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often to Muslims elsewhere. Of the two lamuli I knew well, one had studied with a Swahili man at a trading center in the next county and the other had learned in Mombasa where he lived for a time. |
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The lamuli saw their work as a science, based on calculation and reference to books of learning and wisdom. Numbers were an important input in their consultations, and they noted the time at which the client arrived. For this purpose, Yahaya, a well-known lamuli, had a fancy clock in the "office" where he received his clients. Each letter of the consulter's (and/or the sufferer's) name was said to represent a number, and the sum of these as well as the arrival time figured in calculations made upon a slate. Clients who came at a "bad" time were asked to return later. Time and its divisions were an important theme. Yahaya said: "My science is that of the seven days, I know how every hour is called and what can be done at that time." |
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After initial calculations, the lamuli referred to his books. Yahaya claimed to use books from Arabia; he mentioned Sa'atili Habari, "for examining the time," and Abu Mashari Faraki, for revealing the causes that operate in a particular time. He explained that this latter book helped him to know what kind of person had caused the client's troubles, where medicine was buried, and what type of sacrifice was needed.
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Book diviners proceeded by looking up appropriate passages and reading phrases aloud in Arabic. But since their clients did not understand, they had to translate for them and explain the relevance of the passages to the client's problem. As the client commented and conveyed more information, the lamuli might refer to other passages in his books. As in divination by spirit possession there was a three-way conversation, with the diviner mediating in this case between the client and the authoritative book. |
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Clients of lamuli diviners emphasized that these practitioners were able to find the truth without the help of spirits. "They do not deafen you with gourd rattles and strange noises," remarked one regular client, himself a pillar of the Catholic church. "They just examine their books quietly." A Muslim client said: "They do not lie while taking your money; they use only the book and the help of Allah." |
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The appeal of the book diviners seemed to lie in their "high technology" access to knowledge. The emphasis on measurement, counting, the division of time as measured by clocks, writing, reading, and books was part of what Nyole saw as a powerful way of ordering the world.5 Considering the way in which the lamuli system with its books and writing has become established in Bunyole, one is reminded of the parallel which the Zande saw between their oracles and European ways of knowing. As Evans-Pritchard notes: "Azande often say: 'the poison oracle does not err, it is our paper. What your paper is to you the poison oracle is to us' for they see in the art of writing the source of a European's knowledge, accuracy, memory of events, and predictions of the future" (1937:263). Although writing came to be associated with mission education and the colonial regime in Uganda, it was in fact the Arabs who first introduced it, and it was Muslim lamuli who usefully applied it to the analysis of life's problems in Bunyole. |
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