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position in Zande society. I have little hesitation in affirming that the customary exclusion of women from any dealings with the poison oracle is the most evident symptom of their inferior social position and means of maintaining it. (284285) |
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In another classic study of African religion, Middleton (1960) also emphasizes that being able to interpret misfortune for others was a central aspect of authority. Among the Lugbara, oracles were consulted by lineage elders "although a senior man who is not an elder may consult them himself on behalf of his own dependents, especially if the elder is away or if the patient is only a wife or child" (81). In this perspective, women and children are pawns; they were extensions of their husbands or fathers, and in oracular consultation their sicknesses were associated with offenses committed by men. Since the outcome of oracle consultation was determined by the consulter (84), he was able to produce knowledge that supported his own political interests vis à vis other men. More recently Mendonsa has analyzed the politics of divination among the Sisala of northern Ghana. Here too only elder men consult diviners, and the right to do so is the "keystone of lineage authority" (1982:167). |
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The politics of Nyole divination are more complicated. Women could consult diviners, although they did so less frequently than men. Records kept by three diviners showed that men alone or accompanied by other men consulted in somewhat more than half of all the cases. In nearly a quarter of the cases, women alone or together with other women came to divine. And in the rest of the cases, a male and female client came together. Men were preponderant as clients of the gourd rattle diviner, whereas women were more likely to be present at consultations with book diviners. In any case, women were present at divination seances to a far greater extent than they were reported to be among Zande, Lugbara, and Sisala. Given the part that the client plays in a divination seance, we must conclude that Nyole women were able to influence the interpretation of misfortune. Does this mean that divination does not support male dominance as has been reported for the other societies? |
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To answer this question, we must ask several others, for the sexual politics of divination have to do with more than whether diviners and their clients are men or women. We need to know for whom consulters seek divination, what sorts of political implications are contained in divinatory conclusions, and how these conclusions are applied in practice. |
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Whereas men were more frequent consulters in Bunyole, women were far more often objects of divination in the sense that the actual "events" whose causes were being divined were usually the sicknesses and reproductive problems of women. The sickness of children was also very common (see Whyte 1982:2058). The afflictions of women were either more common or were better "to think with" in divination. |
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These victims of misfortune were often not present at the divination session. The records kept by three diviners show this to be an especially marked pattern in divination by spirit possession. The victim was present at less than one-fifth of the gourd rattle consultations, but at one-half and two-thirds respectively of |
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