Dynamics of the spirit possession phenomenon in Eastern Tanzania

The discussion on the spirit possession phenomenon is related in this study to the more general question of the role of religious institutions as part in the development process of a people living in a limited geographical area of a wider national society. It is assumed that religion, like culture in general, has its specific institutional forms as result of the historical development of a society, but at the same time religion is a force shaping that history. People's cultural resources influence their social and economic development and form a potential creative element in it'. Some of the questions to be asked are: "How are specific religious practices related to the dynamics of change in the societies in question? What is the social and religious context in which the spirit possession phenomenon occurs in them? What social and economic relations get their expression in them? To what extent is spirit possession in this case a means of exerting values and creatively overcoming a crisis or conflict which the changing social and economic relations impose on the people? The established spirit possession cults are here seen as the institutional forms of religious experience. At the same time it becomes evident that there is institutionalization in process as well as deinstitutionalization of spirit possession where it occurs outside established institutional forms. Institution is taken as a socially shared form of behaviour the significance of which is commonly recognized by those who share it. By the term spirit possession cult is meant a ritual form of spirit possession of a group which is loosely organized and without strict membership. The context of the study is four ethnic groups in Eastern Tanzania, near the coast of the Indian Ocean. The general theme of the project is The Role of Culture in the Restructuring of Tanzanian Rural Areas. The restructuring refers to a villagisation programme carried out in the whole country. People are being moved from their scattered homesteads to new villages and old villages are enlarged by incorporating several villages into one. People are going through a process of fundamental social change

Ritual and symbol in transitional Zaramo society with special reference to women

...a learned, thoroughly researched thesis, yet, with a practical intention and message. ... As a researcher the author has lived for many years among the Zaramo people, with a dedicated intention to identify with their life, and this alone has made it possible to observe and interpret their symbolic life to the extent found here. (Bengt Sundkler in his foreword to the second edition.)Contents: I. Approach to Study of Ritual and Symbol -- 1. The problem -- 2. Ritual and symbol -- 3. Approach -- II. Society in Transition -- 1. Area and population -- 2. Religious and cultural identification -- 3. Social organization in transition - historical perspective -- 4. Individual and society -- 5. Society in conflict -- 6. Attitudes and values: quantitative analysis -- III. Ritual in Transition -- 7. Ritual expressions of Mwambo Zaramo -- 8. Ritual expression of life pattern -- 9. Spirit concepts and practices – IV. Organism and symbol -- 10. Symbolic view of life of Mwambao Zaramo -- 11. Health and illness in body organism -- V. Final Analysis -- 12. Ritual approach to life and modern development</p

Community and Village-Based Provision of Key Social Services: A Case Study of Tanzania

The first part of the paper describes steps which Tanzania took in order to provide key social services to her people. Tanzania made great efforts within the ujamaa socialist system to provide free social services for rural as well as urban people, regardless of their income level. Even after the decline of Tanzanian economy the party-led government tried to maintain and improve social services but nonetheless could not prevent the deterioration of the education and health services nor that of the water and sanitation systems, which had been built with the assistance of foreign development agents. The paper analyses the export liberalization measures, the different phases of economic recovery programmes, the structural adjustment programme with its priority social action, and the recent World Bank Human Development Programme. The second part presents a case study of social services provision in two south-eastern regions of Tanzania, Mtwara and Lindi, which on the basis of statistics are among the poorest in the country. The study and the analysis of the new emphasis on decentralization and on local government which follows in the latter part of the paper, are based on the first-hand field experience of the author. Following the section on new participatory bottom-up experiments, describing the partnership of the World Bank and several foreign development agents, the paper brings out the basic contradictions between the 'traditional' and the 'modern' in social services provision and the difficulty that any development efforts face in trying to integrate people's own understanding and practice of sharing in service provision with the externally introduced models. The different ways in which rural people do share in giving services are elaborated, and it is shown that credit must be given to these sharing practices, as new systems of cost sharing are developed. The conclusion brings out the need to make detailed analyses (based on participatory action research) of the division of wealth in rural communities so that those already heavily involved in self-help work or who provide many kinds of services, can be identified and their contributions registered. The people who belong to the wealthy quintile but manage to escape regular cost-sharing practices, need to be identified and charged according to their means

Beyond the Forestline : The Life and Letters of Bengt Sundkler

Bengt Sundkler, a Swede, was a well-known missiologist and historian of non-European churches, specialising in African church history. He had served as a missionary in South Africa and Tanzania, and later the northwestem diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania called him to be their first bishop. Bengt Sundkler was a multifaceted person and a true international, long before the era of mass globalisation, which he saw coming in his later years

Dynamics of the spirit possession phenomenon in Eastern Tanzania

The discussion on the spirit possession phenomenon is related in this study to the more general question of the role of religious institutions as part in the development process of a people living in a limited geographical area of a wider national society. It is assumed that religion, like culture in general, has its specific institutional forms as result of the historical development of a society, but at the same time religion is a force shaping that history. People's cultural resources influence their social and economic development and form a potential creative element in it'. Some of the questions to be asked are: "How are specific religious practices related to the dynamics of change in the societies in question? What is the social and religious context in which the spirit possession phenomenon occurs in them? What social and economic relations get their expression in them? To what extent is spirit possession in this case a means of exerting values and creatively overcoming a crisis or conflict which the changing social and economic relations impose on the people? The established spirit possession cults are here seen as the institutional forms of religious experience. At the same time it becomes evident that there is institutionalization in process as well as deinstitutionalization of spirit possession where it occurs outside established institutional forms. Institution is taken as a socially shared form of behaviour the significance of which is commonly recognized by those who share it. By the term spirit possession cult is meant a ritual form of spirit possession of a group which is loosely organized and without strict membership. The context of the study is four ethnic groups in Eastern Tanzania, near the coast of the Indian Ocean. The general theme of the project is The Role of Culture in the Restructuring of Tanzanian Rural Areas. The restructuring refers to a villagisation programme carried out in the whole country. People are being moved from their scattered homesteads to new villages and old villages are enlarged by incorporating several villages into one. People are going through a process of fundamental social change