Event Details

Every Tuesday 9.30 – 10.30am, we invite a Lancaster academic to brief us on their research. The format is a 20 minute talk followed by discussion.

Divination, Oracles and thinking about Futures

Prof. David Zeitlyn, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford

Framing questions to Mambila spider divination in Cameroon, both clients and diviners flirt with determinacy but by and large avoid it, except when talking in the abstract to impertinent anthropologists or similar. In nggam du divination, binary questions are posed to a spider in a hole in the ground. The alternatives are associated with a stone and a stick placed near the hole, which is covered by marked leaf cards. After covering the area with a pot and waiting for the spider to emerge the pattern of the cards relative to stone and stick is interpreted to answer the question posed. Mambila divinatory practice includes repeated reformulations of question as problems and possible solutions are considered and refined. Hence divination provides a means to deal with or accommodate real world indeterminancy, providing paths to action, resolving some of the aporias of the instant with sanctioned advice: the spider says ‘do this!’ Life histories of sample individuals show that even some diviners either do not consult or do not follow the advice given. This puts a different interpretative frame on the determinacy that can be easily elicited. Mambila talk determinacy while walking cautiously, acting to implicitly maintain indeterminacy, keeping futures open!

Short Bio: David Zeitlyn has been working with Mambila people in Cameroon since 1985. His research covers religion, sociolinguistics and vernacular photography. Spider divination has been a recurrent topic which has been tackled in several different ways as reflected in his 2020 book: Mambila Divination: Framing Questions, Constructing Answers Routledge. ISBN 9780367199500. A java based simulation is online era.anthropology.ac.uk/Divination/Spider This has been validated by diviners in Cameroon.