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Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan
University of Wisconsin Press, 1989 Paper: 978-0-299-12314-7 | eISBN: 978-0-299-12313-0 Library of Congress Classification HQ1793.5.B64 1989 Dewey Decimal Classification 305.309625
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ABOUT THIS BOOK
Based on nearly two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a Muslim village in northern Sudan, Wombs and Alien Spirits explores the zâr cult, the most widely practiced traditional healing cult in Africa. Adherents of the cult are usually women with marital or fertility problems, who are possessed by spirits very different from their own proscribed roles as mothers. Through the woman, the spirit makes demands upon her husband and family and makes provocative comments on village issues, such as the increasing influence of formal Islam or encroaching Western economic domination. In accommodating the spirits, the women are able metaphorically to reformulate everyday discourse to portray consciousness of their own subordination. See other books on: Men | Muslim women | Sex customs | Spirit possession | Sudan See other titles from University of Wisconsin Press |
Nearby on shelf for The Family. Marriage. Women / Women. Feminism:
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