D I V I N A T I O N A N D O R A C L E S

H e a l d , Suzette. " T h e A b s e n c e o f A n t h r o p o l o g y : C r i t i c a l The divinatory consultation or oracle works

Reflections o n A n t h r o p o l o g y a n d A I D S Practice i n toward identifying remedial or preventive measures
Africa." Learning from HIV and AIDS, ed. George
to be taken and thereby provides stepping stones
Ellison, Melissa Parker, and Catherine Campbell.
C a m b r i d g e , U . K . : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y Press, 2 0 0 3 .
for empowerment and a temporality of prospect
and peace of m i n d . Sometimes, however, the
H e y w o o d , M a r k . " S h a p i n g , M a k i n g a n d B r e a k i n g the L a w
diviner's involvement may actually exacerbate the
i n the C a m p a i g n for a N a t i o n a l H I V / A I D S T r e a t m e n t
Plan." In Democratizing Development: The Politics of
conflict or indeterminate situation. Indeed, a
Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa, e d . Peris Jones diviner's role may be that of the trickster, namely,
and Kristian Stokke. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff one of ambivalent speech or apparent deception, in
Publishers, 2 0 0 5 . order better to reveal and address the problem.
Strand, Per; Khabelc Matlosa; A n n Strode; and K o n d w a n i Public scepticism toward the diviner or power
Chirambo. HIV/AIDS and Democratic Governance in struggles among elders and family factions may
South Africa: Illustrating the Impact on Electoral detract from the authority or acceptability of an
Processes. C a p e T o w n : I D A S A , 2 0 0 5 .
oracle's findings. W h i l e diviners reject suggestions
ALEX DE WAAL that they themselves are sorcerers*, they tend not
to discourage their client's depressive belief in sor-
cery. That diviners have only occasionally aspired to
positions of public leadership also shows the extent
to which divination remains beyond political
D I V I N A T I O N A N D O R A C L E S . There
power.
is practically no community in black Africa that
does not know divination, an institution attuned
to people's basic assumption that the fundamental KINDS OF DIVINATION AND ORACLES

order of things lies in the invisible, the other- In black Africa the continuum of geomantic and
worldly. Divination and its clients see the other- shamanistic divination implies cross-world commu-
worldly realm as underpinning the this-worldly nication and knowledge not otherwise attainable.
social-symbolic order and holding the key to the Diviners are perceived as mechanisms of spiritual
individual's fate, good or bad, here and now. forces that have been selected for this role at birth
Despite the availability of cosmopolitan technology or identified through name-giving, through recov-
and biomedicine (which assume that reality is sheer ery from a particular illness, or by descent relations;
matter, i.e., something constructed a n d / o r inde- many are endowed with a charismatic personality.
terminate) to which the well-to-do have ready T h r o u g h elaborate professional training and initia-
access, the historical African religions, for their tion, diviners-to-be become members of trans-local
part, as well as widespread Christianity and Islam, cults, sodalities, or lodges. Divination basically
underscore most African people's sense of the concerns a rather stable and culturally relevant
world as fundamentally reaching out human body of expert production of etiological herme-
knowledge and mastery. In the case of a lasting neutics. Divinatory perception—and here a punc-
disempowerment or affliction (insoluble conflict, tual observation from a psychoanalytic perspec-
disaster, exceptional loss, lack of income, chronic tive—traces a kernel of forces or fate at the heart
illness, misfortune, threat of death, or difficult deci- of human experience that escapes conventional
sions concerning the foundation of a house, mar- understanding and other mainstream human con-
riage, or divorce or migration opportunities), peo- trol yet is perceptible through its effects.
ple in uncertainty may call upon a diviner's keen Divination in Africa is always to some degree
sense of offering new insights into the enmeshed mediumnic in that the oracle and the divinatory
ancestral, societal, ethical determinants of their tools, if not the entranced shamanic diviner him
lives, so as to stir up their existence. Recourse to or herself, establish heightened sensorial awareness
divination may even be linked to critical political or of, and communication w i t h , what is defined as an
communitarian decisions, the struggle over scarce otherworldly realm of unforeseeable and invisible
economic resources, warfare, and similar conflicts. forces diagnosed as being coactivated by spirits,

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D I V I N A T I O N A N D O R A C L E S

