'Ordinary Household Chores': Ritual and Power in a Nineteenth-Century Swahili Women's Spirit Possession Cult

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Periodical article

Title:	'Ordinary Household Chores': Ritual and Power in a Nineteenth-Century Swahili Women's Spirit Possession Cult
Author:	Alpers, Edward A.
Year:	1984
Periodical:	International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:	17
Issue:	4
Pages:	677-702
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Zanzibar Tanzania
Subjects:	African religions spirit possession Swahili women History and Exploration Women's Issues Religion and Witchcraft Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/218907
Abstract:	This paper concerns a women's spirit possession cult that was described at Zanzibar in 1869 by an Alsatian Catholic missionary. The author contents in this article that the ritual which the missionary observed encapsulates certain fundamental aspects of the historical experience of Zanzibar women at that time and, moreover, that the ritual explicitly declares what it is about: the domestication of women. Contents: Zanzibar in the 1860s and the deteriorating situation of women - spirit possession cults and women's responses to the transformation of Zanzibar society - the kitimiri spirit possession cult and islamic practice at Zanzibar. Notes.