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Typologies of Scholarship and Divination Forms |
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A review of contemporary scholarship and typologies of divination forms reveals further conceptual problems in the anthropological study of African divination systems. In his excellent critical survey, Devisch (1985) categorizes the major approaches to the study of divination in Africa under the headings "(structural)-functionalist," "external, cognitive," and ''internal, semiotic and semantic" and distinguishes each anthropologist's varying use of different models. In the first grouping Devisch (5462) separates psychological analyses which emphasize therapeutic functions of divination (e.g., reduction of anxiety) and sociological analyses which stress sociopolitical functions (e.g., reestablishing social order). He also notes those studies which seek divination's function in correspondences of a culture's divination forms and features of social structure or cultural change.
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Although external cognitive approaches (Devisch's second category, 6268),23 consider "the expressive and explanatory function of divination, seen as a conceptual system, a system of thought, a way of knowing" (62). they remain variations of the functionalist orientation in their literal interpretations and assumptions of Western science's universality. They assume order as an individual and group goal and thus "offer the epistemological complement of the structural-functionalist interpretation of divination" (62) by focusing on sociopolitical order, moralizing trends, or a "pre-scientific way of knowing." Because other systems of knowledge are expected to adhere to Western positivist scientific principles, they are, of course, found lacking; therefore, these approaches ultimately portray divination as "illogical" and "non-rational." In this category are those anthropologists whom Gell terms "apologists" (1974:17; see also p'Bitek 1970:40).24 |
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Devisch sees more promise in his third grouping of internal, semiotic, and semantic approaches (6876),25 which allow divination's methods and symbolic models to stand on their own and not simply be representations of social structures. The appropriate analysis should focus on the esthetic elements, semiotic patterning, dramaturgical features, and transformational processes of the diviner and the divinatory congregation. Devisch's "praxeological approach" (demonstrated, I believe, by most of this volume's essays) also takes into account the specific divination event, differing types of divination, clients' problems, and the subsequent dynamics of the sessions which lead to practical action in the larger cultural context (77). Finally, this helpful review questions divination's transcultural usehow a system rooted in culture-specific symbolism serves clients from different cultures, as is so often the case. I analyze the common use of "foreign" diviners in the final essay in this volume. |
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Rigid dichotomizations separating states of consciousness and human and spiritual or suprahuman realms have contributed to the inadequacies of typologies of divination systems, although the tremendous variety of divinational forms defies any easy categorization. Divination systems employ virtually anything that can register change with subsequent pattern alternations being interpreted. DeWaal Malejifit (1968:21624) distinguishes interpretation of signs, divination via human |
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