spirit possession/spirit succession: aspects of social continuity among malagasy speakers in mayotte

spirit possession/spirit succession: aspects of social continuity among Malagasy speakers in Mayotte

MICHAEL LAMBEK-University of Toronto

1 :00 a.m. A spirit possession ceremony is in full swing. Tumbu's eldest daughter Nuriaty, in trance and possessed by a patros spirit, breaks away from the knot of dancers to join her father standing in the shadows on the edge of the spectators. The spirit beckons Nuriaty's younger sister Mariam and me to join them and then proceeds to tell the three of us that it wants two new cloths, one from Nuriaty's husband and one from her younger siblings. One cloth must be identical to Tumbu's; his is old and tattered now. The spirit addresses Tumbu by his first name, a demeaning form his daughter would never use. The spirit insists that when the cloth is ready the spirit must be called up again in Nuriaty, not in Tumbu, to receive it. "Bring me the cloth by Saturday!" the spirit calls as it dances off [edited excerpt from field notes. October 13, 19851.

Ostensibly banal and inconsequential, this event was a virtual repetition of an incident that I had witnessed ten years earlier and recorded in the preface to my book Human Spirits as a description of my first encounter with spirit possession. On that occasion the same spirit had been given a cloth identical in pattern to the new one it now requested. The single-and highly salient-difference was that in 1975 it was Tumbu who had been possessed by the spirit and was the recipient of the cloth, while in 1985 it was his daughter in trance who demanded it. The decade has seen a shift in the main locus of the spirit from Tumbu to his daughter. This process of succession had not yet run its full course-the spirit still rose from time to time in Tumbu-but the demand for the cloths was a claim by the new host for public recognition of the new relationship from her family of orientation (as well as her spouse).

The present paper describes succession to mediumship within Mayotte families, examines some of the personal and social structural ramifications of the process, and finally interprets the manner in which succession to relations of possession constructs and articulates a particular experience of social continuity. In contrast to a naturalizing, epidemiological model that con- siders spirit possession as an expression (however indirect) of social or psychological distress and hence concerns itself with the question of who is vulnerable, the main question here is not which persons or classes of persons are most susceptible to possession but why they become possessed by particular spirits rather than others. This shifts the focus from viewing the possessed as objects and victims, or the detached manipulators, of their condition to an exami- nation of the public and private relevance of their acts for human subjects.'

Possession is an integral part of Mayotte society rather than an anomalous, peripheral, or relatively inconsequential component (Lambek 1981 ). Approximately 25 percent of the adult

When the identities of the spirits that possess particular individuals in communities of Malagasy speakers in Mayotte are taken into account, it becomes evident that spirits are frequently passed on from generation to generation and thus associated, though not exclusively, with particular families. The paper presents a number of case studies of spirit succession, attempting to draw out some of the social structural and personal implications. Possession's role in the constitution and refigur- ation of family groups, personal identity, and the experience of social continuity i s analyzed. [trance, social structure, bilateral kinship, time, person, Comoro Islands, Africa]

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population (and roughly five times a!; many women as men) enter states of trance2 during which they are said to be possessed by a specific, potentially identifiable spirit who maintains a stable, coherent identity from one period of trance to the next. Spirits operate as social persons, different in public identity from their hosts, and everyone has relationships with spirits whether or not they enter trance themselves (Lambek 1980). Hence, an analysis of social structure in May- otte that does not include consideration of spirit possession would be partial. Moreover, spirit possession itself cannot be understood without an analysis of social structure.

The theoretical approach taken here, however, is one that shifts the weight from structure to practice (cf. Ortner 1984) or process (Moore 1987). My concern is with how, given certain structures of possession and of kinship, the emerging identities of spirits in new hosts are negotiated and how the reappearance of particular spirits mediates intergenerational and sibling relationships and helps constitute the “family” as an ongoing yet changing unit.

A focus on practice thus illuminates the process of the reproduction of possession rather than its transformation. Like Moore (1987:729), my aim is to show in a single, narrowly defined context “the process of continuous [cultural] production and construction without differen- tiating in that respect between repetition and innovation.” The time span considered is little more than a decade, though earlier events will be considered in some of the case studies to be presented. Throughout this period the reproduction of possession i s closely, though not exclusively, linked to family and local community contexts and expressed in an idiom of illness and cure.3

The paper has four parts. In the first section I briefly describe the setting and elucidate the relevant aspects of the structure of spirit possession. The second section presents two case histories, which illuminate personal aspects of succession. Where possession is reproduced within the nuclear family, the psychological dimension cannot be separated from the social structural: the manner in which the intergenerational transmission of spirits is handled both demonstrates and mediates ambivalence and identification by both parties in the relationship. Possession provides an external idiom in which emotion can be articulated and made accessible, and possibly acceptable, to each party (cf. Crapanzano 1977). The third section discusses the nature of the family (rnraba) in Mayotte and shifts from a consideration of dyadic relationships to group dynamics, demonstrating how possession articulates the shifting relationships among lateral branches of kin. The concluding section briefly addresses the question of women’s participation and discusses the relationship between the conception of persons and the experience of time from the perspective on possession developed in the body of the paper.

the ethnographic context of spirit possession in Mayotte

a diachronic perspective The paper is based on research undertaken in Mayotte, the south- ernmost island of the Comoro Archipelago, located in the Mozambique Channel, between Madagascar and Tanzania. The patterns of spirit succession I discuss emerge from fieldwork conducted over the course of a decade (1 4 months in 1975-76,6 weeks in 1980, and 4 months in1985) in a pair of neighboring and closely related villages of Kibushy speakers.

Although Mayotte has been inhabited since at least the 9th century A.D. (Wright 1986), the history of the Western Indian Ocean has been characterized by a good deal of population movement and mixing (for example, V&in 1986). Today the majority of the inhabitants are speakers of Shimaore, a Bantu language closely related to Swahili. The speakers of Kibushy, a northern Malagasy dialect, form a significant minority. They are largely the descendants of both early to mid-1 9th-century immigrants or refugees from northwestern Madagascar and inden- tured laborers from East Africa (most, probably, from the region of northern Mozambique), who arrived at the same time or slightly later. Despite their various origins they form a relatively integrated community. Ethnic differences between Shimaore and Kibushy speakers are not

spirit possession and social continuity 71 1

strong either; differences with more recent immigrants from the other Comorian islands and, of course, with the French and small South Asian populations are much more marked (cf. Breslar n.d.1. With the exception of the French and South Asians, the entire population of Mayotte are Sunni Muslims.

Mayotte has been under the control of France since 1841 (Martin 1983). The sugar plantation economy instituted by the French disintegrated around the turn of the century and, adminis- tered as part of the Comoros, Mayotte was left largely to its own devices. Since Comorian independence in 1975 Mayotte has, by majority choice, continued to be governed by France and the following decade has been one of considerable social change.

The villages in which I worked were composed of small-scale cultivators. At the time of my first stay, in 1975, the majority of the adult population was engaged in subsistence production although all the adult men had a history of periodic or part-time wage labor, primarily on a nearby large but moribund foreign-owned company plantation. This was a period in which people were attempting to purchase land and in which the growing of cash crops, primarily ylang ylang (flowers used in the French perfume industry), secondarily vanilla, was devolving from the plantations to family-owned plots. Most people practiced some combination of slash- and-burn cultivation of dry rice, bananas, and manioc, cash cropping, and fishing in the la- goon. A few livestock were also kept. There was no road and no French school in either village; a few children of wealthier families attended school in neighboring villages. However, most people were at least partially literate in Arabic script learned in children's Koranic classes. Vil- lages maintained a good deal of autonomy.

By 1985 the situation had changed dramatically. There was a critical land shortage; land prices had jumped and there was virtually no land available for purchase. Subsistence production on other peoples' land was becoming more formalized. A number of men were employed in poorly paid manual or semi-skilled wage labor outside the village or, part-time, on a public works project within the village. A fishing cooperative with a kerosene-powered freezer had been established; canoes were motorized; a dirt road, passable in the dry season, linked the villages to the rapidly expanding paved road system; and a primary school, staffed by native teachers largely from outside the village, was in full operation. A few villagers attended high school elsewhere on the island and the son of a villager who had been raised in a more cen- tralized village received his baccalaureate and went to study medicine in France. However, differences in household access to the means of production, and hence in wealth, were a good deal more marked. And, if the early 1980s was a period of economic growth, this growth was largely artificial, a product of the intensified presence of the French civil service. Rapidly rising population and depleted soils, in addition to other factors, have critically limited per-capita production and are precipitating an ecological crisis.

