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images or root metaphors, manifested as sets of connected symbols," and asserting "the fundamental power and health of society and nature grasped integrally" (1516). This stress upon the dualistic, rational nature of Ndembu divination echoes Evans-Pritchard's account of the Zande poison oracle, yet in most other respects the two divination systems are dissimiliar: the fact that Ndembu "basket tossing" divination makes use of a collection of symbols which forms a microcosm of social reality implies that the revelation of the wider whole, at least to the diviner, is unlikely to be entirely absent. |
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Recently, the overemphasis upon divination as an analytical ritual has begun to be balanced, firstly by Devisch, who reverses Turner's dichotomy in giving revelation priority in his interpretation of Yaka divination (1979), and secondly by Werbner's argument that both revelation and analysis constitute different emphases within Tswapong divination rather than distinct modes of ritual (1989:2526). Both Werbner and, in a study of Giriama and Swahili divinatory speech, Parkin (1979; see also Parkin's essay in this volume) describe shifts in divinatory ritual and speech within a single session between classificatory, "logical" analysis on the one hand and a unifying synthesis via the use of polysemous symbols and metaphors on the other hand. Divination, then, appears to be, perhaps unsurprisingly, as disparate a process as other forms of ritual, such as sacrifice: predominantly analytical in some contexts (such as the Zande poison oracle), while in others either predominantly revelatory (e.g., Yaka divination) or consisting of an interplay of both modes. |
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I would suggest that the stronger the legalistic purpose of divination, the more "analytical" the method used is likely to be, involving sharp "either-or" categorizations and a systematic sifting of evidence, the Zande poison oracle being a prime example. In such contexts, the constitution of performative, public "truth" rests upon the creation of clear definitions and classifications, for which analytical divinatory procedures are eminently suited. Where such legalistic requirements are less important, however, divinatory analysis may be more likely to be balanced by revelation, involving such phenomena as the use of microcosm, the simultaneous use of polysemous symbols and metaphors, the resolution of disparate meanings, the cultivation of ambiguity and paradox, and the kind of enigmatic truth which the Pale Fox embodies, in which an integrative function emerges. |
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In the remainder of this essay, I will explore this "division of oracular labor" and its implications with reference to Temne divination. Most of my research was carried out in southeastern Temneland, which is roughly in the north-central region of Sierra Leone. |
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The Hidden and the Open in Temne Divination |
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The Temne do not have as spectacular a divinatory patron as the Pale Fox, and Temne stories are so replete with different trickster figures that the fact that one of them is associated with divination may seem completely unsurprising. What |
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