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I picked up Mary Keller's book The Hammer and The Flute: Women Power and Spirit Possession a few weeks ago at the UW library. I was wanting to find a book that talked about the tradition of women and spirit possession, as it was something that was interesting me a few weeks ago and I realized I needed to find some scholarship on the subject to figure out how much research has been done on the subject and what the current state of the field is. Keller's book was published in 2002 and so I thought it would be a good place to start, now however I think I may have been wrong.
The first 100 or so pages is an analysis of the way possession in women has been studied in the past. Rather than talk about any concrete ideas Keller stays purely in the realm of the theoretician. She argues vehemently against terminology and language that has been used in the studies of the past. She presents herself as a post-colonial feminist and is critical of scholars writing that they do not believe in the spirits, or the indigenous claims about what is happening in the possession cases. She makes no differentiation between voluntary and involuntary possession, in fact criticizes those who do. This seemed odd to me as surely there is a great practical and theoretical difference between possession in the cases of religious profession, such as a spirit medium/healer etc, than in the case of an unwilling participant who suffers negative consequences as a result. To me the difference is quite significant and can show a lot about gender relations, power, and empowerment.
In her criticism she does discuss many of the current theories on religious history, and approaches taken towards it, particular in relationship to women and religion. I felt that it was important for me to read and familiarize myself with these theories. However I found it very dry, overly critical and often just seemed to be about which words were acceptable and which were not. It reminded me a little too much of my BA at Evergreen, overt political correctness overriding any substance.
Her theory was the term "instrumental Agency" should be used to describe the possession experience, as the body was being played like an instrument, and like a hammer or a flute, could not play itself but was at the will of some outside force. Agency was a word she used in most paragraphs, that I found a bit confusing and annoying as it wasn't until about page 70 she started to define what she meant. The acting of an agent. However she also looked at other definitions of her words of choice from the OED. She mentioned the definition of agency as "an establishment for doing business at a distance" and said how this also fit. She then went on to say how this was mostly a colonial definition, and that also was a good reason for using it, then on page 78 she wrote a sentence that has absolutely no accuracy in it at all to help justify her statements.
"Agencies were points of contact in many situations of imperialism...It was the agency at colonial ports in china that distributed heroin during the opium wars."
Now this is the problem I have with most theoreticians, that they don't spend enough time being historically accurate! There is not a single accurate word in that sentence! And here I am afraid I must rant, they were not called Heroin wars, they were called Opium wars because Opium was the drug that was being smuggled in. Heroin had not been invented in 1840, and when it was it was used as a treatment for Opium addicts in the early 20th century as a legal way to get them off of Opium, (with predictable disastrous results). 2nd, there were not treaty ports during the opium war, the opening of other ports besides Canton was part of the treaties that were signed AFTER the opium war, as a concession to the British government. 3rd, the Opium did NOT go through any agencies, it was being smuggled in illegally. 4th the only "agencies" that were being dealt with were Chinese governmental agencies that were dealing with independent merchants. The merchants hated having to deal with the governmental agency as they needed huge bribes and cost lots of money and the merchants wanted to deal directly with the Chinese merchants. Not I realize it might seem a bit over the top to pick apart one sentence so. But it was the only time in the book she mentioned something I was familiar with, and while I am by far not an expert on the opium wars, having read only a few books on the subject, I know enough to know how wrong everything she said was! Yes there were millions of problems with colonialism but if your going to complain about one, you should at least be accurate in your reporting of it, particularly when you've spent the other 100 pages of the book criticizing other scholars work for using words that you find aesthetically objectionable.
After reading that I'm afraid I skipped the last 15 pages of theory, something I find I never normally do while reading and decided to go on to look at her practical examples. Here, having seen how inaccurate her view on other parts of history were, I felt a little trepidations. She approached 4 different examples of possession. The case of women factory workers in Malay, Spirit Mediums in the war in Africa, and Two plays Euripides "The Bacchae" and S. Ansky's The Dybbuk.
