Creativity, Conflict, and Power in Tuareg Spirit Possession

Abstract

It is now recognized that spirit possession and a work of art share common properties. Yet few analyses stop to consider the transformative effects of possession artistry in diverse contexts, extending beyond the immediate ritual process: while visiting, in leisure, gossip, courtship, and festival settings, where local residents in effect re‐create possession in commentary about its music, singing, and dancing in terms of aesthetic competence as well as curing efficacy. I analyze the synaesthetic interplay of visual and oral messages in possession enactment that center on the musical sound of exorcism and the silence of trance, and connect them to power relationships between persons involved in critical discourse about possession. The goal is to delineate interrelationships between local notions of possession artistry—not in the sense of Western high culture, but rather as a cultural system and basis for the perception and practice of aesthetics—and to look at the assertion or suppression of social power among the Kel Ewey Tuareg of Niger, West Africa.