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Abstract
Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in the Blue Nile town of Sennar, supported by archival and historical documentation, this article explores the history of Zar spirit possession in Sudan, and the light this throws on the interplay of religions over the past 150 years. Life history data supports the argument that contemporary Zar is grounded in forms and rituals derived from the ranks of the ninteenth-century Ottoman army, and these remain the basis of ritual events, even as they accommodate ongoing changes in this part of Africa. Many of these changes are linked to the dynamic interplay of Zar with forms of Islam, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the other. In the former colonial periods, political power resided with the British, and Khawaja (European) Christian Zar spirits are remembered as far more important. Today that authority in Zar has shifted to spirits of foreign Muslims and local holy men, on the one hand, and to subaltern Blacks, on the other. These speak to concerns of new generations of adepts even as changes in the larger political and religious landscapes continue to transform the context of Zar.
Highlights
Just as Europeans...have created an image of the savage which...has always acted [1]as a counterpart to their own culture and civilization, African societies have devised their own respective inversions and counterparts which have helped them articulate their sense of self and determine their political and ritual practices (Kramer 1993, 2).Zar1 in Sudan assumed its present shape—in terms of its ritual and form of beliefs—in [2]Ken on Entangled Religions 8 (2019)the mid-nineteenth century, in the ranks of the Ottoman army (Constantinides 1972; Kenyon 2012; Makris 2000; Seligman 1914)
That is not to say that it originated at that time; the sheer complexity of the phenomena suggest that these were already very old beliefs and practices
Why does the nineteenth century continue to be such a powerful template in expressing ideas [39] about the spirit world? Physical ruptures from home, the traumas of enslavement, reinforced by subsequent pressures to reshape individual identity—such events go far to answering this question. For those forced into servitude in Egypt, the ritual spaces of Zar offered brief moments of freedom in which to remember their past, on the one hand, and to process their present, on the other
Summary
ଈ୪ഌഝଈഝ Drawing on long-term ethnographic research in the Blue Nile town of Sennar, supported by archival and historical documentation, this article explores the history of Zar spirit possession in Sudan, and the light this throws on the interplay of religions over the past 150 years. Life history data supports the argument that contemporary Zar is grounded in forms and rituals derived from the ranks of the nineteenth-century Ottoman army, and these remain the basis of ritual events, even as they accommodate ongoing changes in this part of Africa Many of these changes are linked to the dynamic interplay of Zar with forms of Islam, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the other. Today that authority in Zar has shifted to spirits of foreign Muslims and local holy men, on the one hand, and to subaltern Blacks, on the other
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