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| Title: | Oromos, Slaves, and the Zar Spirits: A Contribution to the History of the Zar Cult |
| Author: | Natvig, Richard |
| Year: | 1987 |
| Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
| Volume: | 20 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 669-689 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Ethiopia |
| Subjects: | African religions spirit possession Religion and Witchcraft Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Cultural Roles Historical/Biographical |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/219657 |
| Abstract: | The zar cult is a spirit possession cult found in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Arabia, south and southwest Iran, Egypt, and the Sudan. It is not a uniform phenomenon throughout this vast region, but its aim is the same: the curing of illnesses or misfortunes caused by possession by a species of spirit called 'zar'. This paper discusses the origin and development of the zar cult by critically examining previous hypotheses and theories, and by drawing attention to hitherto unutilized sources which seem to shed new light on the cult's early history. The evidence suggests that the notion of a spirit named 'zar' may be at least as old as the 16th century. The early zar cult - or 'proto-zar cult' - may have originated in the culture contact, in the 18th or early 19th century, between the (Cushitic) Oromo and the Christian Amhara in southern Abyssinia, possibly as a response of the Oromo to radically changing sociocultural conditions. The proto-zar cult developed into the zar cult in the course of its spread via slave trade routes to the Middle East, probably in the first half of the 19th century. Notes, ref. |