Despite the dramatic political and economic shifts of the past decade, possession appears to be unchanged. Both the form and symbolic idiom of possession ceremonies have remained constant over this period. Nor has the scheduling of ceremonies within the villages declined. In fact, one village has become a minor center for spirit activity due to the fact that a senior medium has trained a number of practitioners there, all of whom attract clients and cooperate with one another. However, it would be incautious to make too much of this' and incorrect to generalize this spurt of activity to other villages in Mayotte.

On what sources does possession draw for its continued renewal in Mayotte and how does its reproduction take place? There can be no simple answer to such questions (Lambek, in press a), but part of the answer surely lies in the locus of spirit succession. During the period under consideration the patterns of succession were most informed by and had greatest relevance in two domains of kinship: the relationships between parents and their offspring, and in the generational reconstitution and realignment of family and domestic grouping^.^

the possession code Trance behavior is mediated by a cultural code.6 In Mayotte the key "rule" of spirit possession is that the identities of host and spirit are kept distinct. In particular


cases it may not be clear whether an individual i s in trance, speaking as herself or as her spirit; whether she is fully in trance; or whether she is merely confused, lying, imitating possession, or deranged. In theory, and usually in practice, however, host and spirit are clearly distinguished. Spirits have specific identities. Someone in trance speaks not as himself but as a spirit. It may not be clear to others (or even to the speaker) who the spirit is, but it i s clear to all that it is a member of a specific class of spirits holding a personal name and identity and a particular status. An individual may be possessed sequentially by more than one spirit, but the identity of any given spirit remains consistent. The spirit refers to matters conducted or discussed on previous visits with the same temporal, logical, and emotional continuity that would be expected from human beings. The spirit thus engages in particular social relationships.

In the abstract, the spirit’s identity, membership in a group, and status relative to other spirits is clear and permanent. Spirits’ relationships to one another are both ascribed and circum- scribed. Spirits have a limited range of possible behavior and their ceremonial interaction i s rather like a drama enacted by a set of stock characters. Although spirits are individuals, it i s not their unique individuality that is the main object of display.

Two main kinds of spirits commonly manifested themselves in the two villages. They are considered to be two different orders of being, and, indeed, their historical origins are quite distinct, the trumba being Malagasy and the patros a local variant of an Afro-Islamic form. The two kinds of spirits appear rarely in the same social context (and then only for a specific reason: when the demands of one upon a given host contradict the demands of the other). But in practice, their functions are relatively indistinguishable. Most people who are possessed by spirits have relationships with members of both kinds. The ceremonies associated with each differ in surface detail, being constructed partially in symbolic opposition to one another (Lambek 1981 :34-40, 153-1 55), but are structurally similar. Some curers specialize in managing ceremonies of just one kind or the other.

Both patros and trurnba have several subtypes, or classes of “persons,” and, within these classes, individual spirits are identifiable. The patros are spirits whose homes lie underwater along the margins of Mayotte. However, their names link them to Near Eastern sources, and the behavior associated with them i s a transformation of possession activities found along the East African coast (and of possession as far away as the North African zar or of various types found in West Africa [cf. Lambek 1981:194, n. 31). Individual patros appear as “young” or ”old” adults or occasionally as children. Most patros spirits are male.

The age grades of trumba spirits signify social class in the former Sakalava states of northwestern Madagascar (1 981 :Ch. 10). The “aged“ trumbas, male and female, represent deceased royal rulers; their names are those of historical personages; distinctions of relative age among the elderly spirits correspond to generational positions within the royal descent group (although the group is unnamed in Mayotte and there is no interest in formulating the genealogy as a whole). Thus, the representational system itself partially collapses historical time, both in the transformation of generation into relative age and in the reappearance in the present of figures from the past. “Young adult” and “child” trumbas probably do not represent actual historical persons so much as social classes of significance in the early 19th century: warriors, common- ers or slaves. None of the spirits are spoken of as ancestors of the villagers.

Human hosts may be possessed by both trumbas and patros and may have relationships with more than one of each kind. Possession by spirits from the senior class of each is most significant for social action. The host of a senior trumba or patros may become a curer and consultant, practicing within the family or, if her reputation and inclination warrant it, receiving clients from a wider range.’ Hosts can communicate with their spirits by lighting the appropriate kind of incense and speaking over it. Other family members and clients may do so as well, sometimes speaking over the incense in order to call up the host’s spirit and thus put her into trance. Spirits can communicate with their hosts and potential hosts in dreams; with all other people they communicate in face-to-face interaction.8


In their relationships with human beings (especially in those well established over the sequence of curing ceremonies) spirits develop from stock characters into more complete persons. They have enduring identities and engage in durable relationships. The relationships between specific humans (whether they are the hosts or not) and spirits are generally manifested in minimally triadic relationships among specific hosts, spirits, and others (Lambek 1980); but the relationship between spirit and other is sustained if the spirit appears in a different host. Thus, a man who has had a special relationship with the spirit who appears in his mother will continue to pursue the relationship when the same spirit appears in his sister or neighbor. In this way continuity i s maintained beyond the life span of any given host.

The social identity of a spirit is bounded in another way as well; the spirit can be in only one place at a time. Hence, if two human hosts are in trance simultaneously (in each other’s presence), they cannot both be possessed by the same spirit. The identity of a spirit is determined in part through the coordination of entry and exit into trance by the various hosts. While initial entry or exit can often be slow or painful, I have often observed split-second shifts in consciousness where a spirit “hops” from one host to another. When this happens, the identity of the spirit i s being negotiated and publicly established. This requires tacit, possibly unconscious agreement by the two hosts and says something about their relationship to each other. This relationship between two human hosts who share a spirit provides the ground for what I refer to as “succession” (although not all cases of shared mediumship need be conceptualized as such). That i s to say, succession is not an event, but a process, which often begins before the death of the senior medium and even before she has relinquished her own possession activities.

possession as personal practice: a tale of two sisters

The two case studies of spirit succession that follow emphasize processes of identification between parents and offspring and the emergence of autonomy among the latter.

lineal succession: Nuriaty The first case is the story of Tumbu and Nuriaty with which the paper began. The spirit we observed in Nuriaty still rises from time to time in Tumbu; it ap- peared briefly in him at the onset of the curing ceremony that very evening. However, the spirit has begun to consolidate its position in Nuriaty, forging links with Nuriaty’s spouse and at the same time reinforcing its ties with Tumbu’s family and taking over some of his curing duties. It even wants a cloth just like the one he used. While Nuriaty now identifies with her father in a new way (father and daughter now share the same spirit), she also supersedes him, taking over his position. The spirit is maintained within the family, but one host replaces another. Nuriaty’s sisters assure me they will give the spirit what it requests: they are all its “children” since the spirit “helped to raise them.”9 The succession is managed with Tumbu’s acquiescence: Tumbu i s passing on the role of medium of this particular spirit just as his daughter is taking it up. The spirit articulates the relationship between the generations and mediates between them.

Nuriaty and Mariam (Figure 1) are full sisters. In 1985 Nuriaty was about 36 years old and Mariam 34; they have several younger siblings. Nuriaty had been married four times and had given birth to three sons, one of whom had died. She wanted nothing more than to have another child, but in several years had not succeeded in becoming pregnant. She and her husband were raising one of her sons, one of Mariam’s daughters, and Nuriaty and Mariam‘s youngest brother. Mariam had been married once and had seven children. She was raising four of her own children plus one of her brother’s and, in contrast to her sister, she would have liked access to safe contraception. Both women were married to relatively poor men and both cultivated plots on Tumbu and his wife’s land. Tumbu and Mohedja had become slightly richer in later life and lived in a solid house with cement-plastered walls and a tin roof. They were both spirit mediums and worked as curers on a periodic and, in Tumbu’s case, declining basis.


