Chihamba ritual among the Ndembu

Record summary

Victor Turner’s work on the Ndembu documents Chihamba, a complex ritual associated with the spirit or figure Kahamba, involving masked performance, initiation, illness, social tensions, and ritual transformation. It is a strong comparative lead because Turner treats the operation simultaneously as religious symbolism, social drama, and therapeutic process. The account is ethnographic rather than evidence of paranormal intervention. Terminology, translations, and interpretation depend heavily on Turner’s fieldwork and theoretical vocabulary, so Ndembu-language sources and later critiques should be consulted.