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Divination and the Hunt in Pagibeti Ideology |
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Studies of divination have conventionally focused on ethnographic description (Bascom 1969), on the processes and symbolism of divination (Turner 1975), on the diviners themselves, or on the place of divination within a particular peoples' system of thought (Evans-Pritchard 1937). While variation in divinatory practice between ethnic groups has been noted, only rarely, if at all, has the significance of variation within one group's corpus of divinatory practices been made a conscious object of study. |
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Given the fruitfulness of recent studies of variation and of its significance in traditional ritual by Fernandez (1965), Ardner (1972), Barth (1975), Burton (1980), and others, this neglect is somewhat surprising. This study hopes to illustrate the usefulness of such an approach by first reviewing the full range of Pagibeti divinatory practice, noting the anomalous state of features of two among them, the biseye boko, or sending the antelope, and mbolongo, the bursting pot oracle; finally, we account in turn for the anomalous features of these two oracles by situating them among a series of nonoracular practices common to their use context, the practice of the communal hunt. Features common to oracular and nonoracular practices alike are then explained in terms of Pagibeti concepts of person, action, and knowledge, particularly as these relate to the practice of the hunt and of its central concern, lekeye paye or wukeye paye, wakening or opening the forest. |
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To understand the relationship of divination to the hunt in Pagibeti ideology, some ethnographic background might be helpful. The Apagibeti are hunters/horticulturalists who live in the rain forests of north central Zaire. Isolated from the nearest road by some thirty-five kilometers of forest and by the Dua River, they combine plantain, manioc, corn, and peanut horticulture, together with extensive individual and group hunting and trapping of antelope, monkey, pig, buffalo, elephant, and other forest fauna. During the dry season, from January to May, gardens are cut and planted, communal hunts are common, and village ceremonial |
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