The case of the women factory workers was an interesting one. She based all her knowledge on the subject, as far as I could tell, on two ethnographies of the subject, and did none of her own research. This was rather upsetting as she was very critical of the way the work was done, and relied too much on the ethnographists translations of what had been said, and was judging them on the way they presented things, but only with their knowledge to judge by. It seemed a little odd.
The story of the factory workers was an interesting one, hundreds of women working in technology factories in Malay suddenly came down with possession and mass hysteria, believed they were being possessed by were tigers that were upset that their tribal lands had been appropriated by the companies. Keller did a good job, first looking at the historical significance of religion in that area, and the current conflicts that were being felt by the women workers. They were viewed as more vulnerable being out in the community, away from home and male influence. This was mentioned in testimony from workers in the plant. The possession of the women ended up causing loss of many work hours and a male spiritual healer was called in to perform rituals to cleanse the area and prevent further outbreaks. The original ethnographers viewed the possessed women's outbreaks as a failure as they did little to combat the problem the women were facing in their lives in the factory, however Keller pointed out, rightly I believe, that there was a certain level of success as there were religious consequences that resulted from the possessions. Women were allowed to have prayer rooms onsite and were given time to maintain their spiritual health. However where I disagree with Keller is when she complained that the original ethnographer said these outbreaks were viewed as negative by the community. Keller disagreed, arguing that it was only the companies who complained and what they were doing was a traditionally accepted part of the woman's culture. I however would question that. If it were an accepted practice, why would you have a specialist who was specifically designated to deal with possessed women, and whose job it was to put an end to these things, with established rituals and sacrifices? If it was acceptable surely there would not have been a culturally ingrained way to stop it? To me it was more interesting to look at this question. When had the men dominated the possessions and made it so that women who had them needed cleansing? Was it always this way? Where the possessions ever valued? Was it ever a way that women were able to explain their own religious power? Keller addressed none of these questions directly or indirectly.
The next case she looked at was possessed women warriors in Zimbabwe in their fight against colonial oppression. Like the case of the Malay she started out by looking at the history and religion of the area. I know nothing about African history or religion. So it was an interesting learning experience for me. It amazed me to see how much the African religions represented beliefs of the Shang. They both have a supreme being, the both have ancestor worship, with more recent ancestors being the ones to make contact with the older ones, who are more powerful. They are both animistic and have spirits inhabiting every thing, and every realm. Having known nothing of this I found it fascinating and intriguing. Of course having made this comparison, I now feel like Keller would be upset as she was very judgmental of any use of the term "primitive" in descriptions of their religions. And I do see her point, no religion is any more primitive than any other, I did chuckle at her use of the words "stone age" and "iron age" to describe cultures in their history, as it's been pretty well acknowledged for most of the latter 20th century that those words don't really apply when looking anywhere beyond Europe, as each region develops in it's own way. It just struck me as odd the way some words are considered to be taboo and yet others, equally as inaccurate, are not.
The story in Zimbabwe is also an interesting one. They had a tradition of spirit mediums assisting the chiefs. Traditionally these mediums were men, however, there was a woman who was executed by the British in 1890's who was a powerful Mhondoro. She was dragged cursing and screaming to be executed and said how her spirit would rise again to help her descendants in their fight. In the 60's and 70's guerilla soldiers with the help of women soldiers, also trained as guerilla’s waged war against the government. They also had a spirit medium who was said to be possessed by the woman killed in 1896 who helped them in every possible way. As it was the spirit of Nehanda was idealized as a hero of fighting against colonial oppression, being pictured on the flag about the figure of Robert Mugabe. Keller's view of the politics of the situation seemed to be a little one sided, it seemed like an incredibly complex situation which was distilled down. I felt like she gave no real new analysis into the situation. She had no personal dealings with any of the people involved, had not done any of her own research into the situation, and relied solely on the works of others. I left the section feeling that while a lot had been said there was no new insight or revelation into the situation. While touching on the fact that Nehanda was a powerful woman in a tradition usually held by men very little was said. It was mentioned that it would be unfair to criticize the gender roles, or even to apply our idea of gender to Africa, an idea I question, but Keller had no problems at all criticizing Greek ideas of gender in her next section.
