Andras Zempleni

Du Dedans au Dehors: Transformation de la Possession-Maladie en Possession Rituelle

Abstract The conjunction of possession and sacrifice in the same therapeutic ritual evidences a paradox in that the spirit or divinity to whom the sacrifice is made is being embodied by the sacrificer whose aim it is to expel this spirit from the patients body. The ritual process by which the Wolof of Senegal solve this paradox is described and analyzed. In the ritual, the internal and inclusive relationship with an anonymous rub (a body-within-a-body) is transformed into an external and exclusive relationship with a named rub (a body-tea-body). The conversion of the possession-as-illness into a ritual possession entails both a spatial and temporal inversion of the bodily symptom-symbol. The diffusely and continuously acting agency from the inside is and must become an external agency of circumscribed and recurrent action. The patients temporary decoration with internal parts of the immolated animal (such as a cap made of the paunch or peritoneum, a necklace or tulband of intestines. or anointing with b...