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from Yaka land to Kinshasa and back, in response to requests for oracular consultation. |
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At first glance the oracle of the Yaka diviner seems to be verbal discourse, but this aspect is really only an elaboration of the primary bodily and sensory dimension of this divination by way of clairvoyance. Through the initiatory trance-possession to which meaning is given by the metaphoric transference of the "chicken on the point of laying an egg" (khoku yabutama), the diviner-to-be generates himself in an androgynous way in his capacity and identity as diviner. During each divinatory session the diviner will draw on his paranormal capacities by reenacting his initial trance-possession. |
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The consultation process occurs near the diviner's house, in the open, and in the presence of the actual clients who represent the different patri- and matrikin groups and/or the allies of the afflicted individual. The afflicted, who is ill, has suffered from bad luck, or has died, is not present. A material "mediating or intermediary object" (yiteendi, conventionally a coin or a piece of kaolin or cloth which has been in physical contact with the afflicted) is given to the diviner without comment. |
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I will detail how, by making use of his keen talent for perceiving through olfactory means, his "listening with his heart to his dreamlike vision," and because of his clairvoyance, the diviner is able to describe and analyze the problem that has been referred to him. His clairvoyance enables him to "see," through dreamlike images, the problem that he first detects by his keen sense of smell and receptive listening. The clients who represent the different interested groups give credence to the oracle insofar as its divinatory or paranormal character is manifest. Furthermore, to make sure the oracle will bring out the concealed or unknown, the clients take care to remain anonymous and avoid informing the diviner. They check if the intermediary object presented to the diviner exclusively represents the afflicted. After arriving, they wait until the diviner spontaneously recognizes them as clients and determines the reason for the consultation. In the case of death, the intermediary object is handed over after laconic confirmation of this first revelation. During the oracle, confirmation or contradiction of the diviner's revelation is given tersely without any further information to make sure that nobody gives any help to him. For serious cases a diviner is consulted who is at least a day's march away in an area unconnected with the afflicted. To the clients the message of the oracle presents itself not only as something credible, but also as something self-evident and unassailable, when the diviner reveals facts that are unquestionably part of the particular problem situation. |
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The keen sense of smell (fiimbu) constitutes a first level of divinatory scrutiny. By smelling the intermediary object "like a hunting dog," the diviner develops an almost physical communication with the afflicted and the clients (fig. 2). The intermediary object has rested some time in contact with the afflicted, namely on top of the navel, the heart or the left shoulder blade "where the palpitations of the heart can be felt." These locations and signals express the afflicted individual's physical ties to his/her uterine life-source. The night before the oracle will |
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