Tumbu I‘ .‘

.’

Nuriaty 1 Mariam

A

KEY

A male

0 female

0 spirit

P = pa tros

-.. \ possession T=trumba I...

4 incipient possession

Figure 1. The main lines of possession in the case of Nuriaty and Mariam.

Nuriaty and Mariam have very different possession histories. Nuriaty‘s first spirit was a young male patros, unrelated to those of either of her parents. The spirit requested a well-known curer (and competitor of her father) from a neighboring village to manage the ceremony. When the spirit announced its name, it turned out to be a son of the curer’s spirit. Nuriaty’s spirit amused itself at other peoples’ ceremonies over the next few years. Whenever her parents managed ceremonies, Nuriaty could enter trance freely and not worry about taking up the trance time of her parents because they did not share the same spirit. By her choice of spirit she had thus asserted a degree of independence. By the same token she was leaving them enough scope to engage in their own activities, yet this could have been accomplished by being possessed by an offspring or junior sibling of one of her parents’ spirits.

Some time after the identification of her first spirit Nuriaty fell ill and possession was again diagnosed. A senior male patros rose in her, announcing that it wished to be recognized. This was Tumbu’s spirit, the one that he most frequently used for his own curing activities. The spirit asked for only a small “courtesy” meal (ishima) to which a few other spirits were invited, because, it said, it had already held a major ceremony when Tumbu was possessed. The spirit thus emphasized the continuity and positive nature of its alliance with Tumbu‘s family by not requesting a second major expense. The illness it gave Nuriaty was also not serious, merely enough to make its presence known.

Thenceforward Nuriaty gradually began to take her father’s place as host to the spirit at public events. Her father might enter trance at the beginning of a ceremony but soon leave it as his spirit shifted location to Nuriaty. Since Nuriaty and her family both have other spirits, they could be in trance simultaneously (although not with the same spirit). Their joint spirit, which rises most commonly in each of them, has taken an interest in looking out for the “family” (mraba). The first spirit rarely rises in Nuriaty any more. Tumbu says the second spirit no longer permits it, and he has trouble remembering its name. Nuriaty has stated that she wishes to become a curer (although her parents claim she has shown no serious interest), and she has represented her father at a patros ceremony for one of his patients in a distant village. The spirit of the client, an elderly man unrelated to Tumbu by kinship, was none other than a son of Tumbu and Nuriaty’s spirit.

Nuriaty has never been possessed by any of the patros spirits that visit her mother. Her choice of affiliation i s with her father. The fact that they share a spirit indicates a level of psychological intimacy. This need not be the case among co-hosts, especially if they are otherwise unrelated. In the close context of the family the sharing means that what the spirit says in one of them will


not be contradicted by what it says in the other. The joint hosts can anticipate one another’s reactions and there is logical and emotional consistency in the spirit‘s presentation.’O In social terms, Nuriaty i s replacing her father, maintaining the relationships he engaged in by means of his spirit. Continuity i s maintained not only at the general level of the father’s career, but in the actual relationships with specific others-clients, other hosts, and spirits. Most important, through Nuriaty the spirit continues to affirm its relationship with the family and in this way, indirectly, the “family” is reproduced.

Nuriaty‘s succession is by no means complete and probably will not be until her father’s death. Nevertheless, there is an assertiveness, almost an aggression on her part. She actively, if unconsciously, seeks to share this aspect of her father’s identity and she is gradually pushing his participation to the sidelines. She states openly that she finds it embarrassing to see her father engage in trance activities and she wishes he would stop. However, Nuriaty’s succession could not be successful without Tumbu’s acquiescence. By going into trance simultaneously or by providing other more subtle cues at the onset of her possession by this spirit, he could have challenged or shifted its identity. He could also have made it clear that the spirit should remain relatively inactive in Nuriaty for a number of years. To my knowledge, he has not slowed the process of transition and may have actively encouraged it. Once, while in trance he said fondly to an older woman, who is also host to the same spirit, “ i tarimitsika” (she [Nu- riaty] is our charge).

When Tumbu is in trance his spirit addresses Nuriaty as another one of its hosts. The spirit’s activity in his daughter fits Tumbu’s wishes and plans to reduce his own curing activities. From Tumbu’s point of view, he has gained an assistant who is bound to him in an intricate manner, not only as a respectful, if potentially rebellious, daughter, but as the co-host of his spirit, a relationship which, by the profundity of his own ties to the spirit, is certain to be one of loyalty, intimacy, and mutual interest.

That Nuriaty rather than Mariam is succeeding to her father‘s spirit can be explained in part by her close affiliation with his side of the family. She was raised by her father’s mother and in close proximity to her father‘s younger sister (neither of whom has a spirit of her own). How- ever, l do not wish to emphasize a lack of balance here-and neither does Nuriaty. In addition to sharing her father’s senior patros, Nuriaty has begun to share an elder trumba with her mother. She is also possessed by the young son of this trumba and during ceremonies she is much more frequently in trance with the latter while her mother, possessed by the former, pur- sues her own therapeutic and managerial activities. In being possessed by the son of her mother’s trumba, Nuriaty shows attachment and subordination; in being possessed by the senior trurnba she underlines identification with her mother and a willingness to succeed her and reproduce the relationships in which the trumba has participated. For the moment, however, her mother i s still active.

submission and identification: Mariarn Mariam’s possession history contrasts with her sister’s in a number of ways. First, while Nuriaty has never been possessed by any of the patros spirits that visit her mother, Mariam has a special and very strong relationship with her mother’s senior male patros and it is generally recognized that she will succeed as its host. In principle, both sisters could take on the same spirit, but we will see later why this will not occur. Nuriaty may also have recognized her sister‘s particular interests with this spirit and left her space to pursue them. Second, while Nuriaty is a frequent and highly competent trance performer, Mar- iam rarely engages in trance activity. This may be due in part to the fact that Mariam has spent most of her adult life either pregnant or nursing and has heavier child-care responsibilities (though this doesn’t necessarily hinder other women). In fact, Mariam readily expresses her interest in becoming a curer, but indicates that she is waiting until she becomes older.

Mariam’s interest in possession is closely tied to her mother’s senior patros spirit. Her relationship to her father is more ambivalent than Nuriaty‘s, and her tie to her mother much

71 6 arnerican ethnologist

stronger. Overall, she sustains less balance in her relationships with both parents, as is clear in everyday life and in her links with the spirits. Mariam is very attached to her mother and is the adult offspring to whom Mohedja, the mother, feels closest. Mariam spends most days with her mother, bringing her small children to her mother’s house around 8:OO a.m. and only returning home near sunset, in time to cook her husband’s meal.” Mother and daughter rely on each other for various kinds of advice and other forms of assistance.

Mariam’s father, Tumbu, pointed to the intimacy of mother and daughter and their spirit link when he said that the patros spirit ”raised” (nitarimy) Mariam, meaning that, unlike her sisters, Mariam had spent her childhood entirely with her mother, so they have been close for a long time. His comment does not distinguish Mohedja from the identity of her spirit: both have watched over Mariam. Tumbu says he is certain that Mariam will become possessed by the patros spirit: they are ”friends” (munzwan), ”already married” (fananambady). The spirit hasn’t risen in her yet, but Tumbu has seen the signs.

Mariam’s link to her mother’s spirit is deepened by the spirit’s relationship to Mariam’s own first child. Before her marriage Mariam says that she was sick and the patros spirit-at that time in the man who was her mother‘s curer-was able to cure her after Tumbu himself failed. In return, the spirit asked Mariam for her first-born child. Mariam refused and so the spirit said that when the child was born the spirit should be given a cake and called to perform the ritual in which the infant first leaves the house (normally scheduled by an astrologer and enacted by a Muslim cleric or senior relative). Mariam followed these instructions and since then the patros has been her son’s special fund (curer or patron), looking out for his welfare. For her subsequent children Mariam has always gone to the family astrologer to ascertain the auspicious moment for the house-leaving ritual and has then checked it with the spirit.

There are a number of interesting points here. First, Mariam’s son has a relationship with the same spirit as his mother and grandmother, initiated before he was born. In each case the relationship began with the spirit possessing Mariam‘s mother‘s curer and has been continued by the same spirit in Mariam’s mother. This special link among the three generations has been reinforced through the mediation of the spirit in numerous events in their lives. In 1985 Mariam asked the spirit in her mother to help her son gain entrance to a vocational training school. .Second, in Mariam’s story there is an implied criticism of Tumbu, and, in fact, Mariam’s relationship with her father is by no means as close or easy as her tie with her mother. In part, possession provides a mode through which Mariam’s relationship with her father can be ra- tionalized and the tension circumvented and partially concealed. Her affiliation i s the spirit’s choice, not her own. Whenever Mariam is in difficulty she turns first to her mother’s spirit rather than to her father’s. One might note further that it i s to a male version of her mother that she turns.

In sum, Mariam’s history shows a strong personal attachment to her mother and a long-standing relationship with her mother’s senior male patros spirit. She communicates frequently with the spirit, by calling it up (putting her mother into trance) or speaking to it over incense. I have seen her do the latter alone, in her parents’ bedroom, while the rest of the family were at dinner. Mohedja tells me this is not uncommon behavior on Mariam’s part. Sometimes Mariam will inform her after the fact and tell her she received what she asked for. Mariam communicates in this manner with Mohedja’s senior trumba spirits as well.

Mariam admits that she herself has a spirit. It doesn‘t make her sick nor has it given a name yet. However, she knows it is her mother‘s patros because she has observed that when she is in trance her mother i s not, and vice versa.lZ Mariam feels no urgency to demonstrate the au- thenticity of her possession through the public display of trance or the pursuit of a curing ceremony. Her personal accommodation to possession suggests that it i s too simple for anthro- pologists to use trance behavior as the index, let alone a cause, of possession.

It i s striking that the figure Mariam supplicates has its most vivid aild concrete expression in her own mother. Perhaps it is even more remarkable that the spirit she invokes is someone she

spirit possession and social continuity 717

may herself, in a sense, become. Possession is a dialectical process of submission to, identification with, and subjective incorporation of, significant and powerful aspects of the senior generation.

In Mariam’s case the absence of much trance activity may be a sign of emotional immaturity; she cannot yet bring herself to begin to displace her mother. Full possession requires detach- ment from the parental figure in addition to identification with it, a shift from dependency to autonomy. This process, no different from that which psychoanalytic theory proposes all ma- ture individuals must experience, illustrates how far Mayotte possession lies from the psycho- pathological models (whether psychoanalytically inspired or not) that have sometimes been proposed for trance behavior.

succession as social practice: choice and continuity

kinship, identity, and order The comparison of the two sisters has led us into rather deep psychological waters. Yet succession to mediumship is not a mere vehicle toward individual maturity, but a means of articulating the reproduction of the family as a social unit. On the one hand, the psychologically autonomous medium is embedded in social relations; indeed, her personal autonomy is largely a product of her commitment to these relations. On the other, to follow the adage of the 1960s, ”the personal i s political”; each succession is a claim that affects other family members. The following highly condensed discussion of Mayotte family and domestic groupings situates the personal concerns described above in their immediate social context and also serves as an introduction to the analyses of case studies to follow.

Kinship in Mayotte is bilateral and there are no clearly demarcated descent groups (Breslar n.d.). Among Malagasy speakers the only demarcated kinship group is the mraba (family). Mraba means also “fence” or “enclosure,” meanings which at first give a misleading impres- sion, since the chief characteristic of the mraba as a “family” is precisely its lack of closure. However, as an enclosure the mraba is a more inclusive spatial unit than the house (trangu), which typically contains a woman, her husband, and children. The mraba as a social unit is also broader than the domestic household, extending both vertically and laterally” but exclud- ing affines. Except in cases of kin marriage, spouses are not in each other’s mraba; however, they are both members of the mraba of their joint offspring, and they frequently function as though they were members of the same mraba.

The mraba is viewed by villagers as a social group, not an egocentric category, yet in practice mrabas may be conceived from the perspective of any ego; when the village is described as composed of a certain minimal number of mrabas, some of these are conceptualized as (male or female) ancestor-focused. The mraba’s boundaries are situationally determined as well. Ego may consider both parents within her mraba, but when more members of ascending generations or lateral kin are being considered, the mrabas of each parent may be distinguished from one another.

In conversation, mraba i s most often used in the context of an activity where the category of “insiders” (for example, those offering hospitality), formed by individuals related through bilateral ties to the apical ancestor or living individual who i s the focus of the event, is distinguished from “outsiders.” Hence, the criterion of closure is significant when it is understood situationally; it divides the relevant kin group (often based on a core of siblings) from other members of the community.” In any given situation the level or range of inclusion is usually clear. However, inclusion may be based on more than genealogical distance, taking into account the frequency of interaction between the parties, affinity, residential proximity, fictive kinship, and so on. The word havanga (kin) is used more broadly to refer to kinship in the abstract or to particular dyadic relationships, whether the exact genealogical dimension is specified or not.


Neither concept, mraba or havanga, provides the means to create relatively permanent or permanently distinguishable groups or stable positions within them. Neither provides the means or the criteria by which priorities among possible links of affiliation are governed or by which the conflicting concerns of siblings (unity versus autonomy) can be worked out. Ascrip- tion in a web of genealogical relations is permanent, but in practice choices have to be made and certain identities, interests or relationships affirmed at the expense of others.

Marriage rules are not prescriptive and so provide no clearer guidance. Cross-cousin marriage i s not uncommon and marriages may be locally endogamous or exogamous. Postmarital residence is often uxorilocal because married women are provided with houses by their fathers, although there i s no clear rule about where the fathers have to build them. A man may begin married life more closely affiliated to his wife’s family than his own, but may attempt to tie his own children directly to him.

Inheritance is bilateral, with sisters receiving, according to Muslim law, one-half the amount of land their brothers get. But i f brothers gain control of land, their sisters are more likely to enjoy proximal residence. In practic:e, siblings often continue to share rights to land, not for- mally subdividing for at least a generation. In general, the sibling bond is a strong one, but it contains tensions, does not unilaterally direct a person in making choices of affiliation, and cannot fully maintain itself for more than a generation.

While postmarital residence and inheritance rules provide some direction for economic choice+investment of labor and perhaps capital, routine cooperative behavior-they do not specify the basis for less material forms of identification. Birth provides a person with an ethnic and village identity as well as a place in an undifferentiated genealogical grid and the position created by choices of affiliation made by previous generations; the rest is a matter for personal refinement. The question of social identity i s not solved by ascription. To summarize a complex issue, identity is in good part a matter of achievement and practice-to be a Muslim is to act as a Muslim, to be a village member is to participate in a system of ceremonial exchange, to be an adult is to marry in the proper way, to be a kinsman (havanga) is to treat others with due consideration. Although the rnraba attempts to impose exclusive categories, it cannot overcome the egocentric bias of the system. As described so far, then, kinship does not provide a sense of transcendent order in which the individual unquestionably finds her or his place,

To a degree (and only to a degree) spirit possession imposes such a transcendent order-the world of spirits. Possession does not provide group closure, firm boundaries or rules of affiliation; indeed, it complements the kinship system’s flexibility. But spirits engage specific humans, recontextualize their identities, and partially redefine their relationships, all, apparently, re- gardless of the person‘s choice or will, and usually against her protestations. People deny want- ing spirits. Not only is the source, the ontological status, of spirits mystified, but the choice of spirit, the match between individual host and spirit, is considered to be imposed upon the human host. It represents the arbitrary choice of the spirit itself, perhaps tempered by links the human host has had with previous manifestations of the same spirit in other people. Thus the host is not forced to choose consciously the direction of affiliation, nor to be blamed or feel guilty about the relationships which are overlooked in its favor.

