Possession, Demoniacal And Other

by T K Oesterreich

  When hours pass by without any visible effect being produced on the patient, the refrain is changed. The night is perhaps far spent, the dawn is approaching.

  Come forth, spirit, or weep for thyself until the dawning.

  Why then are we evilly intreated?

  Or else by way of further emphasis, they go so far as to threaten the spirit that they will go away for good if he does not deign to accede to the objurgations of these delirious drummers:

  Let us go away, bird of the chiefs! Let us go away.

  (Since you frown upon us).

  The melodies of these exorcists’ incantations are of a particularly urgent, incisive, and penetrating character.

  This insistence is rewarded, the patient begins to give signs of assent. This means that the “Chikouembo” is preparing to “come out.” The onlookers encourage him:

  Greeting, spirit! Come forth gently by very straight ways….

  That is to say: do not hurt the possessed, spare him! Overcome at length by this noisy concert the possessed is worked up into a state of nervous tension. As a result of this prolonged suggestion, a fit, the hypnotic character of which is very evident, commences. He rises, and begins to dance frantically in the hut. The din redoubles. The spirit is begged to consent at last to speak his name. He cries a name, a Zulu name, that of a dead former chief such as Manoukoci or Mozila, the ancestors of Goungounyane; sometimes, strangely enough, he utters the name of Goungounyane himself, although he is still alive . . no doubt because the great Zulu chief is regarded as invested with divine power. A woman formerly possessed told me that she enunciated the word Pitlikeza, and it transpires that this Pitlikeza was a sort of Zulu bard who had wandered about the Delagoa country when she was still a girl. She was convinced that the soul of this individual hadembodied itself in her, several decades after his passage through the district.1

  In the case of Mboza the patient was covered with a large piece of calico during all the drum performance. A first medicinal pellet was burnt under the calico, in a broken pot full of embers, a male pellet (made with the fat of an ox or a he-goat); no result having been obtained, a second pellet, a female one made from fat of a she-goat, was introduced. Nwatshulu prayed the gods….

  When the second pellet was nearly all burnt, Mboza began to tremble; the women sang with louder voices. The gobela shouted amidst the uproar: “Come out, Ngoni!” Then he ordered the singers to keep quiet, entered under the veil and said: “You who dance there, who are you? A Zulu? A Ndjao? Are you a hyena?” The patient nodded his head and answered: “No!” “Then you are a Zulu?” “Yes, I am….” And, during a pause, he said: “I am Mboza.” Mboza was a Ronga who died in Kimberley many years ago. The uproar was resumed and the third pellet was introduced. This is the “pellet par excellence,” neither male nor female, the one which is expected to have the strongest effect. Mboza suddenly rose, threw himself on the assistants, beat them on the head, scattered them all right and left, and ran out of the hut feeling as if the spirits were beating him! “Everyone saw that day that I had terrible spirits in me.” In the crisis of madness the patient sometimes throws himself into the fire and feels no hurt, or falls in catalepsy (a womile, lit., becomes dry), and strikes his head against wood, or the ground, without feeling pain.1

  But let us finish the description of the possessed man’s fit. He dances, leaps wildly. Sometimes he flings himself into the fire and feels nothing, or else ends by falling rigid as if in catalepsy … his head striking against a block of wood or the earth, but he appears to feel no pain.

  The concerted drumming may last for four days, a week, two weeks. I know a woman (who has now become a Christian under the name of Monika) who had to endure it for seven days. Everything depends on the nervous condition of the patient and the exhaustion produced in him by fast and suffering.

  When the spirit has declared his name and title he is henceforth known and they may begin to question him. Spoon, the diviner, whose wife has been twice possessed, by the Zulus and the Ba-Ndjao, told me about one of these confabulations. He was in a neighbouring village when suddenly messengers came to fetch him urgently saying: “Your wife, who was present at a witch-dance in such a place has been seized with the madness of the gods.” He went to the place in all haste and saw that she was in fact out of her senses and was dancing like one possessed. He had never previously had any idea that she was possessed by a spirit. This spirit began to speak when she grew a little calmer, and replied to questions put to him: “I have entered into this ligodo, that is this body, this vessel, in such and such a way.”

