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sion is also of course normally attributed to spirits, though as yet spirits have not been mentioned. The implicit proposition, therefore, is that the victim's wife is a controlling spirit. This is combined with another proposition, which states that the victim is troubled by his trade or occupation. Home and the outside are thus simultaneously linked as sources of distress. As yet, such propositions are only hinted at; they are not clear enough to be judged true or false by the client. |
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We see in the next section of paraphrase, however, that the diviner successfully locates a child as the victim. As usual, a positive response from the client has helped him. Clients do this by words of encouragement and agreement throughout the divination. The diviner says: |
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I am looking at the [victim's] head, circling around, going now to the stomach, to the joints, circling all the time . . . and the child is suffering in all parts of the bodyhead, heart, stomachbut the stomach pain is ceasing, now it is the back which is troubling. |
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And yet this child has been sent to hospital, but vomits. This is caused by the heart, for the disease is in the heart. And the head aches. |
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He was given tablets but was sick on taking them. . . . He is constipated for two or three days. Isn't this so? [The client is asked, but courteously denies that the child is constipated.] He is constipated one day but not the next. He goes and then the stomach can be heard rumbling at his umbilicus. Where do you live? [The question is addressed to the client, who tells the diviner.] |
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You saw something astonishing in his house, didn't youlike a wild animal from the forest going in? Now that animal came up to the child, who fell asleep and went "Haw haw" [the noise of an animal]. And even the next day, when he's about to recover, the sickness goes away a little but then comes right back. The disease then comes and goes every two days, with the child going "Haw haw" at its onset. For now there are spirits active there, which must be seen to quickly. |
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There is an interesting kind of two-part syllogism here, the first of which uses metonymy. First: the child is approached by the animal (which is understood to rasp); the child is approached by the sickness (initiated by a rasp); therefore the animal is the sickness. Second: the animal is from outside (i.e., the forest); spirits are from the outside; therefore the animal is the spirits (therefore to treat the spirits is to treat the sickness). |
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The diviner then follows up his admonition to treat the spirits with explicit instructions about the medicines needed for the treatment: "Get a cock, a hen of different colors, a white loin cloth, and materials for making an Arabic charm which can be drunk. The child has spirits, including the ape-spirit to which he is attracted. Get these spices: Ambari, Miski, Kafuri, Zafarani, Marashi, and also a sheepa surrogate will doeven a sheep's hoof (literally, shoe)." After further instructions and then some open discussion, a date, time, and place are set for the treatment for which these items will be needed. |
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The first part of the divination links home and the outside world as simultaneously producing a number of sometimes conflicting sources of distress. The second repeatedly probes different areas of the body, then focuses on the home, which |
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