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African cultures, I will outline an interpretation of the cognitive processes involved in divination. All types of divination will be considered because comparable shifts to the non-normal occur irrespective of whether mechanical or mediumistic, interpretative or intuitive forms are being utilized. Also, similar processes are involved whether the divination type is a distinct system of esoteric knowledge on which interpretation of the oracular message is based or a diagnostic system which relies on symbolic use of common knowledge. As a means of acquiring normally inaccessible information, divination utilizes a non-normal mode of cognition which is then synthesized by the diviner and client(s) with everyday knowledge in order to allow the client(s) to make plans of action. |
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Risks are obviously involved at this level of generalization, but at some point ethnographic research must be taken beyond the culture specific to determine whether larger patterns are involved.
1 In fact, the degree of congruence found in African systems of divination suggests an explanation for divination's universality. After a brief review of the stereotypes of divination, we will consider aspects of the divination process, such as location, diviner, symbols, and sensory modes in order to demonstrate how the created liminality causes the necessary shift in cognitive processes. |
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Both the positivist functionalist bias in anthropology and the rigid European dichotomization between modes of thinking (magic versus science, intuitive versus rational, and so on) have served to perpetuate a portrayal of African peoples as gullible, resistant to change, seeking consulation in rituals empty of rational thought. Careful study of African systems of divination immediately contradicts these erroneous characterizations. Actually, divination practitioners exhibit an intense need to know the true reasons for events, a highly skeptical and pragmatic attitude toward all types of information, and a persistent concern with adjusting to change. |
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The search for knowledge so prominent in African cultures has a very distinctive character to it. According to Douglas, "Any culture which admits the use of oracles and divination is committed to a distinction between appearances and reality. The oracle offers a way of reaching behind appearances to another source of knowledge" (1979:129). There is truly a "thirst for objective knowledge," as Lévi-Strauss terms it (1966:3). Coincidence is never a sufficient explanation. Answers to all questions are available if, but only if, one uses the proper mode of communication in addressing the correct source of knowledge. Necessary information may only be available from suprahuman beings and powers, frequently because they have caused the problem which needs resolution but also because the suprahuman realm is the repository of true knowledge about our shared reality, as the Sisala of Ghana, among others, affirm (Mendonsa 1978:39). |
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The serious search for knowledge is never easily satisfied. It is not clear whether the skepticism about divination among some Africans that is sometimes recorded would be forthcoming without the ethnographer's persistent probingthe kind, for example, that Evans-Pritchard did (1968:31351). But certainly there can be both an accepted philosophy and skepticism, as Hallen and Sodipo's study among the Yoruba shows (1986). The Kalabari Ijo, for example, are skeptical of diviners, |
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