  “The husband had gone to work in the gold mines. I attached myself to him in a certain place when he was seated on a stone, and when he had returned to the house I forsook him to enter into his wife.” “Are you alone, spirit?” is often asked. “No, I am there with my son and grandson,” he will perhaps reply, or else if it is suspected that there are indeed several spirits with him those present continue to beat the drum to drive out the whole host. Sometimes the possessed pronounces as many as ten names.

  During this confabulation the spirit, speaking by the mouth of the sick man but remaining perfectly distinct from him, sometimes demands presents and there is one in particular which must be offered in order to satisfy and dismiss him…. Blood, blood in abundance is in fact necessary to effect the cure of the sick man and induce the noxious indweller to cease from harm.

  Generally a she-goat is fetched if the sick person is a man, a he-goat if it is a woman. The exorcist who has presided over the whole cure returns and causes the onlookers to repeat the song which brought on the first fit. The possessed begins to grow excited and present the symptoms of raving madness which we have already described. Then the animal is stabbed in the side and he flings himself upon the wound, sucks, greedily swallows the flowing blood, and frantically fills his stomach with it. When he has drunk his fill the beast must be taken away by force. He must be given certain medicines (amongst others one called ntchatche which seems to be an emetic) and goes away behind the hut to vomit up all the blood which he has drunk. By this means, no doubt, the spirit or spirits have been satisfied and duly expelled.1

  The patient is then smeared with ochre. The animal’s biliary duct is fastened into his hair, and he is bedecked with thongs made from the skin of the goat which has been cut up. These various ceremonies must symbolize the happiness and good fortune which the bloody sacrifice has secured for the sick man. All the drum-beaters, who are persons formerly possessed, arm themselves with these thongs also, crossing them over the chest in the ordinary way.2

  Does this mean that everything is now over? So violent a nervous attack, so complicated a series of disturbing ceremonies leave behind them a state of commotion and shock from which the possessed does not immediately recover. It appears that from time to time, in the evening, the bangoma, those who have passed through this initiation, are again seized with the characteristic madness and even sometimes strike their neighbours with the little axe which the Ba-Ronga use in their dances. By day they are in their right senses. This is not all; the fact that they have been in a special relationship with the spirits, the gods, confers upon them prestige and particular duties. They have themselves become gobela and may henceforth take part in the exorcism of the sick. They will perhaps earn money with their famous drums: this is why these ceremonies are in some sort an initiation; this is also why certain individuals are not sorry to be possessed and readily submit to the torture of the witches’ sabbath…3

  This narrative is confirmed in an interesting manner by the communications of the missionary A. Le Roy. This distinguished investigator has given an excellent general account of the religions of the Bantu races which people the greater part of South Africa, the Kameroons, the Congo, and from Lake Victoria Nyanza to the Cape. Le Roy is led by his subject to mention the important part played by possession, although he resigns himself to admitting in conclusion that a thorough study has not yet been possible and will be no more so in the
future. What he is able to report agrees fully with the observations of Junod.

  Another very frequent manifestation of the spirit world is possession. Sometimes the possessing spirit is of human origin, but more often is one of those perverse and malign beings whose origin is little known and who feel for man nothing but jealousy, rancour and rage. The first thing to do in such a case is to call in a specialist who will make the spirit speak and will know what exorcist should be asked to deliver the sick man. The expert arrives, he in turn asks the spirit who he is, why he has entered there, what he wants, etc., then after these preliminaries have been accomplished, steps are taken to satisfy him. Sometimes he will say nothing, and the wizard must make up for this dumbness; but more often he speaks and is obeyed. Finally after tomtoms, ritual dances and very long and complicated ceremonies—they may last several days and nights—a sacrifice, whatever one is desired, is offered, the possessed drinks the blood of the victim, the onlookers take part in the “Communion” and the spirit departs … sometimes. If he remains, everything must begin again, but then another wizard is called in.

  What are we to think of these possessions?

  A number of them are easily explicable: they are cases which can be cured by ordinary medicines, and the best of exorcisms, also the least costly, is then a strong purge.…

  But there are others where the most sceptical mind must admit to being puzzled—when, for example, the possessed woman—for they are very often women—disappears by night from the dwelling and is found on the following morning at the top of a high tree, tied to a branch by fine lianas. After a sacrifice has been offered and the lianas which held her have become loosened she glides like a snake down the trunk, hangs for several moments suspended above the ground; when she speaks fluently a language of which she previously knew not a single word, etc.

  And the natives report many other marvels, which they profess to have witnessed.

  It would be very interesting to verify, with all possible strictness, these facts and many others; unhappily all this is hidden with the greatest care from the eyes of the European and even if the latter can penetrate to a ceremony of this kind the natives will either tear him in pieces rather than allow him to look on or will break it off and disperse.1

  Animal possession also exists in Africa. Bastian relates, quoting D. and Ch. Livingstone, that in South Africa it is believed that many men can transform themselves temporarily into lions. These men from time to time leave their homes and wander about filled with the delusion that they are changed into lions.2

  A. Werner also cites a case of animal possession from Central Africa:

  A number of murders had taken place near Chiromo in 1891 or 1892, and were ultimately traced to an old man who had been in the habit of lurking in the long grass beside the path to the river, till some person passed by alone, when he would leap out and stab him, afterwards mutilating the body. He admitted these crimes himself.

  He could not help it (he said), as he had a strong feeling at times that he was changed into a lion and was impelled as a lion to kill and to mutilate. As according to our view of the law he was not a sane person, he was sentenced to be detained “during the chief’s pleasure,” and this “were-lion” has been most usefully employed for years in perfect contentment keeping the roads of Chiromo in good repair.1

  Such are the most important documents that I can furnish at present on possession in Africa.

  As regards the continent of Asia, the majority of the available accounts relate to India, China and Japan. They will be found below in the section relating to possession in the higher civilizations. Nevertheless we shall also refer to them here, for the psychic state of the lower strata of the population amongst which possession generally manifests itself is not essentially higher than that of the primitive world and scarcely higher than that of the most backward European peoples in the Middle Ages.

  From the primitive zone proper we have information from the Malay Archipelago in particular, especially concerning the Bataks. In these islands transitory states of possession are an everyday phenomenon from which the Christian Bataks are not immune.

  The missionary Metzler reports from Silindung, at a time when Christianity had already triumphed:

  The heathen were celebrating a sacrifice on behalf of a young man sick of a spirit. A Christian came forward as a medium and confessed later to the missionary. He had prayed with his wife that God might protect him from the evil spirit; nevertheless he had come into this village against his will and without his knowledge, he had been possessed and was filled with the deepest shame when he later came to himself. A Christian woman confessed that the spirit had entered into her and she had not known what was happening. The elder of the village and several notables were watching her when the music began in a neighbouring village. The elder said to her: “You are a Christian, the evil spirit no longer has anything to do with you.” When he had prayed the woman became quiet, but after a while she fell back into the same state. Although the men held her with all their might they could not in the end resist her; she escaped from them and dashed towards the heathen village. Later she came to see the missionary, confessed her sins with tears and was ashamed to be seen in public. “How could I have abandoned my little children all alone in the middle of the night if I had been in my senses? I have also two brothers who died a fortnight ago; I should not therefore have gone to such a place if I had known in the least what I was doing.” Another woman declared in the same circumstances that she did not know how she had come into the village and that she was terribly ashamed afterwards. The two women are, moreover, zealous in the practice of religion.1

  A recipient of baptism at Si Morangkir (Silindung) had previously been a medium and the spirits wished to reclaim her. During a sickness she sprang suddenly from her couch, began to dance in the house like one possessed, and said to her relations that they must bring him (that is, the spirit) yet another victim formerly promised, failing which she would give them no peace. When she had come to herself she asserted and strenuously maintained that she did not know what had occurred.2

  Owing to the facility with which possession occurs amongst the Bataks they show still less clear difference between spontaneous and provoked states than is seen amongst other primitive peoples. In the narratives which we owe to baptized natives the fact is so obvious that they would have to be completely dismembered by anyone desiring to separate the two kinds of origin. For this reason I prefer to return to these documents again later.

  1 H. Besson, Notes sur quelques “possessions” en Kabylie, “Archives de psychologie,” vol. vi (1907), pp. 387 sq.

  1 Ibid., p. 388.

  2 Leo Frobenius, Und Afrika sprach.… Wissenschaftlich erweitete Ausgabe des Berichts über den Verlauf der dritten Reiseperiode der deutschen innerafrikanischen Forschungsexpedition aus den Jahren 1910 bis 1912, vol. ii, Berlin, 1912, chap. xi.

  1 Ibid., p. 252.

  2 Ibid., p. 254.

  1 Ibid., pp. 252–254.

  2 Ibid., p. 254.

  3 Ibid., pp. 254 sq.

  4 Ibid., p. 255.

  1 Ibid., p. 256.

  2 Ibid., p. 257.

  1 The Autobiograwhu of Theophilus Waldmeier. London, 1886, p. 64.

  2 J. J. Dannholz, Im Banne des Geisterglaubens, Züge des aiimjstischen Heidentums bei den Wasu, in der deutschen Ost Afrika. Leipzig, 1916, p. 23.

  1 A. Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte, vol. ii, p. 559. Flacourt’s work, Histoire de la grande île de Madagascar, has not been accessible to me.

  2 Junod first published the result of his enquiries in book x (1898) of the Bulletin de la Société Neuchâteloise de Géographie, then in a book published in 1898 at Neufchâtel under the title: Les Ba-Ronga, étude ethnographique sur les indigènes de la baie de Delagoa. An augmented edition of this work appeared in English: The Life of a South African Tribe, 2 vols., Neufchâtel, 1913. To this we must add the memoir on a case of possession of great importance to us, Galagala, which appear
ed in the Swiss periodical Bibliothèque uniuerselle, in June, 1896.

  1 Junod, Les Ba-Ronga, p. 440.

  2 Ibid., p. 440.

  3 Ibid., p. 441.

  4 Junod, The Life…, vol. ii, p. 436.

  5 Ibid., pp. 437 sq.

  6 Ibid., p. 438.

  1 Junod, Les Ba-Ronga, pp. 441 sq.

  2 Junod, The Life, etc., vol. ii, p. 439.

  1 Junod, Les Ba-Ronga, pp. 443–447.

  1 Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe, vol. ii, p. 443.

  1 Junod, Les Ba-Ronga, pp. 446 sq.

  2 Ibid., p. 448.

  3 Ibid., p. 448.

  1 A. Le Roy, La Religion des primitifs, 2nd ed., Paris, 1911, p. 347.

  2 Otto Stoll, Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der Völkerpsychologie, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1904, p. 282 sq.

  1 A. Werner, British Central Africa, London, 1906, pp. 87 and 171.

  1 Proceedings of the Rheinische Mission, 1886, pp. 86 sq.

  2 Ibid., p. 73.

  CHAPTER VI

  SPONTANEOUS POSSESSION IN THE HIGHER CIVILIZATIONS

  (i.) IN THE PAST

  FROM primitive peoples we shall now pass to civilized ones in order to make a rapid survey of the extent to which possession is prevalent amongst them.

  In the civilizations of antiquity, the country best known for faith in spirits and demons is the region of the Euphrates and Tigris. Delitzsch even asserts that “the Catholic doctrines founded on the New Testament belief in demons and devils, concerning bewitched, obsessed and possessed persons whom the priest alone can cure because he has the devil in his power (whence so many ecclesiastical customs, such as the nailing of written exorcisms over the doors and windows of houses, etc.), have their complete parallel in Babylonian magic.”1

  To the Babylonians and Assyrians alike the real world appeared filled with demons. Anyone reading or even merely glancing through the thick volumes published up to the present containing texts of conjurations of all sorts which have come down to us, written for the most part in cuneiform characters on clay tablets, gathers a depressing and even terrible impression of the world in which according to their own belief these peoples lived. At every corner evil spirits were on the watch, and in addition to this menace there was danger from the spells of numerous witches, in whom everyone believed implicitly. To these men the world must have appeared gloomy, full of calamities, as strange as the reconstructions of their curious buildings appear to us. The exorcisms are so numerous that they constitute the major part of cuneiform religious inscriptions; and they must certainly date back beyond the purely Babylonian tradition to the Sumerians. At the time of the Babylonian captivity these demonological beliefs passed into Judaism and thence to Christianity, where they had a fresh and terrible blossoming in the European Middle Ages.