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Ngoma
By: John M. JanzenImprint: University of California Press
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Ngoma , in Bantu, means drum, song, performance, and healing cult or association. A widespread form of ritual healing in Central and Southern Africa, ngoma is fully investigated here for the first time and interpreted in a contemporary context. John Janzen's daring study incorporates drumming and spirit possession into a broader, institutional profile that emphasizes the varieties of knowledge and social forms and also the common elements of "doing ngoma ." Drawing on his recent field research in Kinshasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Mbabane, and Capetown, Janzen reveals how ngoma transcends national and social boundaries. Spoken and sung discourses about affliction, extended counseling, reorientation of the self or household, and the creation of networks that link the afflicted, their kin, and their healers are all central to ngoma -and familiar to Western self-help institutions as well. Students of African healing and also those interested in the comparative and historical study of medicine, religion, and music will find Ngoma a valuable and thought-provoking book.
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| Title of eBook: Ngoma | |
| Release Date: 09-21-1992 | |
| Publisher: University of California Press |
This eBook download is available in the following formats:
| Parent title | Ngoma |
|---|---|
| Encrypted (DRM) | Yes |
| SKU | 9780520910850 |
| File size | 16491 |
| Security | n/a |
| Printing | Not allowed |
| Copying | Not allowed |
| Read aloud | No Sys requirements Download reader |
| Devices | Samsung Tablet, Apple Ipad & Iphone, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo eReader, Aluratek Libre, Iliad, Nokia, Blackberry, Hanlin |
| Note | Excellent navigation features are available via Adobe such as bookmarks and a quick access table of contents. Text search is easily accessible. An Adobe DRM-protected file is different than a pdf file in that it uses Adobe DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology, which authors and publishers use to protect their content from illegal online distribution and to set certain privileges such as restrictions on copying and printing. |
Ngoma
Introduction
That which was a stitch of pain,
has become the path to the priesthood.
Lemba song text,
Kongo society, 1910
An important feature of Sub-Saharan African religion and healing, historically and in the twentieth century, has been the interpretation of adversity, paradox, and change within the framework of specialized communities, cells, and networks. In Central Africa these communities have come to be called rituals or cults of affliction, defined by Victor Turner, a major author on the subject, as "the interpretation of misfortune in terms of domination by a specific non-human agent and the attempt to come to terms with the misfortune by having the afflicted individual, under the guidance of a 'doctor' of that mode, join the cult association venerating that specific agent" (Turner 1968:15–16). In some circles these communities are called "drums of affliction," reflecting the significance of their use of drumming and rhythmic song-dancing, and the colloquial designation in many societies of the region of the whole gamut of expressive dimensions by the term ngoma (drum). The drumming is considered to be the voice or influence of the ancestral shades or other spirits that visit the sufferer and offer the treatment.
This work is concerned with institutions carrying the designation ngoma and related terms. By entering African religious and therapeutic expression through its own language, we are identifying some important underlying, and possibly historic, commonalities and connections. We can also establish the basis for variants and transformations more intelligibly.
A number of modern scholars have looked at this institution in Cen-
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