The Play of the Past: Historicity in Daily life

Abstract

To the present I have addressed the role of spirit mediums in formal public activities concerned directly with the shrines, emphasizing the earnest and imaginative ways they devote themselves to their work. Mediumship also permeates domestic life and less formal social encounters. In this chapter I present vignettes that show how the lives of mediums are infused with historicity, resonant with the multiple personages they carry. Although Mauss, himself, did not address the relationship between the personage and the psychological individual or self, he recognized “that there has never existed a human being who has not been aware, not only of his body, but also at the same time of his individuality, both spiritual and physical” (1985: 3). Hence, self-aware individuals must live in some form of lively tension as or with their personages rather than being entirely subsumed by them.¹ However, rather than seeing the self and personage as radically different in origin or in some sense opposed, it is more fruitful to examine how the distinction is produced, worked out, and eventually transcended through creative practice.

Just as an Israeli cannot turn into a Palestinian, so we should not try to give up our traditions.

—Sengy, spirit of a Ste. Marien sailor, speaking through Lidy, Mahajanga, 1998.