The relationship between mbira dzavadzimu mode and Zezuru Spirit Possession. This thesis investigates the relationship between mbira dzavadzimu modes and different levels of Zezuru spirit possession. The research adopted an ethnographic paradigm. Fieldwork, participant observation, face-to-face interviews and video recordings were employed during data collection. The theoretical underpinnings of the research were grounded in Neher’s 1960 theory of auditory driving1, Seeger’s 1987 theory of metamorphosis, Wiredu’s 2007 theory of interpretation and Tempels’ 1959 theory of cosmology. The researcher carried out the research from an emic perspective. Both deep reflexivity and narrative reflexivity frameworks were used in the writing of this documentation and editing of my film. The position of mbira music in the religious life of the Zezuru is quite significant in that it is used to evoke spirits in spirit mediums during occasions when the Zezuru communicate with their ancestors. Mbira music is embedded in the modes and tuning systems played on the mbira. The Zezuru believe that the modes belong to the ancestors and are passed from generation to generation as part of their heritage. My hypothesis is that mbira dzavadzimu modes are responsible for evoking spirits in spirit mediums. / Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This is a study conducted in Zimbabwe which compared a group of 50 zvirvere zvechivanhu patients and a group of 50 non-patients in age, sex, marital status, level of education and claims of spirit possession. Claims of spirit possessions and types of spirits, as pointed out by Bennel (1982), were used as symptoms of zvirwere zvechivanhu. The two groups were also compared in symptom dimensions of the SCL-90-R used in the study. The SCL-90-R, developed by Derogatis (1975), is a 90-item symptom check list used to screen people for psychological problems reflected in the nine symptom dimensions of somatization, obsessive/ compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychoticism and in the three global scores of Global Severity Index, Positive Symptom Distress Index and Positive Symptom Total. The subjects were chosen from two different sites, using a systematic sampling method. Three statistical methods were used to analyze the data. The Chi-square was used to analyze data on descriptive variables. The T-test and 2 x 2 analysis of variance were used to analyze the data on symptom dimensions and global scores. The study had one main hypothesis and nine subhypotheses. The main hypothesis was that zvirwere zvechivanhu patients were significantly different from the non-patients on the overall global scores. The nine subhypotheses stated that the patient and non-patient groups were significantly different in the nine separate symptom dimensions. The study concluded that the zvirwere zvechivanhu patients were significantly different from the non-patients in the overall global scores. In the nine separate symptom dimensions, it was concluded that the two groups were the same in all except the somatization and obsessive/compulsive system dimensions.