Read: 2018
In Weaving the Threads of Life, Rene Devisch presents an extensive analysis on the Khita gyn-econo-logical healing cult among the Yaka people in southwestern Zre. The book provides a fresh insight into how infertility is viewed as a tear in life's fabric and explns how the Khita fertility ritual serves as a trusted method for repring that damage.
Drawing upon years of fieldwork conducted within urban and rural Yaka communities, Devisch elucidates their understanding of existence as an intricately woven tapestry of nature, body, and society. The fertility healing ritual activates forces, emotions, and meanings that enable women to reconnect with the complex web of social and cosmic life. Through elaborate rites, whether they mimic mortality, rebirth, gestation, delivery, or decay, using music and dance, steam baths, massages, dream messages, or scarification techniquesthe focus is not on traditional symbols but rather on how the rituals themselves generate these forces and meanings, creating and shaping the cosmic, physical, and social world of their participants.
Unlike contemporary theoretical approaches such as postmodernism or symbolic interpretation, Devisch's praxiological uniquely incorporates phenomenological insights gned from anthropological fieldwork. This innovative work carries implications that transc African studies and anthropology’s focus on medicine and body studies, comparative religious history, and women's studies.
The book is structured into eight chapters:
Acknowledgments
This section thanks contributors and acknowledges the support provided throughout the research process.
Prologue
A brief introduction to the Yaka people, their cultural context, and how this study was conducted.
Chapters 1-8
Each chapter focuses on different aspects:
Chapter 2: Discusses ger arrangements, life transmission concepts, animal symbolism, and capturing untamed forces in a cosmological framework.
Chapter 3: Explores the social structures related to fertility, marriage norms, reproductive cells, and lineage patterns.
Chapters 4 5: Analyzes physical interactions, relational body concepts, and how societal structures affect individuals' experiences of health issues within the Yaka community.
Chapters 6 7: Delves into Khita rituals through four stages: reversal of adversity to uterine bonds, decay and cooking of generative forces, reoriginating the life fabric, and overcoming illness.
Chapter 8: Examines how the body functions as a tool for healing and the role music plays in this process.
Epilogue
Concludes with reflections on the study's broader implications.
Appices
Includes detled case studies, medicinal plant lists, geographical maps, notes, citations, and indexes to support comprehensive understanding.
The book provide an all-encompassing view of how traditional healing practices interact with societal frameworks in understanding health issues like infertility. This holistic approach enriches our comprehension of cultural perspectives on healing, illness, and life's interconnected fabric within the Yaka society.
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Khita Fertility Rituals in Yaka Culture Weaving Lifes Fabric with Healing Anthropology of African Medicine Studies Connecting Body Society and Cosmos Gender Arrangements in Yaka Societies Cosmic Forces in Traditional Healing