places of power and shrines of the land

12
Places of Power and Shrines of the Land Author(s): Elizabeth Colson Source: Paideuma, Bd. 43 (1997), pp. 47-57 Published by: Frobenius Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40341730 . Accessed: 09/12/2013 05:04 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Frobenius Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Paideuma. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Upload: saulshava

Post on 27-Sep-2015

228 views

Category:

Documents


8 download

DESCRIPTION

culture

TRANSCRIPT

  • Places of Power and Shrines of the LandAuthor(s): Elizabeth ColsonSource: Paideuma, Bd. 43 (1997), pp. 47-57Published by: Frobenius InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40341730 .Accessed: 09/12/2013 05:04

    Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

    .

    JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

    .

    Frobenius Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Paideuma.

    http://www.jstor.org

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • Paideuma 43, 1997

    PLACES OF POWER AND SHRINES OF THE LAND

    ELIZABETH COLSON

    Natural and Human Construct

    A theme common to the literature on central and southern Africa, though not unique to it, is the distinction between places of power associated with nature spirits and land shrines dedicated to ancestral spirits (see, e.g. Vansina 1990: 93).

    Making distinctions is always tricky. Are what I am calling places of power also shrines? Are they land shrines? How do they, and other places of appeal, relate to territorial and regional cults? And if there is a distinction between natural shrines and other shrines of the land, is this related to constituency, or to purposes for which they are approached, or to organization of their cults? Do all shrines have cults?

    Vansina (1966: 32), in writing of the kingdoms of the central African savanna, has said that nature spirits "are worshiped at the place where they are supposed to dwell, but no shrines are built for them", except among the Tyo, but he also specifies that nature spirits can be approached only through priest/mediums, which implies some kind of cult apparatus. Van Binsbergen (1981: 101) defines a shrine as 1) "an observ- able object or part of the natural world, clearly localized and usually immobile", that is 2) "a material focus of religious activities, and perceived and respected as such by the participants", and 3) the "observable features of a shrine: must be those locally accept- ed as appropriate to a shrine".

    Van Binsbergen's definition in essence reduces shrines to "a material focus of reli- gious activities", though religious activities are left undefined, and includes natural features of a landscape associated with spiritual forces, whereas Vansina thinks of a shrine as something built by its adherents. I propose to follow van Binsbergen in this article, although I continue to make a distinction between places of power and shrines of the land. I am also not concerned here with shrines, such as hunters' shrines, patron- ized by individuals or shrines controlled by professional associations.

    Land shrines obviously fall within Schoffeleer's category of territorial cults whose "constituency is a territorial group identified by common occupation of a particular land area, so that membership of the cult is in the final instance a consequence of resi- dence and not kinship or ethnic designation (1978: 1)." It is not clear whether places of power, which usually have a more general appeal, fall into this category, although van Binsbergen in his own discussion of territorial cults makes a distinction between "man- made" and natural shrines.

    These last may be trees, groves, hills, fields, pools, streams, or waterfalls and may or may not have additional shrines erected at the site (1978: 50).

    The distinction between natural and man-made, however, is blurred by the fact that in some regions the place for communal offerings is a tree of a particular species, plant-

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • 48 Elizabeth Colson

    ed at the founding of the village (van Binsbergen 1978: 50). Such a tree would be a land shrine under my definition, since it owes it origin and siting to human intervention. So also do groves that grow up around the grave shrines of former political or religious figures. They seem different in kind from places whose efficacy is seen as prior to any human relationship with the site. The Chewa of Malawi seem to recognize this when they make a distinction between woodlands associated with the spirits of the dead identified with a particular community and forests on hills or mountains associated with "rain deities" or sometimes with the autochthonous settlers of the land (Morris 1995:309).

    My distinction between places of power and Shrines of the Land cuts across Schoffeleer's category of Territorial Cults, and is based on rootedness in place, non- human origin, and a potential appeal that cuts across political and ethnic boundaries. Places of power then are likely to be linked to what Werbner has called Regional Cults (1977(a): xi), though some have only local fame.

    Places of Power

    Places of power are permanent features of the landscape regarded as inherently sacred or as the loci of spiritual power. If they are associated with particular named spirits rather than generic spirits or unpersonfied force, these spirits are usually mythologized as ancient heroes who existed before present political units or communities came into existence or they are conceived of as spiritual forces of non-human origin. Immigrants therefore can relate to them and their associated spirits as equally concerned with all human groups, and their cults override parochial political considerations. Werbner sees their cults as underwriting the idea of a moral world order, guaranteed by the under- standing that those on religious errands should have the right of free movement across communal boundaries (1989: 246). He is writing of the Mwari cult of southwestern Zimbabwe, but much the same is true for the cults associated with places of power else- where.

    Nevertheless, it is only fair to point out that most places of power, such as springs or pools or large hollow trees, are likely to be known only to local people who come there for help when appeals at the regular land shrines have had no result. They are not places of distant pilgrimage.

    Spiritual forces associated with places of power thus are defined as different in kind from the spirits appealed to at land shrines which are reputed to have a link to the com- munity stemming from their experience as living humans. They are usually identified with ancestral figures who first settled in the area or with former holders of political or ritual office. Theoretically at least their shrines were created within the time span of local history and are attached to space once known intimately. In this they contrast to the spirits associated with places of power who are outside local history. Mbiti (1970: 100) indeed speaks of places associated with power as being envisaged to have or to be spiritual beings who are "timeless" intermediaries with God.

    The distinction is sometimes but not always marked linguistically. In northern Zambia, spirits associated with places of power were known among Bemba-speakers

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • Places of Power and Shrines of the Land 49

    as ngulu ("nature-spirits") or bakasesema ("prophets"/) (Cunnison 1959: 220-221; Richards 1939: 358) or milungu (Gouldsbury and Sheane 1911: 92) as distinct from the mipashi or spirits of the dead. Among Mambwe-Fipa speakers around Lake Tanga- nyika they were known as miao or more recently as ngulu (Werner 1978) while ances- tors were known by the same term as among the Bemba (Watson 1958: 18). Elsewhere the distinction was blurred. Among Tonga-speakers in the Southern Province of Zambia, all spirits with control over the rains and other ecologically important matters were known as basangu or baamibaimvula (lords of the rain) whether they were conceived of as nature spirits of unknown origin or the spirits of former prophets or other communal leaders (Colson 1977: 123; Luig 1995: 34-36) in contradistinction to the mizimo or spirits responsive to their own living kin. The Ila, close linguistic kin of the Tonga, like the Chewa of Malawi, used mizimo as an all-purpose category for spiritual forces (see Smith and Dale 1920, vol 2: 182 for the Ila; Schoffeleers 1977: 227 for the Chewa).

    Sites accepted as having the potential to become places of power seem much the same throughout Africa, and indeed throughout the world. This is so much the case that few raise the question of why these and not others. Mountains, rock faces, caves, pools, waterfalls, rapids, hot springs, dense forests and large trees all seem to have the potential to engage the human imagination and become imbued with sacred authority. Van Binsbergen suggests that "wild places" have religious meaning among those dependent upon subsistence economies, as was true of much of this region of Africa until the end of the 19th century. These then "become associated with invisible entities, and thus become objects of veneration (1978: 56)". Stefaniszyn (1964: 161) comments that the Ambo of Central Zambia fear "awe-inspiring objects" whether these be big trees, mountains or large animals and attribute to them a "force" or "strength". Such explanations, of course, are tautologies.

    Zahan, who synthesizes ethnographic information from much of sub-Saharan Africa, speaks of "natural temples" whose sacredness derives from the symbolic im- portance given to water, earth, air, and fire, "the four classic elements" (1970: 20). Springs, pools, rivers and lakes are natural temples, he holds, because water is every- where considered as the source of life "and as such it is as indissolubly tied to the human existence as are the very means of subsistence (p. 20)". The sacredness of rocks, hills, mountains, and caves spring from their association with earth, though they speak to different qualities of the earth. Rocks, hills and mountains "express the solid and unshakable character, and the power, of things and beings", whereas caves and grottos "offer man the possibility for deeper and more intimate contact with the nourishing earth" (p. 24, 25). Trees are associated with air: they move with air and reflect atmos- pheric changes (p. 27). Fire is most closely associated with the domestic hearth or the smelter or the forge, but volcanoes are natural temples (p. 30; cf also Herbert 1993: 159-160).

    This is interesting but problematic, given its rootedness in European categories. It also fails to explain why this tree, this cave, this mountain and this pool are recognized as places of power while others within the same category are not. Maxwell suggests that it is acoustic qualities that raise expectations of spiritual presence: "It is primarily the sound associated with the place, which conveys the notion of presence, power, and

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • 50 Elizabeth Colson

    personality so indispensable for religious experience A space full of sounds is assi- milated to a place of ringing personal communications (1983: 84-85)". So reverberat- ing echoes within caves, rustling leaves or creaking branches, or the sound of running water reach ears which interpret them as messages from spiritual forces.

    Again, the explanation is interesting, but ignores the fact that in most contexts the sound of rustling leaves and running water carry no such connotations. Sound gains significance because listeners expect communication at a place accepted as spiritually powerful, and there they mute the noise of their own presence or summon spirit by using characteristic rhythms and invocations. Sometimes the response sought is aural: sometimes it is visual, as when a bird flies or water seeps from a rock face (see, for instance, Colson 1991: 63-64).

    Nor do any of these explanations deal with one puzzlement: rivers rarely seem to be regarded as natural shrines, though waterfalls or rocks obtruding above the current are singled out. References to actual communal rituals as being performed at a river as a river are extremely rare, being largely absent, for instance, from the ethnographic ac- counts of Shona rituals supplied by Bourdillon (1976) and Gelfand (1959 and 1966) though references to sacred pools and associated rituals are frequent. Despite Euro- pean belief to the contrary, residents of the Zambesi River valley did not regard the Zambezi itself as a shrine, perhaps because of its importance in daily life. It could not be isolated nor preempted by adepts. Weinrich (1977: 80-81) heard of a former rain ritual that involved entry into the river by Gwembe Tonga mediums, but this is unique. Others working in the valley learned only of land shrines or of pools, hot springs, salt seeps, and baobab trees all of which are anchored in space and are outside daily rou- tines (Colson 1960, Mathews 1977, Reynolds 1968, Scudder 1962,Tremmel et al 1994 all on Gwembe Tonga; Lancaster 1981 on Goba; and Fry 1976, Garbett 1969 and 1977, and Lan 1985 for Korekore). Equally residents of the Kafue flood plain look elsewhere than to the river itself at times of communal rituals (Smith and Dale 1920).

    I find here significant a comment made by van Binsbergen writing of the Nkoya of western Zambia. They live in a land, according to van Binsbergen, "almost exclusively defined by its rivers, streams and tributaries" which provide almost the only land- marks, and royal grave sites frequently are named for rivers. But the rivers themselves do not appear to be the sites of shrines directed to them as places of power. Then comes the comment which I find illuminating: "Rivers have no extension, they are one-di- mensional lines and not two-dimensional areas, and they convey movement, passing and boundary-crossing much more than localization, geographical fixation and en- trenchment (1992: 159)".

    Movement, passing, and boundary-crossing are the very characteristics imputed to the natural forces associated with places of power which relate to the world at large and not to any localized community. Yet natural features that attract veneration are most commonly fixed in space, conveying permanency rather than movement: here, right here, one can expect power to manifest itself. Permanency and immobility are elements of the definition of a shrine supplied by van Binsbergen cited earlier in this article. Shrines are also usually set apart: humans are protected from overexposure to whatever empowers the place. Various writers on this region of Africa have com- mented that power is regarded as ambivalent, not to be approached lightly. Even

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • Places of Power and Shrines of the Land 51

    ancestral spirits are more than benevolent guardians, and the unknown spirits origin- ating elsewhere are even more dangerous. This, perhaps, explains why only a few sites, out of many possibilities, become foci of veneration. A landscape overloaded with power points is fraught with danger. Natural sites, as shrines, are approached cautious- ly, usually by delegations sent for the purpose, who are guided iri their pilgrimage by mediums or priests chosen by the spirits as their intermediaries (see, e.g., Daneel 1971, Vol 1: 89-91, for an account of procedures used in approaching the shrine of Mwari at the cave Matonjeni in the Matopos; and Bourdillon 1978: 244ff for procedures used to appeal to Dzivaguru at Karuva).

