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and itching. They feel very irritable and go through periods of agitation that are of the depressive rather than the aggressive or euphoric type. |
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Compared to their peers, diviners and candidates excel in insight, imagination, fluency in language, and knowledge of traditions. They seem to consider themselves to be very vulnerable and show signs of restlessness and lack of self-assurance. They think they live under a menace of death when their oracle would turn out to be deceptive and the behavior would deny their ancestor or their initiation. During the divination process, the eyes of the diviner will become glazed, turned inward as if they mirror themselves. A man in his capacity as diviner usually speaks in a high-pitched voice. After the oracle, the diviner often shows clear signs of fatigue and great irritability. |
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Almost all of the eleven diviners interviewed, when asked about their states of epilepticlike crisis and the trance-possession (-kaluka) that proved their calling to divinership, said that they first felt themselves possessed by appearances of deceased diviners who frightened them. It seemed as if there was a "fire consuming their bodies with fever," like a death agony, like "a deep fear of being wounded or of losing a lot of blood." Two diviners mentioned that they felt an urge to throw themselves into the bush fire. Losing self-control, they felt an enormous power growing in them which enabled them to reach the roof of a hut in one bound. |
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According to eye witnesses, the trance always follows a particular transmitted pattern. In this state, the diviner-to-be jumps onto the roof of a hut without any help and proceeds to pull out some of the thatch. While twitching and jerking his head and body like a chicken's amid high-pitched cries of koo koo koo, in the esoteric language of the diviners, "he brings out" (fula, "foam," as if the indictment were a product of fermentation) his diviner name. He thus discloses the name of the deceased uterine ancestor who is leading him into trance as a proof of his calling. Other forms of trance behavior are exceptionally rapid tree climbing and amazingly fast digging in the ground with bare hands. The diviner-to-be is then secluded for initiation. |
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A narrow cylindrical wooden slit-gong with a carved human head on top and a stick inserted into the slit is commissioned from a local carver (Bourgeois 1983). It is considered to be "the very image" (yidiimbu) of the diviner. Its shape, both womblike and phalliclike, metaphorically gives form to his capacity to self-generate his new condition and to communicate or bring forth new meaning in a subverbal, bodily, manner. As a miniature and modified version of the heavy message slit-gong, it symbolizes the diviner's role as a message bearer to all people regardless of their sex or origin. He always takes it with him and uses it also as a container to drink, or as a stool to sit on; whenever he speaks in his capacity of diviner, he is rhythmically tapping it with a wooden stick (fig. 1). |
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According to the collective representations, a deep change takes place in the person of the diviner-to-be, in his knowing, in his awareness of reality. This change is brought about by his illness and by his condition of trance. To test the authenticity of this change, people ask him shortly after his trance what they |
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