Most widespread geomantic techniques attested unprecedented "seeing t h r o u g h " at the heart of
in various parts of the African continent since the neighborhood relationality.
sixteenth century are the cowrie-shell and dream div-
Scholars have distinguished three types of sha-
ination (in Islamic West Africa), the Bilumbu, Fa,
manic divination depending on whether it is pro-
Hakata, Hamba, Ifa, Sikidy and so many akin forms
duced by possession trance, by strict-shamanic
of divination (respectively along Luba, F o n , Shona,
Chokwe, Yoruba, or Malagasy cultural traditions), trance, or by a trance-like or heightened state of
or the sangoma tablet divination in southern Africa, consciousness. The first category is widespread and
as well as the mankala board games. In cowrie-shell involves spirit appropriation of the diviner, who
and tablet divination, the seemingly at random, divi- relays or even acts out the message sent by the
natory-borne manipulation of divinatory tools or possessing spirit or deity. Spirit mediums may be
tokens over a geometric layout of lines or holes may associated with a shrine of an interregional cult,
act as an oracular grid inducing the divinatory anal- such as N g o m b o (spread across the Congo-Lunda
ysis. In many mankala board games, the mechan- belt in the southwest of the Democratic Republic
ical, chess-like, gaming rules may do without refer- of C o n g o , southeast A n g o l a , and northwest
ence to otherworldly realm. Tablet divination turns Zambia) or M w a l i in southeast Africa. In the second
distant time and space (or the elsewhere and other- category, the shamanic diviner is believed to initiate
wise) into a geometry of here and now co-occurring visionary contact with the spirit. He or she either
or intersecting paths of causes or antecedents and recounts this visionary journey or transduces the
effects. actions of the spirit in his or her body through a
particular alteration in his or her sensor)' capacities.
While the natural sciences and usual mathe-
matics would conclude that the results of cowry- It could be argued that this type of divination is
shell, tablet, and Mankala geomantic techniques being reappropriated in multiethnic (peri-) urban
are determined by chance, local actors consider cultures throughout Africa by many of the Christian
them to be activated and guided by invisible forces. healing churches and new Christian-borne move-
The diviner establishes the divinatory theme ments of the H o l y Spirit. While speaking in the
according to information a client reveals concern- name of the H o l y Spirit, Christian diviner-prophets
ing his or her needs or motivation for the consul- surreptitiously coalesce this Christian entity with the
tation. The diviner then decodes the position or ancestral spirits (though often overtly diabolized)
movement of an array of divinatory vehicles, and summoned to participate in the healing process of
further interprets the social relevance in dialogue the most afflicted church members. The shifting
with the client. These divinatory vehicles are power of the H o l y Spirit-Ancestor is all the more
manipulated in front of the client while standar- effective by virtue of its encompassing capacity to
dized verses or questions about causes, relation- animate, re-energize and recapture life forces. That
ships, and events are uttered, depending on the
the divining art of these prophets tends to slide into
configuration of objects. The ostensibly neutral
moral prophecy focussing on individual strivings
quality of the divinatory vehicles permits the
demonstrates the extent to which the perception
diviner to deny personal involvement in the social
and explanation of misfortune and divinatory practice
and otherworldly forces at stake. Elsewhere, the
increasingly reflect a spirit of entrepreneurship that is
client may be the interpreter, as in Ifa divination
spurred by the multiethnic and commoditized urban
among the Yoruba of Nigeria, whereas the Sissala
context. The third type of divination is distinct in that
client in northern Ghana is expected to examine
diviners or seers here develop heightened sensorial or
personally the divinatory apparatus while being
dreamlike visionary capacities.
asked a series of yes/no questions. A m o n g the
Chagga-speaking people of Kilimanjaro, the perspi- There are yet other self-arbitrating forms of
cacious tuning in of the divinatory objects and the guilt divination or ordeal. The ordeal extends the
everyday activity of dwelling around production shamanic divination into a self-arbitrating proof of
and reproduction, with the client's subjectivity guilt. One subcategory involves the diviner's coer-
and affliction, both allows for and results from an cion of an invisible force to configure items in

