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these patterns is very similar to what Bateson (1974) calls "muddling" and to Lévi-Strauss's familiar description of the bricoleur's activities (1966:18) as the diviner reorganizes cultural elements, finding new arrangements of old ideas. The diviner must mediate between traditional ideals and current realities, old and new, private and public, this world and that world. Equally informative is Pelton's discussion (1980) of the "shattering and rebuilding" theme of Yoruba Ifa divination, with its opposition of Ifa and Eshu, order and disorder. The theme is reminiscent of the Ndembu diviner who, in shaking his divining basket, rearranges the commonly known symbols of the social order to provide better insight. |
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Once this perspective on the thinking set in motion by divination is raised, a variety of ideas seem to jell and, at least from evidence about African peoples, the cognitive process we are attempting to present no longer seems so singular. For example, Fernandez (1980) presents the idea of "edification by puzzlement" to explain the intensity and enjoyment of Fang and Kpelle deliberations over "right" answers to riddles. Jackson (1982:235) suggests that Kuranko divination functions much as narratives do by bringing forward tradition to be tested against real life; thus, from the abstraction of a problem in the artificial chaos of the divination cast (or of the folktale) order and clarity emerge. We also know that more dilemma tales (narratives which present a problem but no resolution except that provided by group discussion) are found in Africa than in any other part of the world (Bascom 1975). Therefore, divinatory dialogues, which some have rightly compared to debates, perhaps fit within a larger African dynamic in which human energies are devoted to resolving rather than to resolution. |
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The intense interaction of client and diviner is not simply an intellectual enterprise. Jackson (1978) suggests there is a process of transference and counter transference which brings the two together. Among the Pedi a formal sacred communion is established between diviner and client (Sansom 1972:208).
18 Several studies in this volume stress the close association which develops during a divination session. This is certainly true for the Lobi, who call the client and diviner by the same name (Meyer, above). Also, Suthers reports that Djimini Senufo divination is founded on the principle of the "twinning" of the diviner and client because twins "share perfect knowledge of each other" (1987:88).19 |
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Such portrayals of the dramatic bonding of diviner and client help us comprehend the psychological rapport in divination, but they seem to make more difficult the problem Devisch has raised about how such effective interaction can develop between clients and diviners of different ethnic groups. Earlier we noted that many people seek diviners to whom they are unknown in order to ensure the honesty of the oracular communication. Horton reasons that Kalabari Ijo accept foreign divinatory techniques because the matters they treat are "bad" and thereby "non-Kalabari" (1964:15). Devisch (1985:75) suggests that a common core cultural tradition and the dramatic synthesizing transaction between diviner and client are strong enough to override superficial differences. But it is exactly because of these differences that divination is so effective. The Ijo seek "foreign" diviners because their problem is ''foreign" in that normal knowledge is insufficient and a different way of thinking is demanded.20 |
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