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Slavery, possession and history: the construction of the self among slave descendants in the Sudan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

G. P. Makris
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Résumé

Le but de cet essai est d'étudier le culte Tumbura de la possession de l'esprit au Soudan en tant que phénomène directement associé avec les changements sociaux et politiques des cent dernières annèes. On peut trouver le Tumbura dans les voisinages pauvres et les bidonvilles qui entourent les larges centres urbains du Nord du Soudan. Le majorité des fidèles du culte sont des descendants d'esclaves africains du sud et de l'ouest du Soudan qui avaient été amené comme esclaves au nord par les arabes mulsumans du nord. Malgré leur conversion à l'islam, les esclaves et leurs descendants ont toujours été regardé par les arabes du Nord comme étant soushumains, sans religion, sans descendance ou histoire. Ces revendications sont contestées par le Tumbura. L'initiation au culte permet aux fidèles de construire un sens d'identité positive et de faire valoir quʼeux aussi sont mulsumans, descendants d'Adam et Eve, et quʼils sont une catégorie sociale avec un sens d'histoire spécifique, en d'autres termes, quʼils sont des êtres humains. Pendant la période coloniale et post-coloniale, la situation des descendants des esclaves au sein de la formation sociale a changé considérablement quand de nouveaux groupes de gens sont apparu. Ceux-ci étaient les réfugiés du sud qui avait fuit la famine et la guerre civile et qui aujourd'hui peuplent les bidonvilles entourant la capitale, Khartoum, et les autres villes du nord. Les réfugiés ont permit aux descendants des esclaves de s'éloigner des marges de la société et d'être plus près de leurs maîtres arabes tout puissant. La transformation de l'identité qui a suivit a été reflétée dans la rapide diminution de la popularité du Tumbura. En même temps, les groupes qui reste au Tumbura sont en train de connaître un processus structurel de réorganisation qui suit celui de Zar Bore, un autre culte féminin, plus populaire, qui est surtout pratiqué par les gens de descendance arabique.

Type
Curing the body, healing the self
Information
Africa , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , April 1996 , pp. 159 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1996

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