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Knowledge and Power in Nyole Divination |
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In his great work of ethnographic fiction, Joseph and His Brothers, Thomas Mann touches upon central problems in the anthropology of divination. Joseph has been summoned before Pharaoh, who, after conversing with the young "soothsayer," orders him to interpret the strange royal dreams whose meaning has eluded the "botchers from the book house." The way in which understanding emerges from their dialogue puzzles the god-king. "You have a way," he says, "of making it seem as though everything is all beautifully clear whereas so far you have only told me what I knew already." Mann makes Joseph reply, ''Pharaoh errs . . . if he thinks he does not know. His servant can do no more than to prophesy to him what he already knows." And again after talk of fat cows and lean years, Joseph declares that it is Pharaoh who has prophesied. But Amenhotep contradicts him. "No, you are just saying that. . . . You made it seem as though I myself interpreted because you are a child of stratagems and descended from rogues. But why could I have not done it before you came? I only knew what was false but not what was true. For true is this interpretation, that I know in my very soul; my own dream knows itself again in the interpretation" (Mann 1968: 14245). And true the divination did indeed prove to be; the knowledge allowed Pharaoh to consolidate and extend his power over Egypt and beyond. |
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In the drier prose of social science, we might say that Mann causes Joseph and Pharaoh to confront issues in the sociology of knowledge: who knows, how meaning emerges in a consultation to resolve uncertainty, and how divination fits into the dynamics of power. |
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The Nyole of Eastern Uganda, whose divination practices are examined here, did not have kings, were not particularly concerned to prophesy the future, and seldom consulted diviners about their dreams. Yet the problem of who knows the truth and how it is legitimately recognized in divination was raised by diviners and clients alike. Like Joseph, Nyole diviners had to establish an interpretation which the inquiring party recognized as true. And like Pharaoh, Nyole consulters |
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