The Mueda Spirit Possession and Healing Traditions

Record summary

Research on Makonde and neighboring communities in northern Mozambique documented spirit possession, healing, mediums, and changing religious authority during late colonialism, independence, and civil war. The lead matters because ritual specialists could mediate illness, kinship conflict, and political disruption, offering a comparison with possession traditions elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. It should be pursued through named ethnographies rather than treated as one “Mueda incident.” Researchers must separate pre-1975 fieldwork, post-independence transformations, and later wartime accounts.