Finally Keller looked at two plays. The first was Euripides. I find it important to mention that Keller does not know Greek. She worked only from a translation, and so I find that to be a source of frustration. If you are only going to study so few ideas, surely to give the most accurate interpretation possible you would want to study something you could read in the original particularly when you are so particular about words and their meanings. Keller's brief overview of Greek society and religion leaves a little to be desired. She mentions how strongly women are oppressed, not being citizens, and how strong a role they have in religion, as oracles and as temple attendants of female goddesses, caring for the dead, performing rituals etc. Her critical stance, a stance she did not take on either of the other cases was a bit odd. Surely a foreign tradition 2500 years old has it's own values and attitudes as a contemporary foreign one does. Yet one gets questioned and the other does not.
Keller’s book spends too much time in the theoretical and not enough time in the practical. Her ideas, while interesting, seem hard to prove without her having done any of her own research or study first hand. Keller is wanting us to look at the power behind the possessed women. What is it about them that scholars find so compelling? And why do they go to such great lengths to study a power that they don’t believe in? Her argument is whether or not you can prove the existence of the power in question you should acknowledge that it is there at that it is what is using these women’s bodies. An odd idea I have to say. I think an interesting approach when looking at what the people who are being possessed and their communities say is happening. And for that reason I think it is a valid argument. However I think that most scholars studying possession do not believe in the spirits who are doing the possessing, and just limiting a study to what is being said by the communities themselves is limiting. Rather than looking at individual cases I think it can be useful to see the similarities and ways possession has been used over time, and look for broader causes and explanations. I did like her argument that possession should not be viewed as a failing, because a woman was more susceptible, emotional, weak etc. But rather that perhaps this was a natural way women had of expressing themselves religiously. However, this of course goes against her idea that you have to believe what the people themselves tell you as time and time again in accounts it was viewed that women were more susceptible because they were weaker and more fragile. And it was often viewed as something that should be cured or controlled. An interesting, sometimes frustrating read, not at all what I was looking for, but thankfully it had a very good bibliography and I was able to get the names of several other books that might in fact have been what I was looking for in the first case
The first 100 or so pages is an analysis of the way possession in women has been studied in the past. Rather than talk about any concrete ideas Keller stays purely in the realm of the theoretician. She argues vehemently against terminology and language that has been used in the studies of the past. She presents herself as a post-colonial feminist and is critical of scholars writing that they do not believe in the spirits, or the indigenous claims about what is happening in the possession cases. She makes no differentiation between voluntary and involuntary possession, in fact criticizes those who do. This seemed odd to me as surely there is a great practical and theoretical difference between possession in the cases of religious profession, such as a spirit medium/healer etc, than in the case of an unwilling participant who suffers negative consequences as a result. To me the difference is quite significant and can show a lot about gender relations, power, and empowerment.
In her criticism she does discuss many of the current theories on religious history, and approaches taken towards it, particular in relationship to women and religion. I felt that it was important for me to read and familiarize myself with these theories. However I found it very dry, overly critical and often just seemed to be about which words were acceptable and which were not. It reminded me a little too much of my BA at Evergreen, overt political correctness overriding any substance.
Her theory was the term "instrumental Agency" should be used to describe the possession experience, as the body was being played like an instrument, and like a hammer or a flute, could not play itself but was at the will of some outside force. Agency was a word she used in most paragraphs, that I found a bit confusing and annoying as it wasn't until about page 70 she started to define what she meant. The acting of an agent. However she also looked at other definitions of her words of choice from the OED. She mentioned the definition of agency as "an establishment for doing business at a distance" and said how this also fit. She then went on to say how this was mostly a colonial definition, and that also was a good reason for using it, then on page 78 she wrote a sentence that has absolutely no accuracy in it at all to help justify her statements.
"Agencies were points of contact in many situations of imperialism...It was the agency at colonial ports in china that distributed heroin during the opium wars."
Now this is the problem I have with most theoreticians, that they don't spend enough time being historically accurate! There is not a single accurate word in that sentence! And here I am afraid I must rant, they were not called Heroin wars, they were called Opium wars because Opium was the drug that was being smuggled in. Heroin had not been invented in 1840, and when it was it was used as a treatment for Opium addicts in the early 20th century as a legal way to get them off of Opium, (with predictable disastrous results). 2nd, there were not treaty ports during the opium war, the opening of other ports besides Canton was part of the treaties that were signed AFTER the opium war, as a concession to the British government. 3rd, the Opium did NOT go through any agencies, it was being smuggled in illegally. 4th the only "agencies" that were being dealt with were Chinese governmental agencies that were dealing with independent merchants. The merchants hated having to deal with the governmental agency as they needed huge bribes and cost lots of money and the merchants wanted to deal directly with the Chinese merchants. Not I realize it might seem a bit over the top to pick apart one sentence so. But it was the only time in the book she mentioned something I was familiar with, and while I am by far not an expert on the opium wars, having read only a few books on the subject, I know enough to know how wrong everything she said was! Yes there were millions of problems with colonialism but if your going to complain about one, you should at least be accurate in your reporting of it, particularly when you've spent the other 100 pages of the book criticizing other scholars work for using words that you find aesthetically objectionable.
After reading that I'm afraid I skipped the last 15 pages of theory, something I find I never normally do while reading and decided to go on to look at her practical examples. Here, having seen how inaccurate her view on other parts of history were, I felt a little trepidations. She approached 4 different examples of possession. The case of women factory workers in Malay, Spirit Mediums in the war in Africa, and Two plays Euripides "The Bacchae" and S. Ansky's The Dybbuk.
The case of the women factory workers was an interesting one. She based all her knowledge on the subject, as far as I could tell, on two ethnographies of the subject, and did none of her own research. This was rather upsetting as she was very critical of the way the work was done, and relied too much on the ethnographists translations of what had been said, and was judging them on the way they presented things, but only with their knowledge to judge by. It seemed a little odd.
The story of the factory workers was an interesting one, hundreds of women working in technology factories in Malay suddenly came down with possession and mass hysteria, believed they were being possessed by were tigers that were upset that their tribal lands had been appropriated by the companies. Keller did a good job, first looking at the historical significance of religion in that area, and the current conflicts that were being felt by the women workers. They were viewed as more vulnerable being out in the community, away from home and male influence. This was mentioned in testimony from workers in the plant. The possession of the women ended up causing loss of many work hours and a male spiritual healer was called in to perform rituals to cleanse the area and prevent further outbreaks. The original ethnographers viewed the possessed women's outbreaks as a failure as they did little to combat the problem the women were facing in their lives in the factory, however Keller pointed out, rightly I believe, that there was a certain level of success as there were religious consequences that resulted from the possessions. Women were allowed to have prayer rooms onsite and were given time to maintain their spiritual health. However where I disagree with Keller is when she complained that the original ethnographer said these outbreaks were viewed as negative by the community. Keller disagreed, arguing that it was only the companies who complained and what they were doing was a traditionally accepted part of the woman's culture. I however would question that. If it were an accepted practice, why would you have a specialist who was specifically designated to deal with possessed women, and whose job it was to put an end to these things, with established rituals and sacrifices? If it was acceptable surely there would not have been a culturally ingrained way to stop it? To me it was more interesting to look at this question. When had the men dominated the possessions and made it so that women who had them needed cleansing? Was it always this way? Where the possessions ever valued? Was it ever a way that women were able to explain their own religious power? Keller addressed none of these questions directly or indirectly.
