Some Spirits Heal, Others Only Dance
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| Author | Roy Willis |
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| Language | English |
| Subject | Cultural anthropology |
| Publisher | Berg |
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Publication date
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1999 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback and paperback) |
| ISBN | |
Some Spirits Heal, Others Only Dance: A Journey into Human Selfhood in an African Village is an anthropological study of the ngulu cult among the Lungu people of Zambia authored by the anthropologist Roy Willis. It was first published in 1999 by Berg Publishers.
In the book, Willis discusses his own personal experiences with both the ngulu ceremonies of spiritual healing and the beliefs in malevolent muloozi sorcerers.
In 1993, Willis unsuccessfully applied to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESCR) to obtain funding for an anthropological expedition to study spirit possession in Zambian Ulungu. In 1995, he successfully submitted a re-formulated application influenced by the ideas of Anthony Cohen and Edith Turner, who argued that anthropologists should not dismiss people's belief in spirits from a western rationalist perspective. The following year, he returned to Ulungu, where he obtained three Lungu research assistants, and together they observed and filmed five ngulu rituals in Ulungu.
Chapter one, "Research Assistance", provides a brief biography of Wallis' three Lungu assistants. In the second chapter, "Homeland and Familihood", Wallis offers a description of Ulungu and Lungu society, paying particular attention to extended family structures. Chapter three, "Managing Time and Space", explores conceptions of time and space among the Lungu, while in the following chapter, "Making Ethnography", Wallis outlines the ngulu ceremonies that he helped to organise and subsequently took part in; as part of this, he describes his own personal altered states of consciousness during the rituals. Chapter five, "Sorcery Attack", details Willis' own experience with alleged sorcerers (muloozi) and the rituals enacted to counteract them.
Willis described adepts of ngulu as a subcategory of Lungu "knowledge-bearing indigenous healers", with others being described as "herbalists", "spirit-aided doctors", and "female experts in sexuality and reproductive problems". He stated that many of these individuals could be described as "non-ordinary" people, with "a significant number" claiming to have attained their powers following a personal catastrophe. He also believed that one of the dominant features of all of these indigenous healers was their perceived ability to "'go beyond' social and even human boundaries in pursuit of healing knowledge and powers." He noted that dreaming played a major role in how Lungu healers obtained their esoteric knowledge, and felt that the distinctive feature of them was their "expanded self".
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