PART ONE
2- Music and Possession
T h e Wo r d “ M u s i c”
“Everything is music,” John Cage once said. If this were true, this book would have been pointless from the start, since the relations it seeks to bring out between trance and music would necessarily be relations to ev
erything, or to anything. But this is in fact untrue, or rather it is neither true nor false. There are some statements that should not be taken more seriously than their authors expected. Everything, silence and emptiness included, can in effect be heard, or seen, or felt, as a piece of music might be: it is ultimately a matter of good will. A squeaking door, a faulty loud
speaker, the sound of a flushing toilet can all be appraised with a musical ear. Some find it pleasurable and if they say so we must believe them.
Equally, nothing prevents one from saying that a landscape can be viewed as music for the eyes. If “everything is music,” then we are dealing with metaphor, which is a perfectly legitimate way of using words and doubt
lessly as old as the world; but I shall attempt to avoid it since it is of mini
mal profit for our enterprise.
What will the word “music” mean in this book? Given its context, that of trance, the word music will be used to signify any sonic event that is linked with this state, that cannot be reduced to language—since we would then have to speak of words, not music—and that displays a cer
tain degree of rhythmic or melodic organization. Music will therefore be taken in its most empirical and broadest sense. In other words, it will not be treated here as an art but as a practice displaying the greatest possible variety of aspects, extending from the most discreet rustling sounds pro
duced by the shaking of a basketry rattle to the deafening unleashing of a large group of drums, from the solitary tinkling of a tiny iron bell to the orchestral splendors of a Balinese gamelan, from the most elementary monody, chanted recto tono, to the most complex vocal polyphonies (such as those of the Bushmen), from the linearity of a simple motif pro
duced by clapping hands to the extremely complex interplay of a large per
cussion ensemble, from the refinement of a violin tune skillfully varied by a professional virtuoso to the rustic sound of a summons bellowed through an animal horn or tapped out with a nail on the side of an empty beer bottle.
64 CHAPTER TWO
Now that I have empirically delimited the field covered by the word
“music,” we should ask ourselves whether the concept at work is or is not adequate to the kind of investigation I am undertaking. In practice, such a definition emerges from the delimitation of a concrete world of sound that is totally foreign to the one practiced by the majority of the societies in which the facts we will consider can be observed.1 By working with a con
cept of this kind we are thus turning our backs on the system of thought proper to these societies. But let me not hedge on this point; this book is not aimed at these systems. Not that I ignore nor wish to minimize their importance or their interest; quite the contrary. If, in the case of certain so
cieties at least, we possessed a truly indigenous taxonomy of notions relat
ing to what we term music,2 and a matching theory of how those notions relate to the trance state, I would certainly use it as the primary basis for my research. To my knowledge, however, no such documentation exists.
Since we are unable to conduct our analysis with indigenous concepts, we must therefore use our own. It must be noted, however, that this would ul
timately have been the case anyway. A demonstration, had it been possi
ble, of the relations a particular system of thought—be it African, Asian, or European—establishes between trance and particular sound events fall
ing within our definition of music, could never have constituted more than the first stage of our work. My aim can only be to bring out these relations by going beyond interpretations necessarily belonging to cognitive pro
cesses different both from each other and from our own. Whatever materi
als are used, whatever degree of elaboration is reached, whatever language is used to convey the findings, we will always have to reinterpret them in our own terms. When I am told by a Songhay musician in Niger, via the work of Jean Rouch, that he transmits his music to the ears of the spirits by means of a rattling device extending from the neck of his single-stringed fiddle,31 take note of this information, which is indeed of the greatest in
terest; but I must then go on to reinterpret it within the framework of a more general system of symbolics. When I read, in the work of Henry Skoff Torgue, that for pop musicians the double bass “lends security” with its low notes, that the percussion is “never frenzied,” and that it is the voice, or those instruments deriving from it (in other words, those of me
dium or high pitch), that furnish the “hysterical cries,” I am then led to consider these observations, which are scattered throughout his book, as significant of an underlying system. Whether it is clearly expressed, im
plied, or ignored altogether—which is usually the case—is of little import.
Just as I am within my rights to include within a single category—the one of “music” as I have just defined it—facts that others would assign to dif
ferent categories, so am I at liberty to organize into a system facts that oth
ers would not link together at all, or would organize on the basis of differ
ent viewpoints. The question is to know if the result of such a rearrangement is logically conclusive or not. The reader will be the judge.