And yet possession is not merely a device for directing or legitimating choice. Possession points to a constancy beyond choice; in the face of the repeated fragmentation and dispersion of the family at each generation, succession to mediumship within the mraba (although not all families have spirits) provides a thread of continuity. The human agents may change but the spirits remain as their contract with the family is renewed at each generation. In this way the spirit takes on some of the characteristics of an ancestral figure (though it i s not one) since it i s linked to the identities of members of ascending generations in whose bodies it has manifested itself and with whose interests it may have been identified. At the same time, through their permanence, spirits partially collapse these prior generations. Kinship and spiritship are not the


same phenomenon but they impart qualities to each other15 and they both play a role in the construction of social relationships, identities and units of social action.

dyadic relationships and group dynamics To pursue the relationship between spirit succession and the reproduction of families it is necessary to locate any given pair of hosts in a wider social context. Succession to mediumship is not a private act with relevance only for an isolated pair of hosts but is part of a larger configuration that includes their kin as well as the spirits who possess these kin. In order to understand the constraints upon succession and the structural consequences of the various forms it can take, it will be helpful to begin by con- structing the matrix of logically possible relationships among hosts and spirits (Table 1). This includes two dimensions: the set of relations between pairs of spirits and the set of relations between pairs of hosts. I will first summarize the matrix and then focus on the critical relationship between hosts, namely siblingship.

Neither the rules nor the actual sequences of spirit succession contradict other principles of Mayotte social structure. Spirits may be passed on bilaterally, though, since most hosts are women, the most common sequence is mother or grandmother (MM or FM) to daughter. But there is no necessary relationship between the spirits of parents and those of their children. Choice and flexibility are apparent; siblings may take very different paths, carving out personal identities as much by the spirits they do not incorporate as by those they do. The senior generation may have spirits and the junior not, or vice versa. However, even if parents and children do not share possession by the same spirits they will, inevitably, share communication with them; the spirit possessing one family member interacts with the rest.lb

Hosts of the same or related spirits may be linked to one another lineally, laterally, and even affinally; it i s not uncommon for a daughter-in-law to become possessed by a spirit that i s known to engage in relationships with members of her husband’s family. The link between the spirits found in any two hosts will be one of three kinds: they may share the same identity, one may be the junior relative (younger sibling or offspring) of the other, or the genealogical link between them may be nonexistent or unspecified.” Figure 2 provides an example, taken from a genealogy, that combines a number of these relationships. Father and daughter are both possessed by the same senior male spirit; daughter, daughter’s son, and daughter’s son’s wife are also possessed by the son of that spirit.

The kind of relationship that exists between the spirits found in two or more hosts may be linked to at least two, only partially distinguishable, kinds of functions. It forms a means for expressing and directing the interpersonal relationship existing between the two hosts on the one hand, and the nature and tensions existing in the group or groups they represent on the other.

Let us first consider the case where the hosts are related lineally. Here an identity relationship between their spirits suggests processes of identification and competition as well as cooperation between the hosts.’8 Where their spirits are related lineally or laterally, this suggests subordination as well as identification on the part of the junior host (who is presumably host to the junior spirit). And where the spirits are unrelated this suggests mutual autonomy or else respect on the part of the junior-an unreadiness to begin to force the elder to give way. Where the

Table 1 . The possible links among spirits and hosts.

Relationships Between Spirits Relationships Between Hosts lineal lateral affinal unrelated

by kinship identity lineal lateral unspecified


Figure 2. An example of dense connections among spirits and hosts.

spirits of the hosts are identical or related the larger consequence is one of group continuity. The spirit or its kin continues as a sign of the family, and the relationships of family members to the spirit and, through the spirit, to each other, are reprod~ced.'~

When the hosts are unrelated, possession by related or identical spirits may form the basis of a relationship of "siblingship" (Kelly 1977) between the two parties: the hosts interact with each other on the basis of their common relationship to the spirit world. However, while common possession requires cooperative behavior on occasions of spirit ceremonies (since tran- sitions into and out of trance must be coordinated) and may provide the basis for a wider alliance between the families of the hosts, it does not determine the nature of the relationship. For example, A and B happened to share the same spirit. After B died, her daughter C also became possessed by the spirit but would often come to A to attempt to call it up for a face to face conversation. A did not like C and would make excuses as to why she was not prepared to enter trance on that occasion. Eventually C gave up and the relationship between the two women is no stronger or more significant than that between any other two co-villagers.

When hosts are related to one another laterally, perhaps as full genealogical siblings, the relationship between their spirits can have more complex ramifications. In this situation the direct relationship between the hosts themselves is probably not of primary consideration. Rather, each host i s expressing a relationship with a senior relative or to the group of which both are part. Possession by a common spirit on the part of lateral kin, although it must be mutually agreed upon, has as its most significant potential consequence not common identification but mutual autonomy. Where the spirit of the ascending generation is doubly reproduced in the descending generation, the process of segmentationZo is enhanced. The branches are not thereby asserting full independence from each other-indeed, the shared spirit may form the basis of future cooperation as well as mutual identification. Rather, they are asserting an equivalent, autonomous, and hence potentially independent relationship to the nodal ancestor.

In actuality the situation may be a good deal more complicated than this since, as we have already seen in the case of the two sisters, there are multiple ancestors and multiple spirits. Mraba boundaries are not firm to begin with and each segment of the mraba, at each level of inclusion, may articulate its relationship to other segments of the various mrabas of which it forms a part in multiple ways. Pathways of communication may be left open or put to use, creating unique constellations of kin.


There are two coterminous stages in the process of multiple succession within the mraba; first, the tacit negotiation over the identities of spirits emerging in new hosts and second, the engagement of various family members with the spirits who rise among them. Case histories could be provided to illustrate various situations, assertions, and outcomes,2’ but they all have to do with working out the relationship between families of siblings as they begin to diverge from a single family of orientation. A portion of one such history follows.

lateral alignment In the cases described earlier we have seen two sisters each succeeding to different spirits of their parents (Figure 1). This need not indicate a process of segmentation since the successions are complementary. If we enlarge the genealogy somewhat (Figure 3), we can see that possession serves to align a wider group of kin. One of Nuriaty and Mariam’s mother’s spirits not mentioned so far i s Mohedja’s senior female [rumba. This i s the only trumba spirit that possessed Mohedja’s mother and is the only one of Mohedja’s spirits which she “in- herited’‘ from within the family; the remainder owe their origins to various other relationships and circumstances of her life.22 Mohedja’s first recognition (possibly only in retrospect) of this spirit in her own body was an early childhood reaction against eating chicken, a food commonly tabooed by trumba spirits. Although she did not enter trance until adolescen~e,~~ Mo-

I

I V

P

A QQ KEY

possession or incipient possession by spirit or spirits including the “spirit of t h e w

0 possession only by spirits other than the spirit of the maba

Roman numerals indicate generations. Members of generation Ill and below without spirits have been excluded.

Figure 3. The lateral distribution of a spirit within the rnraba.


hedja often says she thinks she was born with the spirit. Mohedja looked after her mother until the latter’s death at a very old age in the late 1970s. However, it was still consulted in her mother, where it maintained greater authority.” One day the mother went into trance and the spirit announced that thenceforward it would perform all i ts therapeutic activities from Mo- hedja and clients should consult it there.

A few years after the old woman’s death the spirit began to manifest itself in descendants other than Mohedja. The woman had only three siblings who lived to adulthood. Neither of her sons had her spirit, although one of them, IIA, had other spirits and was a curer in his own right. He lived and raised a family in a distant villagezs and died a few years after his mother. IlB has continued to consult and to be advised by his mother‘s spirit in Mohedja (IIC). In 1985, IIA’s daughter and his two grown granddaughters resident in Mohedja’s village as well as two of IIB’s daughters were all showing signs of incipient trumba possession or were engaged in various stages of cure. None of the spirits had yet announced its name, but it was apparent to family members that the grandmother’s spirit was reappearing in IVB and IllB and C. The identities of the spirits possessing the others were still in question and were probably not the same. None of Mohedja’s own adult offspring yet showed signs of possession by her mother’s spirit.

