Memory and Alterity in Zar: Religious Contact and Change in the Sudan
Entangled Religions - Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Religious Contact and Transfer June 24, 2019 Susan M Kenyon 1 citation
Zar spirit possession in Sudan today is grounded in rituals derived from the ranks of the nineteenth-century Ottoman army, based on long-term ethnographic research in Sennar supported by life history data and archival documentation. The practice has accommodated ongoing changes linked to the interplay of Zar with Islam and Christianity. During colonial periods, European Christian Zar spirits were remembered as far more important; today authority has shifted to spirits of foreign Muslims, local holy men, and subaltern Blacks, reflecting concerns of new generations as political and religious landscapes transform.