Human Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in Mayotte

by Michael Lambek

Book Overview

Based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork, this book describes and interprets trance behaviour among the Malagasy speakers of Mayotte, a small island in the Comoro Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of East Africa. Professor Lambek describes how the people of Mayotte (most often women) enter into trances, during which they believe their bodies are inhabited by spirits. He then analyses the conventions for behaviour in trance and the process...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521282551
• ISBN13: 9780521282550
• Release Date: November 1981
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

First rate and thought-provoking ethnography

I picked up this book because I was using Lambek's reader on religion in my anthropology of religion course, and because I was preparing my own text on the subject. It is a little overlooked in the field, but it contains some valuable information and makes some provocative points. The most interesting thing about this case is that the Mayotte conception of spirits so totally contradicts the conventional understanding of them. That is, their spirits are not particularly "spiritual"! They think of spirits as a "race" or another kind of being, not entirely different from humans. People who are thinking seriously about spirits and spiritual matters, especially about the cultural relativity of spirits and spirituality, need to take a serious look at this society. Also, his discussion of spirit possession is interesting and worth consideration. The next time I teach the course, I will mention this book to the students, and I have included references to it in my own anthropology of religion manuscript.