It is evident that each branch of the old woman’s descendants i s establishing continuity in its own line. This has two aspects. Each branch asserts i ts eventual autonomy; each retains the protective family spirit and will not be dependent on Mohedja for assistance. With the coming of age of generation Ill, the denial of segmentation evident in the previous generation is superseded through the multiple reproduction of the spirit. At the same time, each branch agrees upon a common ancestor from whom to mark their descent, hence their shared identity. The presence of the same spirit in each line reproduces a significant aspect of the old woman‘s total social person, provides a symbol of common identity, and also entails the means through which the various mediums must cooperate.

The timing of the successions is at50 significant. By taking on the spirit first, Mohedja asserts a certain moral authority. Conversely, by waiting until the old woman’s death the others express their dependence on Mohedja since the spirit in her could have challenged the legitimacy of its reappearance in another family member. It may well be also that it was only with the death of the ancestress that a gap was experienced and the relationship among her descendants had to be rearticulated.

In some ways Mohedja was the focal member of her mother’s family resident in the village. The descendants of IIA may have been expressing their specific relationship to Mohedja in addition to their common relationship to her mother. IllA was raised by Mohedja and, in turn, raised her own children in a compound shared with Mohedja. Through her spirit, IVB was asserting her link to Mohedja and also delineating its nature and distinguishing it from the links Nuriaty and Mariam had with their mother by emphasizing the source and direction of affiliation. In sum, the spirit provides the means to articulate (conceptualize and emphasize) some of the many ways in which sets of kin may be related to one another.z6

conclusions: public and personal aspects of succession

possession by whom? As I have indicated, spirit possession in Mayotte must be viewed first of all as a fundamental social institution and only secondarily as affliction and therapy or an expression of conflict. Spirit possession is a publicly available idiom and system of communication, and it produces social persons who perform public roles. Spirits as a class may be nonhuman, yet as individuals they are persons in that they have specific social identities distinct from the people they possess, and they engage in continuing social relationships with various others, not only with those in whose bodies they are manifest. Thus there is a whole grid of social relationships and meanings of which spirits are part. Individuals may be possessed by


more than one spirit, each of which has its own history and network of relationships. Likewise, individuals who are not possessed at al l have relationships with various spirits who possess kin, neighbors or curers.

Although the process of acquiring a spirit is described in Mayotte in a therapeutic idiom, therapy is a secondary aspect of possession. While affliction i s often associated with the onset of possession, such affliction may be no more than Oedipal conflict, fear, confusion, disguised aggression or guilt. On occasion illness may also be the precipitating signal that forces a reas- sessment of the host's situation, such that the spirit possession appears to be an appropriate response. Possession may be therapeutic and spirit mediums may make excellent curers (Lam- bek and Antze, n.d.1, but first and foremost, possession creates and reproduces social persons, legitimates their appearance, and articulates social relationships.

Spirits are individuals, amoral and disorderly before their partial socialization in relationships with human hosts (Lambek 1981), yet their existence posits a permanent "order," the spirit world, which they represent. This puts the human world into perspective and provides a frame- work against which social practices and institutions such as reciprocity or the family can be interpreted. The sense of this spirit world also guides the way people react to possession and ultimately it provides the structure which underlies possession behavior itself. At the same time, if we admit that possession is a social const r~ct ion,~~ then whatever the structure or rules, and whatever the naturalistic forces which underlie given cases, should one wish to posit them, the matching of host to spirit, who is to be possessed by whom, is ultimately a matter of human practice. Thus, although Mayotte theory proposes an order that exists apart from humans and is, in part, imposed upon them, and although Western scientists often propose different sorts of order, which produce the same imposed effects, possession is subject to human negotiation. I use the word negotiation rather than manipulation because the outcome i s not determined by single individuals acting alone or out of pure self-interest, but is culturally and socially mediated.

The sociologically and psychologically relevant question, as opposed to the epidemiological one, is not who is possessed, but who is possessed by whom. And this i s the critical question for people in Mayotte as well. The spirit's announcement of its name forms the climax of a lengthy ceremonial sequence; the identity of the spirit is the salient piece of information sought by people who were not present at the ceremony. However, i f suspense is part of the aesthetics of performance, the suitability of the identity has usually been worked out behind the scenes beforehand. If this is not done, the entire ceremony may fail (cf. Lambek 1981 : Part 11).

Identities are not automatically assigned by prescribed rules, but neither are they simply a product of conscious or unconscious choice. Unconscious motivation certainly plays a part; indeed, it could be argued that in many cases the desire to have a particular spirit rather than simply to be possessed initiates the process. But as personal motivation is externalized, it is subject to cultural constraints (to the rules governing what can be considered possession behavior) and to social approval. A host's performances as a spirit prior to its annunciation are in part attempts to discover a workable identity; they provide occasions for people to act tacitly "as if" the spirit were someone in particular, to consider the consequences, and to observe whether the behavior of others challenges or supports the identity.'" They are also occasions for the host herself to come to terms with the new identity. This process of negotiation is never explicit but i s a significant component of the metamessages in the communication between the spirit and villagers, especially family members.

A good choice of spirit i s one whose identity i s multivalent, conforming to unconscious and personal as well as collective needs, interests and criteria of suitability. Although in some cases this simply means that people unhappily acquiesce to the will of a determined medium, in general one person cannot foist relations with an anomalous spirit identity onto others. Indi- viduals cannot choose to be possessed by a spirit whose presence is completely unacceptable to others nor can they determine the identity of the spirit of another host, though they may be


able to influence that choice.zg But once the annunciation has been publicly and successfully performed and the name established, subsequent challenges to the identity are meaningless and people must live with the consequences. Hence the suspense is real, a product both of the final indeterminacy of the choice and the fact that so much hangs upon it.

Possession is a public idiom in which questions of family continuity and change are given objective form and hence partially (though never, of course, finally) worked out. Possession is a kind of implicit and practical history in which links to members of older generations are se- lectively reaffirmed. Spirits articulate both social continuity and individual autonomy and in- dividuation; in a sense, they mediate between them. On the one hand, vertical and horizontal links are maintained or reinforced; on the other, the medium’s personal situation vis-a-vis these links is altered and she is also able to strike ties in new directions (a subject not fully covered by this set of case studies). Like the bilateral kinship system with which it is associated in May- otte, possession requires personal choice-not all available relationships can be engaged equally. But possession removes the onus of choice from the individual in two ways. In theory, spirits are not chosen, and in practic:e, the choices are socially mediated, collectively negotiated and publicly affirmed.

The presence and distribution of particular spirits are affected by the practical, moral, and personal concerns of family members. For the people of Mayotte, however, possession i s not a means to these ends (the instrumental aspect being mystified), but rather an expression of reality. And, since spirit identities and relationships are publicly confirmed, possession does become part of the social order. Like the facts of marriage or inheritance, the presence of spirits within a family contributes to the sense of it that members have. Once established, the spirits become part of the context in which people act or think or experience rather than simply the means or product of their actions.

why women? In focusing upon reproduction and in examining both i ts personal and social dimensions, the perspective presenied here goes beyond the distress and conflict models of spirit possession. I will demonstrate briefly how it casts a new light on the central and well- worn topic of the predominance of women in possession (for example, Kehoe and Giletti 1981 ; Lewis 1971; Wilson 1967). The main point is that we can understand women’s interests in possession better when we consider by whom they are possessed: being possessed by a spirit that has been visible in a parent or present in the family for generations (or that may be in the family for some generations to come) profoundly addresses the question of personal identity and is a means of asserting family identity and one‘s own relevance in its ongoing reproduction.

Through possession women positively articulate kinship ties (cf. Boddy, in press). Medium- ship provides an avenue, though noi the only one (cf. Lambek 1983 and 19851, through which capable women can exercise their authority and play a significant role in the mraba and the community. This may protect or further their own interests. Thus, the possession of Mariam and Nuriaty by spirits active in their parents will enable them to reinforce moral claims upon their brother after the parents‘ death, ensuring their future welfare given the privatization and scarc- ity of land and the increasing sex bias in official land tenure regulations.