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 D I V I N A T I O N A N D O R A C L E S

tablet or basket divination or provoke friction or SOCLAL CONTEXT

other movement among the divinatory apparatus A critical distinction must be made between the
(rubbing horn, cowry shells, board, or stick; divin- oracle proper and the social use of it, namely the
ing cords, listening or detective h o r n , rattle, axe instance of divination and the subsequent interpre-
handle, bones, gourd of medicine, roots, nut shells, tation, in a family council, of the divinatory asser-
coins, etc.) or the reactions of a poisoned fowl tions. Diviners are expected not only to justify their
to the diviner's y e s / n o questions. Omens and claims by offering criteria substantiating both their
skills and the source of their knowledge but also to
forms of hunt intended to interrogate the spirits
demonstrate their impartiality. Divination entails the
or recently deceased relatives constitute another
basic assumption that human relations can be at the
subcategory.
origin of affliction. Divinatory aetiologies consider
misfortune as the consequence of a tear in the social
NATURE A N D JURAL ASPECTS fabric. The diviner's verdict offers a possible grid for
OF THE D I V I N A T O R Y P R O C E S S how to reweave the damaged strands in the agnatic,
A subtle transaction between diviner, spirits, divi- uterine, and matrimonial weave of social reciprocity
natory vehicles, and clients produces a picture and reintroduce clients into an order of discourse
throwing a particular but unforeseeable light on and exchange. In other words, the oracle achieves its
the client's identity and social network, making aims through the foundational discourse that the
possible an authoritative rereading and interven- diviner and the clients exercise publicly in the fash-
tion in the problem at hand. T h o u g h most divina- ion laid down by tradition.
tory traditions operate at the margins of the local
political power structure, some clearly serve to sup- The oracle's ultimate purpose is the transforma-
port high political office or regulate power relations tion of disarray into the order of exchange that
between families. forms the basis of meaningful-being-in-the world.
The divinatory encounter and consultation enhance
Geomantic and shamanic divination are more of a the client's openness to the outside world and the
birthing process than an arbitration; a hermeneutics invisible realm, and contributes to the innovative
of disorder more than a discourse of truth; and an art shaping of the condition of the subject in the con-
of counselling rather than a factual, causal, or ethical temporary, postcolonial life-world. The divinatory
inquiry. Unlike the judicial council, shamanic and oracle relativizes its own aetiology, leaving room
geomantic divination is not an exercise of redressive for individual freedom and genuine initiative in the
power or domination. Divinatory revelation stands to moral space. Insofar as it establishes multiple links
the jural council of elders as dreamwork to representa- between the misfortune and various social and axio-
tional and discursive argument, as "speaking from the logical (cosmological) registers of meaning (the
heart" or "from the w o m b " stands to the rhetorical social organization, the rule of exchange, offences,
reassertion of power relations in the masculine order curses, persecutions, spirits), the oracle domesticates
of seniority. impending d o o m and an inauspicious destiny.

The diviner disavows authorship of vision and M o s t divination witnesses to a postcolonial,

judgment and asserts that whatever message he or open-minded intercultural encounter and science-
she may be voicing stems from the divinatory forces sharing between and across N o r t h and South in the
at work in him or her, or in the divinatory media. twenty-first century's processes of globalization
The diviner is a medium w h o simply transmits or and economic marginalization. Van Binsbergen, a
utters the divinatory message. In some cases the D u t c h professor of intercultural philosophy at
diviner is not even conscious of what he or she is Erasmus University Rotterdam and director of
saving and requires an assistant to translate his or research at the Africa Study Center in Leiden,
her esoteric discourse for the client; under these describes his becoming a sangoma diviner in
conditions the divinatory seance is without dia- Francistown (Botswana). Since his initiation he
logue. In the L o b i area of southeastern Burkina has practiced tablet divination in southern Africa
Faso, the diviner's spirit has no tongue but com- and in the Netherlands, where he devised a com-
municates through hand gestures. puter program for sangoma consultation with h i m

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D I V O R C E

worldwide by Internet. Numerous African diviners Pemberton, John I I I , e d . Insight and Artistry in African
or diviners initiated in an African divinatory art, at Divination: A Cross-Cultural Study. W a s h i n g t o n , DC:
S m i t h s o n i a n I n s t i t u t i o n Press, 2 0 0 0 .
work in the N o r t h with clients from many African
and non-African cultural horizons, invite one most R e t e l - L a u r e n t i n , A n n e . Oracles et Ordalies chez les Nzakam.

forcefully to rethink, in and from a variety of divi- Paris: M o u t o n , 1 9 6 9 .

natory knowledge productions and ways of subject Turner, Victor. Revelation and Divination in Ndembu
formation, one's by definition limited and biasing Ritual. Ithaca, N Y : C o r n e l l U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1975.

modes of understanding reality and representation, van B i n s b e r g e n , W i m . Intercultural Encounters: African

meaning and agency, culture and power, as well as and Anthropological Lessons toward a Philosophy of
place and time or locality and belonging. Interculturality. M i i n s t e r , L I T V e r l a g , 2 0 0 3 .

