No description available.

Thesis (M. A. (Anthropology)) -- University of the North, 1990 / Refer to the document

This is a study of the relationship between music and spirit possession among the Yorùbá of the South-Western part of Nigeria. Through the ages, philosophers and scholars have been interested in the relationship between music and trance possession, especially the question of whether music triggers, influences or sustains trance or spirit possession, and if so, how. This thesis seeks to focus on the relationship between the music used in worship practices where possessions take place, and how the music might initiate and drive the possession states. Spirit possession is a phenomenon which springs from and is associated with the social and belief systems of different people. However, the Aládurà church (an Independent African Church - AIC) worshippers dissociate themselves from the possession practices that are experienced among the Yorùbá indigenous traditional worshippers, while the traditionalists claim that the spirit possession practised in the Aládurà churches originated and has its roots in the traditional practices. This suggests an inherent difference in the two belief systems even though the possession experiences among them are characterised by similar presentations. Following the theory that spirit possession practices are culturally determined, this research seeks to identify the specific cultural elements in the music used in Yorùbá worship traditions where possessions take place, not as a cause and effect, but how music affects the possession process. My study, therefore, sets out to investigate what could be a common factor between the two structurally and contextually different types of music used by the two sects of worshippers with the aim of identifying the common factors in the music, which seem to be the link between the two worship groups. Key words: Music, Spirit Possession, culture, worship.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1990. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [358]-362).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Faculty of the Divinity School, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

This thesis concerns the cultural meanings of zar spirit possession in Hofriyat, a Northern Sudanese village. It begins with an interpretive analysis of the Hofriyati everyday world, showing village kinship, marriage, and prevalent customs such as female circumcision to be informed by a common idiom: "interiority" or relative enclosure. In Part II it proceeds to discuss, in terms of that idiom, contexts in which the possession idiom might be invoked: who claims to be possessed, and under what conditions. Here it emerges that zar possession plays an important role in the negotiation and renegotiation of meaning by "rephrasing" interpersonal conflict, symbolically restructuring certain life experiences for the Hofriyati, and effecting realignments of kin relations and social positions in ways deemed favorable to the possessed. Next comes a comparison of the zar propitiation ritual and the local wedding ceremony, in which zar is seen to operate as a meta-cultural text, a comment upon the realities of everyday life and the informative idiom of village culture. This idea is carried forward into Part III, where the system of zar beliefs and spirit manifestations is discussed in its own right. Here possession is viewed as an esthetic form and ' potential messages to be derived from the identities and associations of the spirits are considered. In sum, this thesis is an attempt to describe Hofriyati cultural meanings — the logic of everyday life, its negotiation through acknowledgement of possession affliction, and its secondary or meta-cultural elaboration in ritual and in the system of zar beliefs. It draws principally upon the works of symbolic anthropologists such as Geertz, Turner, and Crapanzano, and upon the insights of Paul Ricoeur for theoretical guidance. However, the "theory of Hofriyati culture" which emerges in the dissertation is understood to be the result of interactions between the researcher and her Hofriyati informants. The thesis is an interpretation, a special sort of negotiated meaning. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Thesis advisor: Angela K. Harkins / Thesis advisor: Giovanni B. Bazzana / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Religion)--Vanderbilt University, May 2006. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009. / Full text also available online. Scroll down for electronic link.