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The purpose of this book is to show that the possession cult of Vimbuza presents itself as an oral genre which is part and parcel of African Oral Literature. The ethnolinguistic study which we undertake will permit us to catch a glimpse of its whole complexity. The analysis has a bearing on four principal aspects. Historical developments: a certain number of facts concerning the birth of possession among the Tumbuka; possession: the study attempts to show how the cult articulates itself with its beliefs and the use of divination; the social role: analysis of social functions; the style: an analysis of the linguistic procedures which are characteristic of Vimbuza songs. The presence of rhetorical figures would confirm that we are talking about an oral literary genre.

Chikanga was one of Malawi's most powerful and successful healers who brought concepts and methods from indigenous tradition to his own Christian culture. During the fifties and sixties people having heard he had the power of divination to free them from the bondage of witchcraft and other evil practices, would make pilgrimages to him from the whole of eastern and southern Africa. His methods were, and are, popular and common, though always controversially opposed by the institutional Christian church. This book documents eye-witness accounts of pilgrims, and Chikanga's sessions and techniques, and includes interviews with his acquaintances. It describes his activities in the political context, which forced him to go into exile for seventeen years, and his final period in Malawi.