Ancestors from the East, Spirits from the West. Surviving and Reconfiguring the Exogenous Violence of Global Encounters in the Sahel
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14770442 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Antoinette Tidjani Alou (0000-0002-4555-8177, Université Abdou Moumouni, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 80-1/2 |
| Pages | 75-92 |
| Publication date | 2010-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal des africanistes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0399-0346 • E-ISSN: 1957-7850 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/africanistes.2323 |
| OpenAlex | W2099205116 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
The Sahel possesses an outstanding history as an arena of social, political, economic, cultural and interethnic interrelations and conflicts. This is visible notably in foundation narratives that exist all over the region, staking claims to an ancestor from the Islamic East. This widespread phenomenon intersects interestingly with a cult of spirit possession like hawka, originating in the oral culture of Arewa in East-Central Niger, formally renowned for its steadfast attachment to African ancestral religion and arising from embodied spiritual reaction and resistance to European colonization. Hawka highlights cultural responses to a violent encounter with the West This paper examines aspects of these two interconnected intercultural themes and motifs arising from historical encounters with East and West. It argues that the presence in the Nigérien Sahel of “ancestors from the East” and of “spirits from West”, distant in time but not in significance, respond to the domination of Sahelian societies by Arabs and Europeans, eliciting in the affected African populations diverse cultural and religious strategies of negation and negotiation of the tensions and compromises involved in identity formation
Aesthetics · Ancestor · Ancient history · Archaeology · Cult · Ethnology · Identity (music · Islam · Narrative · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Possession (linguistics · Resistance (ecology · Social science · Sociology · African history and culture analysis · African history and culture studies · African Studies and Ethnography · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Ecology
| Highly cited | No |
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