Abstract
The statements of researchers on the topic of basket divination and the statements of basket diviners in northwest Zambia, Africa, do not fully agree. While researchers rightly stress the importance of observation, analysis and interpretation in basket divination, going so far as to describe diviners as scientists, they fail to recognize that divination is not an abstract, disembodied undertaking. Truthful knowledge is not flushed out of the diviner’s mind as a set of theoretical propositions; it is instead delivered by an ancestral spirit that becomes objectified in three symbiotic forms: physical pain, configurations of material objects laid out inside a basket, and the diviner’s translation of those meaningful configurations into words. In basket divination, human bodies, artifacts, words, and spirits work together in symbiosis. Knowing is a spiritual, intellectual, and embodied undertaking. The challenge then is to conceptualize basket divination as an integrative way of knowing in such a way that one does not fail to recognize either the neurobiological substrate that we all share as humans or those others facets—such as the numen—without which basket divination as a cultural practice would cease to exist.
Highlights
In basket divination, a highly respected technique practiced in Zambia, Angola, and the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo, the diviner tosses symbolic objects of different sizes, shapes and materials in a Religions 2014, 5 woven basket
Divinatory knowledge is delivered by an ancestral spirit that becomes objectified in three forms: the bodily pain felt by the diviner in his heart, the material configurations of small symbolic articles contained in the diviner’s basket, and the diviner’s translation of those meaningful configurations into words
In this liminal universe defined by spirit possession, knowledge is imputed to an ancestral spirit; this spirit, manifests itself through a human body that feels pain and operates the oracle by shaking it
Summary
A highly respected technique practiced in Zambia, Angola, and the Democratic. Divinatory knowledge is delivered by an ancestral spirit that becomes objectified in three forms: the bodily pain felt by the diviner in his heart, the material configurations of small symbolic articles contained in the diviner’s basket, and the diviner’s translation of those meaningful configurations into words. In this liminal universe defined by spirit possession, knowledge is imputed to an ancestral spirit; this spirit, manifests itself through a human body that feels pain and operates the oracle by shaking it. This is the story of birthing knowledge to the world, and the part played in this delivery by the mind, the body, and the spirit
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