relatively easy to learn. In the countryside, the Nganga enjoy the necessary reputation as spirit healers, because there their work is inherited within the family.

Other types of spirits that have an influence and create a local identity are guardian spirits of nature ( Mhondoro with the Shona), ancestral spirits ( Mudzimu with Shona and Tonga), the healing spirits possessed by the Ngangas, and evil spirits who practice witchcraft.

Course of the ritual

Relatives take the patient to the Nganga, where under his leadership a specially trained female choir sings songs to help establish the diagnosis. If the patient is actually ill, he will show signs of deep emotion and will begin to cry. After this disease determination has been completed, traditional beer ( chibuku, made from corn or millet) is brewed in preparation for the ritual healing . A large orchestra with drums is invited. For the ritual, the mistress choir and the orchestra are positioned opposite each other, the space in the middle is kept free for the dance. The village audience spreads out around the outside, the specially dressed patient sits in front of the choir. The patient reacts emotionally to the diagnosis singing of the choir that follows. He climbs into a scream, runs away and is pursued to find out the goal of his escape, whereby the spirit can be determined.

There are at least three different types of spirits that manifest themselves in different animal forms. If the patient walks towards the river, it is a serpentine spirit (asungoni), if it disappears into the bush and wants to hide, the spirit is a lion. If he tries to climb a tree, it speaks for the monkey type (akolwe). Before the patient has reached their destination, they will be captured as the diagnosis is now clear. Should he reach his goal, he would be rid of the spirit, but it would come back sooner and stronger. Therefore, the obsessed is brought back to the square and encouraged to dance. According to the type of spirit found, other songs accompanied by the orchestra are now performed. As long as the patient is dancing, the audience is not allowed to make any noise, he himself must also behave strictly according to the rules. Some Mashawe victims are said to have perished because they could not be freed. The spirit has completely taken over the dancer, who stomps rhythmically with rattling at the ankles, and directs his movements. The nganga remains in the background throughout the ritual.

Ritual control of the evil demon can lead to healing. The one possessed by the spirit has become a mediator between the human world and the world beyond , right up to old age . The spirit remains in him and reports when he sees reason to make revelations to his people, which the latter announces by spontaneously singing Mashawe songs. Then another Mashawe ritual is held, which can last from evening until the early hours of the morning.

Archbishop Milingo influence

The mediators between the two worlds fulfilled the religious function of maintaining the position of man within the cosmogonic order. This mythological balance waned during colonial times and after independence. Since their role as mediators of the spirit has diminished, women in particular are increasingly socially disadvantaged. The theory that women in Zambia have become more obsessive since the 1960s because of this disadvantage is not widely accepted.

Traditional healers are popular for cultural reasons and because western medicine is too expensive and often not available for the poorer sections of the population. The organization of a Mashawe ritual also costs money and is therefore often neglected, although the need for spiritual healers is great, since in the modern forms of Mashawe since the middle of the 20th century, in principle every disease can be associated with a spirit. In contrast, the spiritual offers of Christian mission are free. A certain revival of the cult of possession has been registered in Zambia since the 1960s.

In the person of Emmanuel Milingo , the Catholic Church was in direct competition with traditional Mashawe healers in the treatment of obsession. The cleric of the Nguni people, ordained Archbishop of Lusaka in 1969 , recognized in April 1973 that he had healing powers. Since that time he tried to take on a role similar to that of Jesus as a healer under the influence of a charismatic renewal movement in his office. He assigned Jesus the quality of the mythological ancestor of the respective communities and declared the three different types of spirits to be a single evil spirit, as the opponent of the divine to be fought. He made this demon responsible for illness, misfortune or the social disadvantage of the person concerned. At Milingo, the patients were stylized in a reinterpretation of the cult of possession as media of the Holy Spirit and the exorcism practiced by him as an act of liberation. The medium as the passive vessel for the mind should become an active participant in the process. With great crowds and recognized as a healer because of his ecclesiastical authority, Milingo mainly carried out the casting out of demons from women who were possessed by spirits and who had fallen into a trance. In his beliefs, Milingo identified himself more with African ideas than with Roman Catholic teaching. From the Second Vatican Council he drew the conclusion that everyone should experience God in his own way. In 1974 Milingo received a written request from the Vatican to end his exorcism, in 1982 he was ordered back to Rome and deposed as archbishop.

The evaluation of 250 of a far larger number of letters addressed to Milingo in 1979 and 1980 showed that the letter writers, who came from all walks of life, actually believed themselves to be afflicted by an evil spirit and hoped for a cure from it. They mostly described their complaints rather vaguely as stomach pain, shortness of breath or swollen feet. Milingo's popularity far surpassed that of any traditional healer. Milingo's last major public healing event in February 1979 was attended by about 4,000 devotees. The following consisted of all Christian denominations and African religions.

Driving out Mashawe spirits by exorcism is a Christian idea alien to the local culture. There is no strict personified division into good and bad as in the Christian faith. Mashawe are not only supposed to cause disease, but also protect against witchcraft and are therefore not condemned in principle. Since the arrival of Christian symbolism in traditional beliefs, many of these spirits have been mistaken for protective angels (mangelo) .

literature

• Elizabeth F. Colson: Spirit Possession Among the Tonga of Zambia. In: John Middleton and John Beattie (Eds.): Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa. Kegan Paul, London 1969, pp. 69-103
• Michael Gelfand: Shona Ritual, with special reference to the Chaminuka Cult. Juta, Cape Town 1959
• Gerrie ter Haar: Spirit of Africa: Healing Ministry of Archbishop Milingo of Zambia. C. Hurst, London 1992, pp. 104-133
• David Lan: Guns and Rain. Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe. James Currey, London 1985
• Ute Luig : Constructing Local Worlds. Spirit Possession in the Gwembe Valley, Zambia. In: Heike Behrend, Ute Luig (ed.): Spirit Possession. Modernity & Power in Africa. James Currey, Oxford 1999, pp. 124-141

Individual evidence

1. ^ Brian Morris: Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, p. 168
2. ^ Fritz W. Kramer : The red Fes. About obsession and art in Africa. Athenaeum, Frankfurt 1987, p. 122
3. ^ Wim van Binsbergen: Experiential anthropology, and the reality and world history of spirit: Questions for Edith Turner. ( Memento of the original from May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. African Studies Center, Leiden, January 2007, p. 17 (PDF file; 2.1 MB) 
4. ↑ Gerrie ter Haar, 1992, p. 124 f
5. ↑ Peter Probst: Kalumbas Fest. Locality, history and ritual practice in Malawi. Lit-Verlag, Münster 2005, p. 52
6. ↑ Gerrie ter Haar, 1992, p. 113
7. ^ Atta Annan Mensah: Music of Nineteenth-Century Zambia. In: Robert Günther: Musical cultures of Asia, Africa and Oceania in the 19th century. Gustav Bosse Verlag, Regensburg 1973, pp. 301-303
8. ↑ Gerrie ter Haar, p. 125
9. ^ Brian Morris: Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, p. 176 f
10. ↑ Gerrie ter Haar, 1992, p. 129 f
11. ↑ Gerrie ter Haar and Stephen Ellis: Spirit Possession and Healing in Modern Zambia: An Analysis of Letters to Archbishop Milingo. African Affairs , Vol. 87, No. 347, London 1988, pp. 185–206 full text, Leiden University (PDF file; 620 kB)
12. ↑ Quentin Gausset: The Changing Meaning of Disease among the Tonga of Zambia (1). University of Copenhagen ( Memento from August 17, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (DOC file; 83 kB); Word file