Equally important, possession provides a means for women to exercise their general moral concerns. Women are active in possession not because they wish to use it in a battle against men or even in status competition among themselves, but because it gives them greater scope and authority in activities in which they have always taken an interest: articulating social relations, maintaining peace and order within their families, and looking after reproduction in both the social and biological senses.3o

Why are men less involved? The analysis suggests examining the personal and social aspects of the reproduction of the family. For example, on the personal side one could ask whether men find it less easy to identify with their parents than women do. Close identification with the mother may threaten a boy’s gender identity and in the absence of the external and collectively


imposed pressures of prescribed initiation rituals, identification with the father may not be ap- pealing either. Chodorow’s argument (1 974) linking women’s more flexible ego boundaries to the reproduction of the family is also suggestive. On the social side, men in Mayotte are expected and enabled to display their moral concerns in the universalistic arena provided by Islam. In addition, as possession has become less relevant for public politics3’ and as increasing commoditization has given men a distinct edge in the public economic sector and has tended to privatize family life, men have begun to withdraw from possession, leaving it as a sphere for women. This is not to suggest that women were not active in possession previously, but rather that the same forces that decrease possession’s relevance for men also serve to differentiate the spheres of action of the sexes more generally.

social continuity In the days of the “organic analogy” in anthropological theory social continuity was posited as one of the “functional prerequisites” of society. Functionalists natural- ized society and argued it maintained an autonomous existence, sui generis. The metaphor of ”social reproduction,” which is common today, harkens back to organicism but it expresses the tenuous and contingent nature of society. Society needs constantly to be renewed in the agreement and practice of individuals. While society is constantly changing, individuals extend their ”webs of meaning” so as to link the present with the past and future, making assertions of continuity which they strive to realize, whether in fact or experience. Subjective expressions in a publicly meaningful idiom are collectively reincorporated and presented to the next generation as objective reality (cf. Berger and Luckmann 1966; Obeyesekere 1981 ). It is this ongoing construction, the continuing attempts to impose lines of connection, that is visible in succession to mediumship.

Spirit possession is constitutive of social continuity in two respects, a substantive and a phe- nomenological one. First, the social reproduction of the spirit may be simultaneously the con- tinuation of a family line. Through reference to past relations and the reproduction and repetition of past identities, spirit succession provides a means of focusing the diffuseness of kinship. It i s in the way that choice is made manifest, articulated and channeled that the illusion of continuity i s maintained. This illusion, in turn, is objectified as social fact and thus becomes more than illusion. Once socially ratified, the change constitutes part of the past. By linking the objectified past, present events and future expectations (for example, who is likely to become possessed by which spirit) possession forms a basis, to be sure only one of many, for social continuity.

Succession is also significant for the manner in which it shapes the experience of time and continuity. The argument here follows the general direction proposed by Geertz (1 9731.” Un- like the Sakalava, or at least the Sakalava state (Feeley-Harnik 1978:405), the people of Mayotte are far more interested in consociates than predecessors. Possession cannot overcome death but the reproduction of mediumship maintains the relevance of a part of the social persona of the deceased, both as a focus of group articulation and as a continuing participant in family affairs. It also serves to partially collapse generational time. The generations do succeed each other-and indeed members of the older generation are often made acutely aware of this when they are asked to give up their possession activities (Lambek, in press bl-but at least one aspect of the social identity of a senior kinsperson may remain behind in concrete, consociational form.33

It i s to be expected that parents, alive or deceased, continue to have relevance in the lives of their children. In some societies this relevance moves beyond the private, psychological sphere and is objectified as “ancestor worship” and rendered obligatory, hence public and social. In Mayotte, the presence of an individual spirit as indirect representation of a parent or grandpar- ent i s personal rather than either private or fully public in the senses proposed by Obeyesekere (1 981).34 Possession is available as an idiom for socially meaningful expression of dependency or identification but it i s not required. Moreover, there are other, more explicit ways to com-


memorate parents-although perhaps not so many other explicit means to actively work through one's relations with them.

Although Mayotte spirits are not ancestors, one can see interesting parallels with the more general configuration referred to as "ancestor worship" (cf. Feeley-Harnik, in press).35 There is a close fit between the pattern of spirit succession described here and the nearly obsolete name- changing ceremony of the Betsileo, a non-Muslim group of the Central highlands of Madagas- car. According to Kottak, "ceremonial assumption of an [ancestral] adult name constituted a descendant's plea to the ancestor for a special relationship in which the ancestor would act as personal intermediary between his namesake and other spiritual entities" (1 980:218). As Kot- tak astutely points out, the name-changing ceremony is the inverse of teknonymy since it es- tablishes the individual not as an ancestor, but as a descendant (1980:221).

Thus, although the reproduction of the spirit through succession is detemporalizing, it is not thereby depersonalizing. In the case of Mariam we saw a woman supplicating a spirit that rises in her mother and that she expects some day to receive herself. When it comes in her dreams to tell her something specific, Mohedja (Figure 3) often sees her mother's trumba spirit, to whose mediumship she has succeeded, with her mother's own face (although she is emphatic that it i s not her mother but merely the outward form in which the spirit is presenting itself). In dreams, new or potential hosts often see themselves pursued and attacked by figures that re- semble senior mediums; this i s one of the main clues as to which spirit is trying to enter them. By incorporating an aspect of the senior generation, possession can enrich and expand the personality of the junior.

The processes of identification work in both directions. Senior mediums can initiate or channel the direction that succession takes (though they cannot determine it) and they can experience the sense of continuity provided by the successful transmission of a spirit during their lifetime. Spirits that are or were once active in the grandparental generation continue to reap- pear at the rites of passage--circumcisions and first weddings-of the grandchildren. Some- times they rise angrily, like the uninvited fairy in Sleeping Beauty, asserting a continuity that the descendants had overlooked; at other times, people remember to invite them.

Possession shapes experience, yet its reproduction is dependent upon what is personally meaningful for the hosts. The sense of continuity possession objectifies i s real to the degree that it depends upon the feelings of attachment and identification that the mediums feel for those of the previous generation. Continuity is not a certainty but a fragile assertion; where the generations do not agree, the search may take on strange or comical forms. A woman who was half French and who belonged to the educated elite of town provided the story of her great aunt. Shortly before her death the old woman entered trance for a last time and her spirit ex- horted her children not to dismiss the family servant. After the funeral it was discovered that the spirit had been passed on to the servant! None of the children had wanted it for themselves, but the old woman had-for the moment-the final

notes

Acknowledgments. Fieldwork in Mayotte has been generously supported by the National Science Foun- dation and the Canada Council (1 975-76), the University of Toronto (1980), and both the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Research Grant and Leave Fellowship) and the National Geographic Society ( 1 985). The latter period of fieldwork was carried out in collaboration with Jacqueline Solway to whom I am indebted in many ways. Ray Kelly raised the original question about patterns of succession that led to the paper and also provided an incisive critique of the first draft. I thank also the members of the Anthropology and History Seminar at the University of Toronto, especially Janice Boddy, Richard Lee, David Turner, and Sheila Van Wyck, for their comments on an alternate version; Paul Antze for helpful discussion of the psychological issues; and Shirley Lindenbaum and the anonymous reviewers for the American Ethnologist for much good advice. My greatest debt is, of course, to the people of "Lom- beni."

'Further discussions of naturalizing models and alternatives to them can be found in Lambek 1981, in press a and b.


*These figures are approximate only and would need to be qualified in various ways (cf. Lambek 1981 :49-69).

'The earlier transformation of possession (by the category of trumba spirits) from a political institution in which instances of succession to the mediumship of deceased Sakalava monarchs had to be officially legitimated and in which the mediums subsequently played active roles in state policy and ritual occurred with the demise of the indigenous political structure at both the concrete and ideological levels (cf. Bar6 1977; Feeley-Harnik 1978, 1984). Due to limitations of space, for the purposes of this paper this history, the product of both French colonial domination and Islamic hegemony as well as native response, must be accepted as a given.

