Dancing the Possessed Body into Freedom

Displacement, Dance and Possession in the Rituals of the Stambali

Key Terms• Stambali: a word that refers to the rituals of the

descendants of sub saharan slaves in Tunis. its origin can be "sambeli", a sub sahran word for spirit possession, or istanbuli, (of Istanbul), because of the favours these groups received under the reign of the Husaynid Dynasty.

• Possession: the displacement of a person’s natural personality and its replacement by the personality of an outside intelligence such as the demon or divinity, sometimes obliterating the subject’s memory of the experience (USD online annotated dictionary of psychology)

• Trance: A state in which consciousness is fragile or missing, voluntary action is poor or absent and normal bodily functions are reduced (Penguin Dictionary of Psychology) or a 'physiological state of mental dissociation or altered consciousness, characterised by detachment from physical surroundings, such as occurs in hypnosis or religious ecstasy (USD online annotated dictionary of psychology)

Background

• Transaharan slave trade can be traced back as far as 1000 BC. TSST in the Islamic world started in the tenth century. Since it started and Until the abolition of slavery, 100.000 entered Tunisia, especially under the rule of the Husaynid dynasty in the 19th century.

• Stambali first appeared among "slave houses", places which played the role of social integration of groups of the same kin and where they could practice their rituals; it formed on the onset a kind of "support system" (Montana) to newly arrived slaves.

• In the Maghreb where belonging was regulated by religion and ethnolinguistic belonging, situating the stambeli has been slightly confusing; yet it tended to be defined an an alien tradition.

From Tribe to Civilisation: a Story of the Body

• Early religius experiences appeared in the form of animistic beliefs, with no strict hierarchy, no written scriptutres, no clergy. They diverged from beliefs that appeared later in their heavy reliance on 'trance' and 'possession' during the ritual. Hence, the body represents the core channel for experiencing the divine.

• The advance into more civilised forms of social order led to the suppression of the "individual" forms of religious worship, as a result of the requirement of more social coformity.

• The collision between these two forms led often either to the suppression of the ecstatic forms of religous worship based on trance, or to the search of a common ground ( in the case of the Stambali, the commong ground is sometimes identified as Sufi orders.)

The Ritual, the Woman and the Slave

• The appearance of patirarchy as a system that encouraged warship, and violence, was contingent with the apprance of the instutution of slavery; women had served as as the first slaves in history, mainly in the aftermath of battles and wars (Lerner and Werholf)

• These new systems needed hirarchical arrangements, which explains the repression of ecstatic forms of religious worship, and hence, the demonisation of the body. (Campbell and Wade)

• The bodies and the efforts of women and slave had been the first to endure subjugation and demonisation.

• Early religious ceremonies developped hand in hand with warship; the glorification of the rituals of the group came with the demonisation of the ritual of the other, and hence, the apperance of rituals of primary importance, and others of secondary importance whenever two religious groups intermingle. (Georges Bataille)

Stambali as a Refugee Cult

• Regarding the circumstances that fathered the Stambali, it can be defined as 'refugee cult', and not simply a static ritual that had orignated in Sub-saharan Africa without undergoing any change.(Montana)

• Accordingly, Stambali does not only reflect its origins, but it also reflects the transformations it has undergone within its rituals, especially those which underscore the dislocation of the group, and re-captures the trans-generational trauma that it had witnessed. The slaves seek a reunification with their history but conversely, he/she also seeks a place in the new society, hence its adoption of a syncretic process of adaptation.

Slavery and the Decline of the Political Role of Women

• In places where more than one religious group co-existed, the political and religious status had mostly been assigned hand in hand to those who have hegemonic power .

• Women are often allowed a less important type of religious authority; whenever slaves cults existed, women’s rituals derived from the animistic roots of sub-Saharan religions.

• In Tunis, in the ladder of saint orders, Stambali is forms a subsidiary form or religious practice, occupied by women and marginal men.

Possession: a Feminine Ritual?• Saint orders in Tunisia can be divided

into orders dominated by men, (Sufi orders) and others dominated by women.

• Whenver the cult of the saint relied on possession, women's presence is notably more important that that ofmen.

• Although this association has been given divergent justifications, it has one static rule: during possession, women's perception of their bodies manifests differently than men's perception in Sufi orders.

• Whereas the dance in sufi orders is unified rolicking dance, possession requires a diffferent, diversified movements.

• During the dance, a dynamic interaction of sensory processing helps to build the overall experience, as opposed to the dance in sufi orders.

The Body Trance-forming Itself and Trance-ending Bondage

• The Body as a Catalyst for Transgression:

• Through the body, the identity of the female adept often forges with the identitiy of the possessing spirit, offering women a temporary liberation from their given social roles, and even a certain degree of leadership. (Jankoswky and Schmidt).

• female seers occupy an important place in the pantheon of stambeli, the symbolic role of the female body and its fertility is restored.

• the body in this sense, transforms its identity through a process of symbolic identification and metaphorical language.

• The Body as Vessel:

The body becomes a container where different identities merge and forge regardless of social background or gender, . Although different Stambali orders acknowledge hierarchy of spirits (according to colour, social status and gender), this hierarchy diminishes or disapears during the ritual.

• the body transcends its given roles, and indulges in a process of becoming that imitates the journey of the slave, back and forth.

• throughout the process of becoming, the adept becomes the hero in his/her own journey, reconstructs the personal narrative, forges his own history through the imaginative process.

• the Guembri: A musical instrument that many descendants of the Sub Saharan populations identify as an imitation of the slave ships.

• The body as Intensifier of the Collective Experience:

• anthropolgical studies on women and possession often attribute women's suscebtibility to possession to role of women in the collective belonging; as women's biolgocial roles of childbearing and childbirth heightens their social sensitivity. (The trance involves a deep sensory experience involvment.)

• possession advocates adorcism (instead of exorcism), acknoledges that the body is part of a larger realm where human and non which human entities interact

• this rises the body's sensitivity to the outer world, and extends the perimiters of the personal identity to include others

• This sensitivity to the outer world allowed women healers to be able to engage different senses in the process of teaching and the passing of the knowledge to the next generation.

• Healers of the stambali, mostly female pristesses, have historically undertaken the roles of chiefdom in the houses of slaves, which necessitated the guardianship and the passing on of the knowlegde through word, but through the body as well.

• It allows them the forging of the social fabric of the group, a sensitivity toward the other, and toward emotional bonding.

• Transcendance in Stambali is not vertical like that in Sufi orders, but rather transversal, cutting across the sensory experiences, and the members of the ceremony

The Social Role of the Healer