Ritual Violence and Traditions of Origin
Mung'aro in Mijikenda History
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8978724 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zebulon Dingley (0000-0002-2219-0250, College of Charleston, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 65 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 158-174 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of African History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8537 • E-ISSN: 1469-5138 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0021853724000264 |
| OpenAlex | W4403942939 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 18 |
This article analyzes the transformation of an image of ritual violence on the Kenyan coast from the sixteenth century to the present. Drawing on a range of sources, it shows how understandings of “ mung'aro ” — a ritual of senior male initiation among Mijikenda-speaking peoples — changed as it became an object of inquiry for generations of missionaries, explorers, colonial administrators, local intellectuals, and foreign historians and anthropologists. In the mid-twentieth century, mung'aro became a key feature of Mijikenda traditions of origin in Singwaya, but in such a way that it reversed the direction of a specific form of ritual violence described in nineteenth-century traditions. By focusing on the transposition and recombination of ritual motifs across practical and discursive modalities (namely, ritual and narrative), this article offers a new approach to “the limits of invention” regarding traditions of origin
Ancient history · Art · Literature · Political science · Religious violence · African history and culture analysis · African Studies and Geopolitics · African studies and sociopolitical issues · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies
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Zanzibar
Plantation slavery on the east coast of Africa
Speaking with Vampires
Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya, 1900–1955
Recycling Interdisciplinary Evidence
Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda
Becoming a Child of the House
Swahili origins
Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa
Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa
Glimpses of a Nyika Tribe (Waduruma)
Elders and 'Frauds
Forest imageries and political practice in colonial coastal Kenya
Mumiani Season
Tradition, Tribe, and State in Kenya
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |