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Nabuzaana Omunozzi w’Eddagala: Hearing Kiganda Ecology in the Music of Kusamira Ritual Healing Repertories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2018

Abstract:

This article argues that ritual performances of song by a guild of healers called basamize situate humans and other-than-human familiars in an ecology that has a strong impact on ethnic identification in southern Uganda. An idiomatic song, ubiquitous throughout the region in focus, helps define the contours of this ecology. Primary and secondary sources link the song to oral traditions that suggest a move beyond descent as an organizing principle in Africanist discourses on ethnicity and ethnic formation.

Résumé:

Cet article soutient que les performances rituelles d’une chanson d’une guilde de guérisseurs, appelée basamize, situent les humains et les compagnons autres qu’humains dans une écologie qui a un fort impact sur l’identification ethnique dans le sud de l’Ouganda. Une chanson idiomatique et omniprésente dans toute la région permet de définir les contours de cette écologie. Les sources et l’historiographie relient la chanson à des traditions orales qui suggèrent un mouvement au-delà de la lignée comme principe d’organisation dans les discours africanistes sur l’ethnicité et la formation ethnique.

Type
Towards Multispecies History
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2018 

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