Music and Possession 65 Any music can be considered from three different viewpoints: first, in and of itself, as an object (independent of its maker and of anyone listen
ing to it); second, as something produced either by composition or by ex
ecution (as a subjective creation); third, as something listened to (from the viewpoint of perception). To use the terms proposed by R. Jackobson (1960) for the analysis of language, music may be considered from the viewpoint of the “ message” it constitutes, from that of the “ addresser”
who transmits it, and from that of the “addressee” who receives it—or, if one prefers, from that of the “transmitter” and the “receiver.”4 In the nor
mal conditions of musical communication, the transmitter and receiver share a common code, so that the message sent by the former refers to a context understandable by the latter, and communication is established between them by the action of a certain contact. “Each of these six factors (transmitter, message, receiver, code, context, contact) gives rise to a dif
ferent linguistic function,” Jakobson tells us. Although we must guard ourselves from systematically applying what has been said about language to music, since the one can by no means be reduced to the other, the same proposition can nevertheless be made for music, and with equal chances of leading to interesting observations. Throughout this book we will see that, depending on whether the music is made by the person in trance or, on the contrary, for that person, music and trance have quite different re
lations to one another.
Wh e n Do e s M u s i c Ac t?
We have just seen that possession should be viewed as a dynamic process.
Therefore, we will begin by asking the question, When does music act?
The individual in the process of experiencing those physiological, psy
chological, or emotional disruptions that will orient him toward posses
sion will, generally speaking, gravitate toward the milieu of possessed per
sons, and will consequently be present at their ceremonies. Since these ceremonies are accompanied by music, he becomes impregnated with the musical atmosphere of such possession sessions. But the chronic crisis he is experiencing and the acute crisis that will follow it most of the time do not necessarily have any direct relation to that music. Indeed, they often have no relation to it at all. As Louis Mars very rightly points out (1953, 225)—with specific reference to Haitian voodoo (but his observation could as well be applied to other cults)—“We have to distinguish the ritual possession crisis from the possession sickness that arises (generally speak
ing) independently of any ceremonial atmosphere.” Music can undoubt
edly sensitize a subject to the call of possession, and can thus contribute to awakening his vocation; this, however, does not mean that music is re
sponsible for the psychological disturbances he encountered and which led him to follow this path.
66 CHAPTER TWO
In Bali, Jane Belo (1960,48) describing the initiation of a medium, tells us that it was as the result of a series of trances—in my terminology crises or fits—undergone in various places and circumstances (but always out
side of any ceremony and thus in the absence of music) that the person concerned, after having consulted a priest on the meaning of these at
tacks, became convinced that “the gods were calling him.” In this case we are clearly in the presence of what we have labeled the prepossession cri
sis. Similarly, J. H. Nketia (1957, 5), writing about possession in Ghana (which he interprets as being essentially a renewal of man’s alliance with the gods or with his ancestors), observes that “individuals are known to get possessed in private life outside the context of music and dancing.” We may suppose that here again we are dealing with prepossession crises. In any case, let us remember that such crises can take place without music and without dancing. Among the Dogon, future priests of the binu (myth
ical ancestors) undergo crises or fits that occur unexpectedly, not only dur
ing ceremonies that include music—and are not necessarily related to binu worship5—but also outside of any ceremony and consequently with no music at all.6 This is no longer the case after their ordination, however, and I shall return to this point later (p. 98). In the candomble, on the other hand (Cossard 1970, 158-59), it is usually while the future initiate—of either sex—is attending a ceremony that he or she is suddenly struck by the divinity and collapses to the ground. This is a sign that a god has cho
sen him or her as his “horse.” But at this entirely preliminary stage of pos
session, neither the victim nor anyone else yet knows which god is in
volved. Contrary to what happens to those who are already initiated, and who go into trance only when summoned to do so by the song or rhythm specific to the god who is to inhabit them, here the person cannot have an
swered such a summons since he or she does not yet know the code. Gisele Cossard further points out, as we saw earlier, that the “candidate” can also be struck and fall in this way at any time outside of any ceremonial context. Thus, despite appearances, prepossession crisis must be regarded in the candomble as well as being independent of music.
In Chad, among the Mussey,7 it often is while she is out in the bush that the person about to be possessed is seized by an unknown god and struck to the ground. She will then lie where she has fallen, unconscious, until women belonging to the college of the possessed come near her and blow into a gourd trumpet until the right notes awaken her. In this case then music does not trigger the crisis, but on the contrary, terminates it, by es
tablishing communication with the god who is responsible for it.