W i n k e l m a n , M i c h a e l , a n d J o h n P e e k , eds. Divination and

See also Death, M o u r n i n g , and Ancestors; R e l i g i o n and
Healing: Potent Vision. T u c s o n : U n i v e r s i t y of Arizona
R i t u a l ; Symbols and Symbolism.
Press, 2 0 0 4 .

RENE DEVISCH
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
»
A d l e r , A l f r e d , a n d A n d r a s Z e m p l e n i . Le Baton de VAveugle:
divination, maladie et pouvoir chez les Moundang du
Tchad. Paris: H e r m a n , 1 9 7 2 .

A n d e r s o n , D a v i d , a n d D o u g l a s l o h n s o n , eds. " D i v i n e r s , DIVORCE. See Marriage Systems.

Seers a n d P r o p h e t s i n E a s t e r n A f r i c a . " Spec, issue,
Africa 6 1 , n o . 3 ( 1 9 9 1 ) .

Bascom, William. Sixteen Cowries: Yoruba Divination from

Africa to the New World. Bloomington: Indiana »
U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1 9 8 0 . DJEBAR, ASSIA ( 1 9 3 6 - ) . Assia Djebaris
Bastide, R o g e r . " L a d i v i n a t i o n chez les A f r o - A m e r i c a i n s . " the pen name of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen, Algeria's
In La
Divination, V o l . 2 , e d . A n d r e C a q u o t a n d foremost female writer. Of Berber ancestry, she was
Marcel L e i b o v i c i . Paris: Presses Universitaires de born near Algiers and benefited from advanced
France, 1968. education because her father was a school teacher.
D e v i s c h , R e n e . "Perspectives o n D i v i n a t i o n i n C o n t e m p o - In 1954 she went to Paris to study; the next year
rary Sub-Saharan A f r i c a . " In Theoretical Explorations in she became the first N o r t h African woman to be
African Religion, e d . W i m van B i n s b e r g e n a n d M a t - admitted to the prestigious Ecole Normale
t h i e u Schoffeleers. L o n d o n : R o u t l e d g e a n d K e g a n ,
Superieure de Sevres. But in 1956 she took to the
1985.
streets of Paris with other students to demonstrate
Devisch, Rene. " P a r o d y in Matricentred Christian H e a l i n g solidarity with Algeria's struggle for independence
C o m m u n e s o f the Sacred S p i r i t i n K i n s h a s a . " Contours: (1954-1962). Instead of taking her final exams,
A Journal of the African Diaspora 1 (2003): 171-198.
she produced her first novel, La soif (Thirst,
Devisch, Rene, and Claude Brodeur. The Law of the 1957). Sought by the French police, she and her
Lifegivers: The Domestication of Desire. Amsterdam: husband escaped to newly independent Tunisia in
H a r w o o d Academic Publishers, 1999.
1958, where she continued to write and work as a
Jaulin, Robert. La geomancie: Analyse formelle. Paris: political activist. F r o m Tunis she went to Rabat in
Mouton, 1966. 1959 to work with Algerian refugees in Morocco;
K a s s i b o , B r e h i m a . " L a g e o m a n c i e ouest-africaine: formes there she obtained a teaching post at the national
endogenes et e m p r u n t s e x t e r i e u r s . " Cahiers d'Etudes university.
Africaines 1 2 8 , n o . 38 ( 1 9 9 2 ) : 5 4 1 - 5 9 6 .
O u t of her Moroccan period came a collection of
Kuczinski, Les Marabouts Africains a Paris.
Liliane. Paris: poems, a play, and a third novel, Enfants du nouveau
C N R S Editions, 2002. monde (Children of the New World), published in
M y h r e , K n u t C h r i s t i a n . " D i v i n a t i o n and E x p e r i e n c e : E x p l o - Paris in 1962 and translated into English in 2005.
rations of a C h a g g a E p i s t e m o l o g y . " Journal of the Royal Since 1957 she has produced more than twenty
Anthropological Institute 12 (2006): 313-330. literary and artistic works—fiction, essays, film
Peek, P h i l i p , e d . African Divination Systems. B l o o m i n g t o n : scripts, and poetry. H e r works often portray wom-
I n d i a n a U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1 9 9 1 . en's political coming of age in colonial, wartime, and

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