    Whatever lies behind the initial recognition of a place of power, once recognized it becomes linked to human history as the place where predecessors found counsel and assistance, thus bearing witness to its importance in human affairs, and some shrines have continued to receive offerings over the generations. Ranger (1995: 231), writing of Zimbabwe and the Venda-country of South Africa, says:

    certain extraordinary natural sites have remained constant as religious centres over very many centuries. The Matopos, with their myriad of caves and pools, constitute one such site; the well-known shrine of Dzivaguru at the 'white trees'; in the north-east constitutes another; various hills and lakes in Venda constitute a third cluster; the cave shrine of Salukazana in Nemakonde's country constitutes a fourth; and so on.

    While Beach (1980: 248-249; 1994: 148) denies any great antiquity to the cave shrines of the Matopos, now associated with Mwari, holding the cult to have been brought from Venda-country in the first half of the nineteenth century, Ranger may well be right about the antiquity of pilgrimage to the Matopos caves. Natural shrines retained regional significance over considerable periods m of time. The Kapembwa shrine high on a cliff overlooking the southwestern shore of Lake Tanganyika (Werner 1978: 102ff), Kaphiri Ntiwa in the Dalanyama Mountains of Malawi (Schoffeleers 1978(a): 152), the Mbona Shrine in southern Malawi (Schoffeleers 1977), and the cave shrines of the spirits Nsonga and Mwepya in the Luapula Valley (Cunnison 1959: 220-221) must go back into at least the 18th century and very probably were estab- lished much earlier.

    If details of belief associated with a natural shrine and its divinities changed over time, as Ranger believes, the same sites continued to be foci of ritual appeals, ignored perhaps when all went well but receiving pilgrims and offerings in times of stress when local land shrines failed to obtain relief from drought or other trauma. Conquest and population replacement did not end their influence. The Ndebele conquerors, like their Shona-speaking subjects, sent delegations to the Matopos caves (Bhebe 1978: 287-288 and 1979: 21-23; Daneel 1970: 29-30). The caves of the Luapula were shrines prior to the Lunda conquest of the area (Cunnison 1959: 221), and those travelling along the southern shore of Lake Tanganyika made offerings to the Kapembwa shrine, whatever their origin (Werner 1978).

    While places of power were neutral places to which anyone had the right of appeal, only a few became sufficiently famous to become places of distant pilgrimage drawing delegations from other political jurisdictions. Any place of power had to be ap- proached with caution, usually through someone who knew the correct procedures.

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • 52 Elizabeth Colson

    Famous shrines were served by organized cults, whose officers included guardians and interpreters resident nearby who guided visitors as well as mediums or agents living elsewhere who reported on their marvels and forwarded supplicants. They coopted the incumbents of political office and the officials of local shrines who accepted the supe- rior power of the spirits identified with natural shrine. The spiritual power of such places and their ability to dominate land shrine communities and political hierarchies then reflected the strength of the cultic organization, the most elaborate of which ap- pears to have been the organization of the Mwari cult (Daneel 1970; Ranger 1966; Werbner 1977(a) and 1989: 270-290).

    The isolation of the natural shrines meant that they were not centers of human com- munities which could dominate the surrounding countryside physically. The association of cult and shrine with nature spirits or ancient heroes with no affiliation to any partic- ular existing human community made possible their appeal across linguistic and ethnic as well as political boundaries. Myths of cosmic creation, of sharing, and of transcended boundaries, Werbner sees as implying "moral ideas of universalism and a transcendence of the political community along with the sovereignty of any state" (1989: 249), but, he adds, such cults do not imply any denial of existing political authority.

    Too close an association with such authority, however, carried a risk. When political figures became identified as agents of a shrine, the shrine became implicated in their actions, or fell under their control. The subsequent history of a "captured" cult reflect- ed the fortunes of its capturers. Thus the Chisumphi cult waned when its cultic establishment was removed from the hills of western Malawi to new shrines built on the plains below where Chewa leaders were contending for power (Schoffeleers 1978(a): 92, 157-159).