Among the Hausa, noninitiated girls experience possession crises by in
gesting a drug, betel datura (J. Monfouga-Nicolas 1972, 200). This “pro
fane possession” displays all the symptoms of normal possession crisis ex
cept for the fact that “the gods clearly do not manifest themselves.” These
Music and Possession 67 false possessions occur when girls, who want to imitate bori adepts, swal
low datura seeds in order to do so (ibid., 199). But formerly they also used to occur in a more institutionalized way. On particular evenings when the girls congregated to spin cotton together, they amused themselves by in
troducing the youngest among them to the intoxicating effects of the betel datura. “When the girls began to shake, dribble, and spin endlessly around and around, mouths filled with froth, the young people’s griot8 came to play the plant’s motto on his drum, then immediately afterwards that of the god Kure.9 The girls were then told to sit down, given cool milk to drink, and the griot tapped them on their heads with his drum. The cri
sis subsided and order was restored.” In this example music is used not to trigger the crisis but, on the contrary, to make it subside, which corre
sponds to what was just mentioned for the Mussey. The crisis subsides owing to the symbolic alliance effected with the god and obtained, first, by beating out his motto, second, by bringing the drum, the sacred instru
ment, into contact with the head of the falsely possessed person. When it is simply a case of false possession in little girls imitating the grownups’
bori, also induced by datura, the young people’s griot is likewise sum
moned. He “plays his drum and touches the girl’s head with it. She then calms down and dances to the sound of the music. Everyone knows that if the griot were not summoned, the child’s belly would swell up and she would die. . . . ” A Hausa woman explains the situation as follows:
“When they go into trance you have to call for the griot and he plays his drum; the girls dance like fools. It is because they dance that the babba jiji (the datura) leaves them.” Here again, we find that music is used to end the crisis and not to provoke it, but this time it does not act symbolically;
it spurs the girls on to dance.
Exactly the same thing happens in tarantism, as we know from the fol
lowing text dating from 1621 and quoted by E. De Martino:
True, the action of music is miraculous, and if one had not seen it with one’s own eyes, one would never believe it possible that the person who had been bitten by the tarantula, almost moribund because of the venom, moaning, anguished, agonizing, almost bereft of his senses, external and internal . . . , [could] come back to his senses as soon as he has heard the sound of musical instruments, open his eyes, prick up his ears, rise, first begin to make slight movements with his fingers and toes, and then, keeping the rhythm of the melody, which he finds pleasant and helpful to him, start dancing with the greatest liveliness, gesticulating with his hands, his feet, his head, with all the parts of his body shaken in all of its limbs by the most varied agitations. [1966, 385]
In the Hausa bori, dance is used as a means of counteracting the effects of the betel datura; in tarantism it cures the bite (real or imaginary) of the spider. We should remember that in both cases the function of the music
68 CHAPTER TWO
involved is not to trigger the crisis or fit but, in fact, to cure it, to provoke its resolution in dance. All the same, there is one notable difference be
tween these two cases. In the bori we are in fact dealing with a false pos
session dance, which prefigures the real one by skipping the initiation phase. In tarantism, in which the crisis leads directly to possession with
out skipping this phase (since it functions without initiation by nature), we are dealing, on the contrary, with real possession dance.
It should be observed in passing that this absence of initiation, which is perhaps tarantism’s principal characteristic, is undoubtedly due to the fact that it is not a completely socially integrated religious practice. Since there is no initiation, the prepossession crisis is never entirely resolved, which is why it recurs periodically. This would explain the fact that in tarantism, contrary to the general rule, the prepossession crisis is not a unique event in the possessed person’s life but an annual recurrence.
In the nddp, prepossession crisis, or, to use Andras Zempleni’s term (1966,314), “non-ritualized possession crisis,” often occurs during a cere
mony, but can equally well occur without any ceremony and thus in the absence of music,10 which conforms to everything we have said up to now.
On the other hand, as we have seen, the normal climax of ritualized pos
session trance in the nddp is a crisis resolved by a fall to the ground, and in this respect it has the same exterior signs as prepossession crisis. This time both crisis and collapse are directly related to music, as we know from Zempleni’s (ibid., 358-60) description and what he tells us about the be
havior of a new nddpkat" at her first public seance. She must, “if possible, achieve a crisis leading to collapse. If necessary, she will be dragged in front of the drums in order to force this outcome” (ibid., 375). So whereas the “unorganized crisis” (ibid., 415) and the ensuing collapse do not seem to be necessarily related to music, the ritualized crisis and collapse, on the contrary, appear to be directly provoked by it.
Let us now pass on to initiation. The role of music seems to differ ac
cording to whether one is dealing with the bori, for example, or the can
domble.'2
In the bori, possession is always accompanied by music throughout the entire initiation,, both during the exorcism phase (dark gods) or the ensu
ing imposition phase (white gods).13 In the candomble, on the contrary, the majority of possessions that occur during initiation do so without mu
sic, or almost so. As we saw earlier,14 the novices live in the ere state throughout their reclusion period, and this state is interrupted by short periods when they go into the santo state, which is to say into a possession trance. The day begins with a morning purification bath. Wakened before dawn, they walk to their bathing place in silence with their “little mother”15 walking ahead of them ringing the adza16 or sacred bell. Each in turn is bathed with cold water by the “little mother.” The shock they experience,