Consulting the Poison Oracle among the Azande

Name:

Course:

Lecturer:

Date:

Short Essay (Extra Credit)

Consulting the Poison Oracle among the Azande

The Azande people perform their foretelling rituals in secluded shadowed regions for the purposes of avoiding distractions, bad omen from the portion of the populace regarded as unclean, and intrusions by witchcraft. The credibility of the oracle is assessed on fowls that act as the link between the oracle and the physical world in the delivery of oral messages. Due to this factor, fowls are handled as sacred creatures and thereby necessitating superior handling; no constrained storage, permitted as food sources only towards significant guests, and the eggs are preserved for hatching purposes only. Cocks are preferred over hens and the fowl to be employed within a ritual has to be captured and stored on the eve of the observance.

The ritual is restricted to wedded men and they are allowed to represent cases relating to the excluded populace in terms of age and the underprivileged due to the strict custom observances and presentation of the fowl. Females are barred from this practice with only very aged and respectable women allowed for the divination services. The oracle is employed within the Azande community by the rulers for decision-making. The oracle is used by men in their administrative duties as family heads and this has therefore accorded the Azande populace as chauvinistic. The female populace is highly subjugated by the males due to this practice.

Relation to Class Readings

Shamanism practices within various communities have been widely accepted as honest observances for purposes of according healing towards other individuals or a community setting. Shamans are accorded as succinct counselors in various matters emanating from the fact that they acquire the information from the incorporeal world through an association with spirits ad gods. Divination is categorized as a technique employed by shamans in the search for resolutions and the best choices within a given situation. Shamans were often accorded within societies for purposes of inhibiting or destroying witchcraft as an art accorded to sorcerers through magic to accord suffering within a targeted populace. Sorcerers, often suffering from egocentricity would cause barrenness to humans and animals, unproductiveness in farms, plagues and death. These negative works however could be foreseen (divination) by the shamanist and therefore opposed. Shamans were restricted to the male gender and they each had aiding spirits for purposes of foretelling.

The main weakness with this approach was accorded to the fact that Shamanists either could choose to act righteously or badly in accordance to one’s will and emotional state. The Azande’s approach is a practice of divination ranging between the household and community levels. It parallels most practices within the Shamanist practices in terms of communal liabilities and the witchcraft connection. The process too is restricted to males as noted amongst the Azande populace. The only variation is the accordance of the fowl practice as a medium for the divination process but this was included as an equal means of acquiring imminent happenings in a less dangerous manner as oracles are incapable of according evil and neither are they subject to personal biasness within a situation.

Death Be Not Strange

The Berawan community has a ritual performed towards demised individuals as an observance for the proper journeying of an individual between the natural and spirit worlds. The initial phase conducted within a period of two and ten days comprises of several ritualistic observances that act as a preparation for the subsequent three. The demised individual within this phase is laid in a ceramic vessel or a tree coffin. The second phase involves the demised individual being ushered into the family’s residence or a shallow tomb for not less than eight months. There is no restriction accorded to this phase and therefore the subsequent two phases are largely determined by the financial element.

The body is confined the earlier identified storage facilities until the accorded duration is fulfilled. By the time of the third phase, the body often is usually reduced to bones and this have to be maintained within the residence structure for at least six days but not more than ten days. Feasting is observed in this instance. During the putrefaction period, the liquids oozing from the body are amassed into a jar and used as a delicacy, especially in rice meal courses. The last phase involves the burial of the bones. The rotting signifies the freeing of the soul marked with the buffet and the demised can finally travel to the spirit world.

Relation to Class Readings

Various cultures have accorded different viewpoints that have determined the handling of death instances. Rituals are largely determined by the belief system and the stigma accorded to the occurrence. Amongst the Berawan, although the practice may be regarded as archaic and unwarranted, they still follow the identified procedures due to the belief structure. The initial phase is meant to prepare the demised individual for purposes of the body and soul partition that is ultimately achieved by the second phase. The spirit then has to stay within the corporeal world as a point of suffering before final admission into the incorporeal is achieved within the third phase with the whole release of the soul from the putrefaction of the physical body notably ending when the bones lack any flesh covering. This is what the meaning of the buffet to celebrate final release. To other communities that have a different belief system, this practice is rendered as obsolete and without any form of meaning. However, it is imperative that the accorded community observe the accorded ritual as lack of the same leads to bad happenings.

The dead are accorded high respect especially within many communities upholding the shamanists as they are able to communicate with the demised for guidance purposes; this is referred to as necromancy. A shaman possessing the ability of necromancy is therefore able to accord effectual safeguards to a community as earlier discussed. Therefore, if demised individuals are not safely transported into the incorporeal world, they cannot assist the shamanist due to their evil tendencies of tormenting individuals as a chastisement for dismal treatment during the death period. Note that, such souls pose a hazard even to the shamanist as they are transformed into community opponents.