    Shrines of the Land

    Land shrines, unlike places of power, are built by humans and the spirits commonly associated with them are the spirits of those reputed to have first settled the locality or to have subsequently conquered and ruled it. They require offerings from those who now occupy their places, and adherence to routines established by themselves. Innovations require their sanction, given through mediums whom they possess. The shrines are usually small, quickly built structures, in the form of a hut, and throughout the region the family hut is itself a shrine where offerings are made to the spirits of the ancestors of those who live within it (Vansina 1990: 224-225; Zuesse 1979: 79-82). As within the family house, its heads appeal to their dead kin for protection, so at the land shrine the community leaders invoke their dead in behalf of all members of the local community. Their spirits are expected to observe the reciprocities associated with kinship and membership in a human community: if they fail to repay devotion with appropriate assistance, they can and will be warned that they may be ignored and their shrines abandoned. They represent, after all, the continuity of human life forces, not the power inherent in nature.

    Local shrines may be built at grave sites or the site of the reputed first settlement: placement, therefore, is seen as an artifact of local history. In either case the shrine

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • Places of Power and Shrines of the Land 53

    invokes the idea of continuity over several generations. Shrines also remind suppli- cants that they belong to discrete communities occupying space. Appeal is made to the shrines and spirits of dead pertaining to the community of residence, not to shrines and spirits of the neighboring communities. Immigrants associate themselves with the shrines of their new community.

    The local shrines, including some natural shrines where strictly local appeals take place, supply named landmarks that define the terrain associated with the community and emphasize its distinctiveness.They serve local residents and those in their immedi- ate vicinity as points of identification with space, around which other sites can be mapped. But their very localized reputations mean that they are of little use in mapping a region for travellers who moved beyond their home vicinities.

    Shifting Cultivators and Space

    Shifting cultivation was the common practice throughout southern Africa for well over a thousand years, giving way to pastoralism in some places. Homesteads and other structures were impermanent and were moved as people shifted across the land to clear new fields. Villages bore the names of the men or women who led them, whose death or senescence was likely to cause the village to disperse. Village names and locat- ions therefore provided only a temporary mapping of an immediate locale. Land- shrine communities which associated a number of villages within a common territory had more continuity, and their names usually referred to some dominant feature of the local landscape, such as a river or a particular kind of tree or some other geographical marker. Nevertheless, they too might be transitory.

    Werbner (1989: 255) believes they rarely last longer than a generation. Garbett says that land-shrine communities among Korekore in the Zambezi Valley are "ephemeral, often persisting only a generation of two" (1977(a): 69), but even so they were "of a greater degree of permanence than the individual hamlets of which they are com- posed" (1969: 119). Perrenially flowing rivers such as the Zambezi and the soils associ- ated with their flood plains minimize village movement (Scudder 1962: 130-133): else- where, communities were even more ephemeral and their boundaries easily perme- able.

    Human occupation usually left few mementos, and the only permanent marks upon the landscape referring to human activity were likely to be well-trodden paths. Lan (1985: 143), describes Korekore country in the Zambezi Valley as a place where one

    is confronted by mile upon mile of apparently empty bush, a scattering of mud huts, a few gravel paths and precious little else, amongst many other absences the one that seems most striking is the absence of a record of the past. Mud huts decay, the sites of abandoned villages are soon lost in the dust, the traces of ancient cultivation are ploughed over time and time again.

    Small wonder that baobab trees, which live for centuries, are chosen as the sites for local shrines where appeal is made to territorial spirits (Garbett 1977: 69), and that mediums opposed the felling of baobabs and the building of dams that flooded sacred pools that had provided long-lasting land marks (Lan 1985: 143).

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • 54 Elizabeth Colson

    Even in regions of centralized state organization, permanent human landmarks were rare. Political capitals moved frequently, and the old structures disappeared as surely and as completely as those of the scattered homesteads and villages in which most people lived. Royal graveyards, as in Bemba country, and shrines associated with the graves of dead royals in many regions were likely to be maintained so long as the ruling power retained control, but with time and the appearance of new royal graves, even such shrines might be neglected and disappear.

    On the high plateau of Zimbabwe, where Shona-speakers built in stone and a site, such as Great Zimbabwe, could be occupied for several centuries (Beach 1994: 88), human landmarks must have vied with natural features in organizing the landscape and orienting thought about people and events. In western Zambia, where Lozi rulers constructed mounds for homesteads and gardens in the flood plain and dug canals to ease transportation, human occupation also provided at least semi-permanent markers that could be named and referred to (Gluckman 1951: 38).

    Elsewhere people oriented themselves primarily by rivers, pools, hills, and vegeta- tion. These too needed to be named in order to be described and held in memory for future reference. Such mapping is essential if space is to be meaningful, and people need maps to escape the disorientation characteristic of those who find themselves in unfamiliar space, as any traveller quickly learns. We found that one of the traumas experienced by Gwembe Tonga forced to resettle when much of their homeland in the Zambezi Valley was flooded by Kariba Dam arose from their initial lack of familiarity with the new terrain into which they were transferred. They were moved as villages and sometimes as complete land-shrine communities, so they had not lost their human referents even though they might be settled near strangers, but they suffered because they did not know the land and had no named landmarks by which to direct themselves and others (Colson 1971: 50).

    In the past trade and other interests overflowed local boundaries and involved people in a regional nexus. Famous natural shrines, along with rivers, provided perman- ent referents for the mapping of such regions, more permanent than political capitals, fairs, villages and routes which might change location. Their names were known even outside their immediate vicinity, providing those living throughout the region with with common geographical referents which remained constant over time.

    David Parkin, writing of the Giriamo of East Africa, contends that people tend to essentialize the sacred in terms of places occupied by it and that by relating such plac- es to one another, a mapping of significant geographical space is provided (1991: 2). Zahan suggests that named places "mark parts of space which the local population endows with special significance (1970: 27)". Some features of the landscape, thought of as permanent, therefore need to be signalled out as significant and given names so that they can enter into common discourse. But for people to feel at home within space, these places must be not only named but also organized into mental maps that show their relationships to each other and to other spatial referents that may be transitory.

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • Places of Power and Shrines of the Land 55

    Remapping the Land

    Since the latter part of the 19th century, central and southern Africa have been trans- formed in many ways, not least through the creation of enduring human markers on the landscape.

    In the Southern Province of Zambia, I found people now orienting themselves within their conceptual universe by naming cities, mines, and other settlements, many of which have now been in existence since early in the 20th century although some are even earlier. Such sites are connected to one another by roads and railway lines, whose primary grids again emerged in the early 20th century. Names have changed, the major renaming taking place at the end of the colonial period when the names stamped by Europeans upon the landscape were replaced by African names causing some tempor- ary disorientation. But the grid of cities and routes has not changed. Instead it has become more detailed with the filling in of the new centers being built in brick and concrete. Both the colonial governments and successor states have tried to govern the landscape as organized into bounded permanent units. Local communities and villages have been treated as permanent administrative structures whose names remain the same irrespective of who heads them, and, except in the interests of the state, villages and communities are expected to stay put.

    In Gwembe Valley, the built environment is now pervasive. People journey along roads to places whose names and sites remain the same over time.

    Shrines, whether they are local shrines or places of power, are overshadowed by other landmarks. Even in the countryside the most striking places of worship are the churches built in permanent materials by adherents of different Christian sects. They represent neither the common interests of the old local shrine communities nor the ecumenical interests of all humanity associated with natural shrines.

    Throughout the region the 20th century has seen the increasing importance of pos- session cults where invading spirits are represented as wandering aliens unattached to space (van Binsbergen 1977 and 1981). Some are proving of more than transitory appeal, and cult organizations provide some mapping of the new social space of popu- lations that move between cities as well as between rural and urban areas as well as rationales for the way their adherents experience their lives. But they operate within built environments that provide the landmarks through which most people now orient themselves in space.

    Bibliography

    Beach, D. N., 1980: The Shona and Zimbabwe 900-1950. Gwelo. -, 1994: The Shona and Their Neighbours. Oxford. Beattie, John and John Middleton (ed.), 1969: Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa. London. Bhebe, Ngwabi M. B., 1978: "The Ndebele and Mwari before 1893: A Religious Conquest of the Conquerors

    by the Vanquished", in J. M.Schoffeleers (ed.), Guardians of the Land. Gwelo, pp. 287-296. -, 1979: Christianity and Traditional Religion in Western Zimbabwe 1859-1923. London. Bourdillon, M. F. C, 1976: The Shona People. Gwelo. -, 1978: "The Cults of Dzivaguru and Karuva amongst the North Eastern Shona Peoples", in J. M.

    Schoffeleers (ed.), Guardians of the Land. Gwelo, pp. 235-256.

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • 56 Elizabeth Colson

    Colson, Elizabeth, 1960: Social Organization of the Gwembe Tonga. Manchester. -, 1971: The Social Consequences of Resettlement. Manchester. -, 1977: "A Continuing Dialogue: Prophets and Local Shrines among the Tonga of Zambia", in Richard

    Werbner (ed.), Regional Cults. London, pp. 119-139. -, 1991: The History ofNampeyo. Lusaka. Colson, Elizabeth, and Max Gluckman (eds.), 1951: Seven Tribes of British Central Africa. Oxford. Cunnison, Ian, 1959: The Luapula Peoples of Northern Rhodesia: Custom & History in Tribal Politics.

    Manchester. Daneel, M. L., 1970: The God of the Matopo Hills: An Essay on the Mwari Cult in Rhodesia.ThQ Hague. -, 1971: Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches. Vol. I: Background and Rise of the Major

    Movements. The Hague. Fry, Peter, 1976: Spirits of Protest: Spirit-Mediums and the Articulation of Consensus amongst the Zezuru of

    Southern Rhodesia. Cambridge. Garbett, Kingsley, 1969: "Spirit Mediums as Mediators in Valley Korekore Society", in John Beattie and John

    Middleton (ed.), Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa, London, pp. 104-127. -, 1977: "Disparate Regional Cults and a Unitary Field in Zimbabwe", in Richard Werbner (ed.), Regional

    Cults. London, pp. 55-92. Gelfand, Michael, 1959: Shona Ritual. Cape Town. -, 1962: Shona Religion. Cape Town. Gluckman, Max, 1951: "The Lozi of Barotseland in North- Western Rhodesia", in: Elizabeth Colson and Max

    Gluckman (ed.), Seven Tribes of British Central Africa. Oxford, pp. 1-93. Gouldsbury, Cullen, and Sheane, Hubert, 1911: The Great Plateau of Northern Rhodesia. London. Herbert, Eugenia W, 1993: Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies.

    Bloomington. Lan, David, 1985: Guns & Rain: Guerrillas & Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe. Berkeley. Lancaster, Chet, 1981: The Goba of the Zambezi: Sex Roles, Economics and Change. Norman. Luig, Ulrich, 1995: "Conversion as Social Process: A History of Missionary Christianity among the Valley

    Tonga. Zambia", unpublished thesis. Mathews, Timothy, 1976: "The Historical Tradition of the Peoples of the Gwembe Valley, Zambia", thesis

    submitted for the degree of PhD. School of Oriental and African Studies, Univ. of London. Maxwell, Kevin B., 1983: Bemba Myth and Ritual: The Impact of Literacy on an Oral Culture. New York. Mbiti, John S., 1970: African Religions and Philosophies. Garden Citv. Morris, Brian, 1995: "Woodland and Village: Reflections on the 'Animal Estate' in Rural Malawi", Journal

    of the Royal Anthropological Institute 1(2): 301-316. Parkin, David, 1991: Sacred Void: Spatial Images of Work and Ritual among the Giriama of Kenya.

    Cambridge. Ranger, Terence, 1986: "Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa", African Studies Review

    29(2): 1-69. -, 1995: "Religious Pluralism in Zimbabwe", Journal of Religion in Africa XXV(3): 226-251. Reynolds, Barrie, 1968: The Material Culture of the Peoples of the Gwembe Valley. Manchester. Richards, Audrey, 1939: Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia: An Economic Study of the Bemba

    Tribe. London. Schoffeleers, J. M., 1977: "Cult Idioms and the Dialectics of a Region", in Richard Werbner (ed.), Regional

    Cults. London, pp. 219-240. -, (ed.), 1978(a): Guardians of the Land. Gwelo. -, 1978(b): "Introduction", in J. M. Schoffeleers (ed.), Guardians of the Land. Gwelo, pp. 1-46. -, 1978(c): "The Chisumphi and Mbona Cults in Malawi: A Comparative History", in J. M. Schoffeleers

    (ed.), Guardians of the Land. Gwelo, pp. 147-186. Smith, Edwin W. and Andrew Dale, 1920: The Ila-Speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia. London. Stefaniszyn, Bronislaw, 1964: Social and Ritual Life oftheAmbo of Northern Rhodesia. London. Tremmel, Michael and the River Tonga People, 1994: The People of the Great River. Gweru. Van Binsbergen, Wim M. X, 1977: "Regional and Non-Regional Cults of Affliction in Western Zambia", in

    Richard Werbner (ed.), Regional Cults. London, pp. 141-175. -, 1978: "Explorations into the History and Sociology of Territorial Cults in Zambia", in J. M. Schoffeleers

    (ed.), Guardians of the Land. Gwelo, pp. 47-88. -, 1981: Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies. London. -, 1992: Tears of the Rain: Ethnicity and History in Central Western Zambia. London. Vansina, Jan, 1966: Kingdoms of the Savanna: A History of Central African States until European Occupation.

    Madison. -, 1990: Paths in the Rainforests: Towards a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa. Madison.

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • Places of Power and Shrines of the Land 57

    Watson, William, 1958: Tribal Cohesion in a Money Economy: A Study of the Mambwe People of Northern Rhodesia. Manchester.

    Weinrich, A. K. H., 1977: The Tonga People on the Southern Shore of Lake Kariba. Gwelu. Werbner, Richard (ed.), 1977(a): Regional Cults. London. -, 1977(b): "Introduction", in Richard Werbner (ed.), Regional Cults. London, pp. ix-xxxvi. -, 1977(cj: "Continuity and Policy in Southern Africa's High God Cult", in Richard Werbner (ed.), Regional

    Cults. London, pp. 179-218. -, 1989: Ritual Passage Sacred Journey: The Process and Organization of Religious Movement. Washington. Werner, D., 1978: uMiao Spirit Shrines in the Religious History of the Southern Lake Tanganyika Region",

    in J. M. Schoffeleers (ed.), Guardians of the Land. Gwelo, pp. 89-130. Zahan, Dominique, 1979: The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa. Chicago. Zuesse, Evan M., 1979: Ritual Cosmos: The Sanctification of Life in African Religions. Athens.

    This content downloaded from 163.200.81.2 on Mon, 9 Dec 2013 05:04:55 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

    Article Contentsp. [47]p. 48p. 49p. 50p. 51p. 52p. 53p. 54p. 55p. 56p. 57

    Issue Table of ContentsPaideuma, Bd. 43 (1997), pp. 1-353Front MatterThe Making of African LandscapesLandscape in Africa: Process and Vision. An Introductory Essay [pp. 7-45]Places of Power and Shrines of the Land [pp. 47-57]Making Zimbabwean Landscapes: Painters, Projectors and Priests [pp. 59-73]History, Aesthetics and the Political in Igbo Spatial Heterotopias [pp. 75-91]Die Giriama und Mombasa vor der Kolonialzeit. Naturaneignung und Land-Stadt-Beziehungen an der Kste Ostafrikas [pp. 93-119]Cocoa as Innovation: African Initiatives, Local Contexts and Agro-Ecological Conditions in the History of Cocoa Cultivation in West African Forest Lands (c. 1850-c. 1950) [pp. 121-142]"Though the Earth Does Not Lie": Agricultural Transitions in Siin (Senegal) under Colonial Rule [pp. 143-169]Under Alpine Eyes: Constructing Landscape and Society in Late Pre-Colonial South-East Africa [pp. 171-191]Deforestation in Question: Dialogue and Dissonance in Ecological, Social and Historical Knowledge of West Africa. Cases from Liberia and Sierra Leone [pp. 193-225]Vets, Viruses and Environmentalism: The Cape in the 1870s and 1880s [pp. 227-252]

    Histoire du manioc en Afrique centrale avant 1850 [pp. 255-279]Borno under Rabih Fadl Allah, 1893-1900: The Emergence of a Predatory State [pp. 281-300]"Do All Cultural Roads Lead to Benin?" The Missing Factor in Benin and Related Art Studies. A Conceptual View [pp. 301-311]Social Categories, Local Politics and the Uses of Oral Tradition in Nso', Cameroon [pp. 313-327]Pourquoi "le sang de la circoncision emporte la vie des rois": Note sur une relation entre la priodicit initiatique et la priodicit de la souverainet dans la "royaut Sacre" [pp. 329-351]Back Matter