Chibale religion

A vital form of grouping in Chibale is that based on religious orientation. This orientation is heavily related to the values one cherishes regarding music, dance, text and ritual.

In Chibale many people are christians. Those who are not christians, but also the christians in times of complicated problems, can be said to adhere to a local cult that is an amalgam and transformation of older local, central cults – namely ecological, ancestral and chiefly cults. The possession cults are heavily linked to these cults.

Kupupa, the ritual acknowledgement of a specific spirit or a part of the spirit world, is important in all local and spirit possession cults. The link between kupupa and music is profound.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and spirit possessed form opposites in the cultural landscape of Chibale. The rules they follow differ, but they share the belief that following rules of life is necessary.

Spirit possession was an important aspect of the historical, central cults in Chibale. Over time, the more central orientation of spirit possession moved to a more marginal one, though the difference can not be made too sharp.

Most spirit possessed organise themselves in groups. In the course of history the association of these groups changed from the local, central cults to more marginal cults of affliction, be it with some central functionalities.

What happens on the personal and group level when one becomes a spirit-possessed? An example which also introduces the reader to the possession milieu in Chibale, especially from the end of the 1970s until well into the 1990s.

In Chibale, various types of spirit possession are discerned. Three types of possession are common while two other types have gradually disappeared over the past century. In the first place they differ in the type of task they perform but there are many more differences.