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naturally belonging to the human mind, or, in the words of a native [Zulu] speaking on this subject, 'There is something which is divination within man'" (187172:165, 16869). This perspective was not well received at the Royal Anthropological Institute and, despite Edward Tylor's support, Callaway never received funds to complete publication of the fourth section of his Religious System. He returned to southern Africa but conducted no further research before ill health forced his retirement to England in 1887. |
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Callaway records four types of Zulu diviners (1970:259374 and 187172: 17779; see also Fernandez 1967 and Fernandez's afterword to the present anthology). The first type, the iziniyanga zesitupa, or "thumb-doctor," gives diagnoses that are answered by people striking the ground with rods. A second type is the iziniyanga ezadhla impepo, "those who ate impepo" (see Callaway's excerpt, note 5). A third type includes the omabukula iziniti, who use sticks, and the amatambo, who use bones. Stick diviners employ three sticks, which leap toward the client and fix themselves on "that part of the body which corresponds with that which is diseased in the patient" (187172: 178) In bone divination, animals' bones (each assigned a meaning) are cast and the diviner interprets their arrangement. Found throughout southern Africa, bone divination is described in detail by Junod (1927:53972) and others. Lastly, there are the abemilozi or inyanga yemilozi. These diviners use imilozi (''familiar spirits")"amatongo or spirits of the dead, who wait on a particular diviner, and speak in a low whistling tone . . . they are . . . spirits who live with a man" (Callaway 1970:348 n.l). |
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Whatever the divination method, clients are ready to criticize poor diviners who speak recklessly (187172: 178). If a diviner fails in his diagnosis, the Zulu call him "the diviner who is a man" (i.e., only a man), or they may say, "He has wandered. He is lost" (1970:330 n. 79, 289). A diviner's work is often compared to following a trail: "Now he will proceed carefully, following that footprint of truth. . . . Like a man who has lost his cattle, having found a footprint he will return again and again to it, till he succeeds in connecting it with others, and thus form a continuous track, which leads him to the lost property" (1970:324). Such imagery is encountered throughout Africa, both in terms of tracking down the truth and of discovering the proper pattern of factors relevant to the client's problem. |
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A diviner must go beyond his clients' responses and reveal the unknown. A good diviner "sees a difficult thing at once" and has a "clearness of perception" (kcakcambisa; literally, "to make white") (1970:321 n. 74). According to Ngubane, a Zulu diviner's initiation is "a series of sacrifices and treatment with white medicines [which] all aim at promoting her illuminations" (1977:87). Ngubane's research among the Nyuswa Zulu generally confirms Callaway's texts except that Callaway's informants spoke only of male diviners while Ngubane asserts that "divination is a woman's thing [paternal ancestor spirits only return through daughters], and if a man gets possessed he becomes a transvestite, as he is playing the role of a daughter rather than that of a son" (1977:57 and 142). Callaway never mentions whether informants dressed as women, but Lee reports that young males dressed as women during their initiation (1969: 140 and pl. 9). This critical |
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