41t is, of course, difficult in such a short period of observation to know both which criteria to select as measures of change and how to distinguish short-term fluctuations from longer term change. In 1975 I observed far more activity with patros than with trumba spirits and, based also on the ages of the respective hosts, I drew the premature conclusion that trumba possession was on the way out (Lambek 1978). How- ever, in 1985 l observed three major and one initiatory trumba ceremonies but only one patros ceremony (in addition to numerous other contexts in which spirits of either kind were present or relevant). The three major trumba ceremonies represented considerable expense (trumba ceremonies are more expensive than those held for patros) and commitment. The initiatory ceremony was held by a very young woman and I observed many other young people newly possessed by trumbas.

5This i s not to deny the complex resonance of the spirits, their multiple social, historical and existential referents (Lambek 1981), the role of spirits in conjugal relations (Lambek 1980) or in therapy (for example, Lambek and Antze n.d.).

6For more detailed discussion and description of the code see Lambek 1981. 'I use the feminine form in part because most hosts are women. "Larnbek 1980 provides a model of the communication system. 9This i s a common idiom; it i s paralleled in the domain of kinship by the optional custom of calling a

sibling "parent" after the death of the actual parents. 'OAmong distant co-hosts the problem is vitiated by the superficiality and predictability, the informa-

tionlessness of the shared communication. "She comes ostensibly in order to receive help with child care, but also for the company, since she

could share child care at home with her affines and other neighbors. Mariam's life has been marked by a series of conflicts with her father. In general, my attribution of particular psychological states to the various parties is based on lengthy acquaintance and observation, knowledge of their past histories, presence at various family quarrels and other events, and occasional explicit comments on their part. I have not carried out research specifically directed at discovering personal emotions, but I know this family very well and had many intimate conversations, particularly with Tumbu and Mohedja.

'*A person in trance i s not supposed to be aware of such things, and Mariam's younger sister, who ov- erheard our conversation, joked that it must have been Mariam herself dancing and no spirit at all, otherwise she would not have remembered any of this.

"The socio-spatial unit beyond the mraba, namely the village (tanand, is an important unit of affiliation but irrelevant for this discussion of spirit possession and hence excluded here (cf. Breslar n.d.; Lambek 1978, 1981 ).

l'ln Gulliver's (1 971) analytic vocabulary, the mraba shares some of the qualities of both a "kin set" and a "cluster" or perhaps a "quasi-group"; the participants at events in which the word is commonly invoked are members of an "action set."

l5Among the Merina, "possession [by the ancestors] is simply the logical culmination of the proper be- haviour for an elder" (Bloch 1986:73). My discussion of a transcendental order is indebted to Bloch, who argues in the same work that the deme imposes itself in this manner upon the Merina.

lbA full social analysis thus has to consider the relationships between the manifestation of a spirit in a given host and various significant others, for example, the host's spouse. This was the point of departure in Lambek 1980 and it is significant in this discussion as well. The reappearance of a spirit in a new host affects not only the relationship with the earlier host but with a l l of her kin, clients, and so on.

"I know of no cases of affinally related spirits although this is possible in principle. 18This assumes both hosts are living. Of course, the timing of succession is also a significant factor in

determining the nature of the relationship between two hosts. Where the senior host has died before the junior one shows any signs of possession, we can no longer speak of mutual identification, nor of competition and cooperation, at least not in the same sense. Here, validation by third parties may be of most significance. I9See footnote 16. *('The word segmentation risks evoking the concreteness of unilineal descent groups. By segmentation I

do mean something like Evans-Pritchard's discussion of the Nuer (1940) in the sense that the product is not mutually exclusive units separated by a permanent boundary but a situationally determined application of a conceptual category. On the other hand, unlike the Nuer, there are no clear, mutually agreed upon rules of application, and segments are neither hierarchically nested nor set in balance in any publicly meaningful


or practical ways. In addition, given bilateral descent in Mayotte, most individuals are active in more than one rnraba.

2’An earlier draft of this paper contained several case studies, which have had to be omitted for lack of space. These compared diffuse and restricted succession and showed both the way in which succession can be used to engage distant kin in more intimate relationships and thereby to link rnrabas and the way conflict over the production of possession ceremonies expresses interests that draw family segments apart.

22Consideration of the origins of each of Mohedja’s spirits would take us too far away from the main concerns of this paper.

Z3Trance activity is only encouraged after a woman’s first marriage. Although some unmarried adoles- cent girls do enter trance at other peoples’ ceremonies, they would not yet be expected to seek therapeutic action.

24The question of authoritative voice is critical for understanding the mediums’ roles as curers and man- agers of opinion and conflict; unfortunately, it i s an aspect of succession which, for reasons of space, cannot be dealt with in this paper.

2s/ do not have information about spirit succession in the branch of thefamily, that is, IIIA‘s siblings and their offspring, that lives there.

2bThe articulation of kin segments is expressed not only through the identities of their respective spirits but also through the moral and financial support provided for the lengthy and expensive production of one another’s ceremonies and, in the case of trurnba spirits, the presence of kin at the blessing ritual performed by the newly authenticated trurnba for the family of the host.

27in making such an admission I am not, as one reviewer chastises me, asserting “ontological suprem- acy.’’ I believe that a degree of collective deception or collusion must lie at the heart of any vibrant and rational cultural system.

28Ray Kelly (personal communication) has suggested describing the process as the sending up of trial balloons that other families may or may not ratify.

29F~r an example of a case where the host did not know, even unconsciously, which spirit to select see Lambek 1981 : Ch. 8.

Y t must be admitted that this is a somewhat idealized and oversimplified picture. Especially in its initial stages, possession also provides an escape from family responsibilities, and there is a side to it that i s just plain fun. As in any society, not everyone is motivated to the same degree by high-minded ideals or the urge for autonomous action. For description and analysis of the amoral side of spirits see Lambek 1981 ; nevertheless, it was a main theme of that work that possession forms a discourse about morality.

”During the 19th century trurnba mediumship and political office may have coincided. Among the Sak- alava (Bar6 1977; Feeley-Harnik 1978) individual mediums were legitimated as the mouthpieces of deceased sovereigns. This is similar to the Shona practice (Fry 1976; Lan 1985) in which a given ancestral spirit can appear in only a single medium. In such a system succession to mediumship is highly competitive and politicized.

32Unlike Geertz I am not able to paint a fully consistent picture. For an alternate form of continuity in Mayotte see Lambek n.d.

33The annulment of generational time may be compared to the institution known as “positional succession” found among the Central Bantu (for example, the Bemba, Mambwe, and Yao) in which succession to office entails taking on the entire social identity of the deceased (Richards 1970; Watson 1956). In both the Central Bantu and Mayotte cases, the temporality of individual human existence is subordinated to a system of fixed, permanent identities to which people succeed.

)‘The personal element may be present in “ancestor worship” even in the classic unilineal systems. Fortes (1959) shows how each Tallensi person recognizes a unique configuration of ancestors who form his individual “Good Destiny.”

The Sakalava monarchy appears to provide an interesting counter-example since the mediums who por- trayed the royal ancestors were never members of the royal descent group itself (Feeley-Harnik 1978). As among the Shona, the political and public functions override the personal side of succession. Yet the fact that the spirit of at least one ruler’s father and predecessor in office was “embodied in the former royal slave who had been his wet nurse” (Feeley-Harnik 19843) suggests that even here there may be a strong personal component to the configuration.

3SAlthabe (1969) makes a strong argument for the difference, and indeed conflict, between spirit possession and ancestorhood among the Betsimisaraka of eastern Madagascar. His argument is based on the fluidity of affiliation through trurnba possession and its ability to transcend the narrow and fixed nature of Betsimisaraka patrilineages and reconstitute significant relationships at the level of the conjugal household, factors that are irrelevant in the case of the Mayotte rnraba. The competition between the two institutions (or, rather, their respective adherents) and the replacement of elders‘ authority by that of mediums suggests their functional similarity. For the Sakalava, Feeley-Harnik (1 984) argues that the expanding state replaced many of the functions of ancestorhood with the cult of the royal ancestors; as the state disintegrated the royal ancestors diffused among the common people.

3bThis transformation provides an echo of the 19th-century Sakalava model in which the ancestors of the royal descent group were manifested in their slaves.


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submitted 24 February 1988 accepted 16 June 1988


spirit possession/spirit succession: aspects of social continuity among malagasy speakers in mayotte

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