Religious PRactice & belief 93practice that owes more to the continual recreation of vernacular ideas
than to the formalities of the mosque, or the profession of faith, prayer,
fasting, alms-giving and pilgrimage that constitute the five pillars of the
Islam. They reflect also the tensions inherent in concepts of gender in
the cultures of central Sudan, and the ambivalent stance of the Islamic
authorities in relation to those spiritual cults, which are largely controlled
by women.
In the village of Hofriyat, downstream from Khartoum, in the 1980s, as
described by Janice Boddy, women lived largely in an everyday world of
their own; their lives were contained within the village, within the walls
of their compounds. Their attitudes, and their persons, were carefully
groomed for reproduction within the extended family. This was achieved
in part through the operation of pharaonic circumcision, the most radical
form of genital cutting, an operation that secured for them, and for their
future husbands, a state of being understood both as moral cleanliness
and as bodily integrity.
The women of Hofriyat were well aware, nevertheless, of a wider
horizon: the world of men’s activities, of history, of foreign ways, a world
in counterpoint to their own. They were conscious of the danger of
looming spirits from that outside world, spirits that could descend upon
them and interfere with their fertility and the health of their children.
Within formal Islam (and indeed Orthodox Christianity) there is a
limited acknowledgment of such undefined spiritual presences, but in
the Nile Valley (as also in Christian Ethiopia) these spirits are recognized
more explicitly in a women’s spirit cult called zar. Zar (plural zayran)
is the name of these characterful, often dangerous beings. Women are
particularly vulnerable to possession by them. Once affected, they cannot
get rid of the attentions of the zar; they must become accommodated to
it as a part of their lives. The spirits are typically figures from Sudanese
history; they have names, costumes, and habits – and demand offerings.
When possessed, a woman may act out the part – now a part of herself –
of an Ethiopian princess, an Arabian sheikh; even a British district officer,
complete with sun-helmet, whisky and cigarettes. The women in chargeThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors of the zar cult^ hold^ elaborate^ ceremonies^ in^ which^ the^ various^ zayran are
(www.riftvalley.net).