Guns and Rain: Guerrillas and Spirit Mediums in Zimbabwe

Record summary

David Lan’s book examines relations among Zimbabwean guerrillas, local communities and spirit mediums during the liberation war. It is especially relevant to comparison because mediumship appears as a political, therapeutic and historical practice rather than as an isolated paranormal claim. The study discusses mhondoro spirit mediums, ancestral authority and possession-related communication in Dande. Its evidence is ethnographic and interpretive, based on fieldwork and testimony, so the reader must distinguish reported experiences from the author’s political anthropology and from later nationalist narratives.