The next case she looked at was possessed women warriors in Zimbabwe in their fight against colonial oppression. Like the case of the Malay she started out by looking at the history and religion of the area. I know nothing about African history or religion. So it was an interesting learning experience for me. It amazed me to see how much the African religions represented beliefs of the Shang. They both have a supreme being, the both have ancestor worship, with more recent ancestors being the ones to make contact with the older ones, who are more powerful. They are both animistic and have spirits inhabiting every thing, and every realm. Having known nothing of this I found it fascinating and intriguing. Of course having made this comparison, I now feel like Keller would be upset as she was very judgmental of any use of the term "primitive" in descriptions of their religions. And I do see her point, no religion is any more primitive than any other, I did chuckle at her use of the words "stone age" and "iron age" to describe cultures in their history, as it's been pretty well acknowledged for most of the latter 20th century that those words don't really apply when looking anywhere beyond Europe, as each region develops in it's own way. It just struck me as odd the way some words are considered to be taboo and yet others, equally as inaccurate, are not.
The story in Zimbabwe is also an interesting one. They had a tradition of spirit mediums assisting the chiefs. Traditionally these mediums were men, however, there was a woman who was executed by the British in 1890's who was a powerful Mhondoro. She was dragged cursing and screaming to be executed and said how her spirit would rise again to help her descendants in their fight. In the 60's and 70's guerilla soldiers with the help of women soldiers, also trained as guerilla’s waged war against the government. They also had a spirit medium who was said to be possessed by the woman killed in 1896 who helped them in every possible way. As it was the spirit of Nehanda was idealized as a hero of fighting against colonial oppression, being pictured on the flag about the figure of Robert Mugabe. Keller's view of the politics of the situation seemed to be a little one sided, it seemed like an incredibly complex situation which was distilled down. I felt like she gave no real new analysis into the situation. She had no personal dealings with any of the people involved, had not done any of her own research into the situation, and relied solely on the works of others. I left the section feeling that while a lot had been said there was no new insight or revelation into the situation. While touching on the fact that Nehanda was a powerful woman in a tradition usually held by men very little was said. It was mentioned that it would be unfair to criticize the gender roles, or even to apply our idea of gender to Africa, an idea I question, but Keller had no problems at all criticizing Greek ideas of gender in her next section.
Finally Keller looked at two plays. The first was Euripides. I find it important to mention that Keller does not know Greek. She worked only from a translation, and so I find that to be a source of frustration. If you are only going to study so few ideas, surely to give the most accurate interpretation possible you would want to study something you could read in the original particularly when you are so particular about words and their meanings. Keller's brief overview of Greek society and religion leaves a little to be desired. She mentions how strongly women are oppressed, not being citizens, and how strong a role they have in religion, as oracles and as temple attendants of female goddesses, caring for the dead, performing rituals etc. Her critical stance, a stance she did not take on either of the other cases was a bit odd. Surely a foreign tradition 2500 years old has it's own values and attitudes as a contemporary foreign one does. Yet one gets questioned and the other does not.
Keller’s book spends too much time in the theoretical and not enough time in the practical. Her ideas, while interesting, seem hard to prove without her having done any of her own research or study first hand. Keller is wanting us to look at the power behind the possessed women. What is it about them that scholars find so compelling? And why do they go to such great lengths to study a power that they don’t believe in? Her argument is whether or not you can prove the existence of the power in question you should acknowledge that it is there at that it is what is using these women’s bodies. An odd idea I have to say. I think an interesting approach when looking at what the people who are being possessed and their communities say is happening. And for that reason I think it is a valid argument. However I think that most scholars studying possession do not believe in the spirits who are doing the possessing, and just limiting a study to what is being said by the communities themselves is limiting. Rather than looking at individual cases I think it can be useful to see the similarities and ways possession has been used over time, and look for broader causes and explanations. I did like her argument that possession should not be viewed as a failing, because a woman was more susceptible, emotional, weak etc. But rather that perhaps this was a natural way women had of expressing themselves religiously. However, this of course goes against her idea that you have to believe what the people themselves tell you as time and time again in accounts it was viewed that women were more susceptible because they were weaker and more fragile. And it was often viewed as something that should be cured or controlled. An interesting, sometimes frustrating read, not at all what I was looking for, but thankfully it had a very good bibliography and I was able to get the names of several other books that might in fact have been what I was looking for in the first case