Dancing Prophets: Musical Experience in Tumbuka HealingFor the Tumbuka people of Malawi, traditional medical practices are saturated with music. In this groundbreaking ethnography, Steven M. Friedson explores a health care system populated by dancing prophets, singing patients, and drummed spirits. Tumbuka healers diagnose diseases by enacting divination trances in which they "see" the causes of past events and their consequences for patients. Music is the structural nexus where healer, patient, and spirit meet—it is the energizing heat that fuels the trance, transforming both the bodily and social functioning of the individual. Friedson shows how the sound of the ng'oma drum, the clapping of the choir, call-and-response singing, and the jangle of tin belts and iron anklets do not simply accompany other more important ritual activities—they are the very substance of a sacred clinical reality. This novel look at the relation between music and mental and biological health will interest medical anthropologists, Africanists, and religious scholars as well as ethnomusicologists. |
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Page vii
... Blood and Spirit : The Chilopa Sacrifice 74 FOUR The Musical Construction of Clinical Reality 100 FIVE In the Vimbuza Mode 128 SIX Conclusion : An Ontology of Energy 163 Epilogue 170 Appendixes A Glossary of Vimbuza Spirits 177 B ...
... Blood and Spirit : The Chilopa Sacrifice 74 FOUR The Musical Construction of Clinical Reality 100 FIVE In the Vimbuza Mode 128 SIX Conclusion : An Ontology of Energy 163 Epilogue 170 Appendixes A Glossary of Vimbuza Spirits 177 B ...
Page ix
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Page 39
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adepts afflicted Africa ancestors animal Baßiza batteries become began being-in-the-world Bemba buza Chikanga Chikanje Chikanje's chilopa chiTumbuka clapping clinical reality compound core pattern culture dancing vimbuza Dandaule disease divinatory dream drinking of blood drummers Edita energy ethnographic fumu za pasi goat hand healing heat Heidegger Hunga illness inside the temple kind kwaya Lake Malawi lived experience Lußemba mankwhala mboni medicine mizimu mphiningu Mugwede Mulaula multistable Mupa Mupa's music and dance musical experience Mzungu Mzuzu nchimi Ndembu Necker cube ng'oma Ngoni night nkharamu nkufi northern Malawi nthenda nyanga ontological palm stroke patients person phenomenological played prophets pulses radio rhythmic mode ritual Rumphi sacrifice Saza seems sick singing Sinhalese songs sound spirit possession structure symptoms Tembo thempli tion told traditional trance dancing transformation Tumbuka Tumbuka healers Turner variations vimbuza dance vimbuza drumming vimbuza modes vimbuza music vimbuza spirits vyanusi Western witchcraft witches Zambia