The Spirit's Wish

Possession Trance and Female Power among the Punu of Congo-Brazzaville

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3932148
AutoresC Plancke (0000-0001-8639-0668, autor correspondente)
Ano2011
Volume41
Fascículo4
Páginas366-395
Data de publicação2011-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/157006611x599181
OpenAlexW2017588822
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11
Referências citadas25

Among the rural Punu of Congo-Brazzaville, possession trance is an essential part of the mainly female celebrations dedicated to the bayisi or water spirits. It is a privileged medium through which these spirits reveal their wishes and conditions their willingness to assure the community's well-being. On the human side, in order to be possessed an 'opening of the mind' is requested and needs to be activated through collective song-dance performances that recall the flowing motions of the spirits' water world and convey the longing for this maternal universe. As a critique of the predominant use of the term 'agency' in reference to autonomy and resistance, this paper adheres to a context-based view that relies on the way the actors experience the phenomenon. In line with the Punu reality this paper considers receptivity, in its ambivalent link to suffering, as the main source of the power these possessions grant to women

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Ambivalence · Art · Autonomy · Context (archaeology · Dance · Epistemology · Phenomenon · Political science · Possession (linguistics · Power (physics · Social science · Sociology · Trance · Visual arts · Wish · African Studies and Ethnography · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · French Urban and Social Studies · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology