NgomaDiscourses of Healing in Central and Southern Africa

Abstract

Ngoma, in Bantu, means drum, song, performance, and healing cult or association. A widespread form of ritual healing in Central and Southern Africa, it is fully investigated here for the first time and interpreted in a contemporary context. This book's study incorporates drumming and spirit possession into a broader, institutional profile that emphasizes the varieties of knowledge and social forms and also the common elements of “doing ngoma.”? Drawing on recent field research in Kinshasa, Dar-es-Salaam, Mbabane, and Capetown, the book reveals how ngoma transcends national and social boundaries. Spoken and sung discourses about affliction, extended counseling, reorientation of the self or household, and the creation of networks that link the afflicted, their kin, and their healers are all central to ngoma—and familiar to Western self-help institutions as well.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 290 citations exist upstream.