This book offers a historically-sensitive ethnography of the z�r ṭumbura spirit possession cult, associated with descendants of African slaves who live mainly in the area of Greater Khartoum, Sudan. It considers the history and transformations of ṭumbura, from the nineteenth-century slaving era through to the present post-Islamist autocracy. The chapters examine the ṭumbura spiritual universe and ceremonial life, its relation to the more popular female cult of z�r borē and to other now extinct forms of celebrating the z�r spirit(s), as well as ṭumbura’s combination of possession, sorcery, ancestor worship, and ṣūfī piety. Based on long-term fieldwork, the study shows how successive generations of subaltern cult devotees construct a positive self-identity based on an alternative reading of Sudanese history. The author explores the edges of Sudanese Islamic religiosity and probes the limits of anthropological classifications concerning religious experience. Situating ṭumbura in its wider context, the book discusses subaltern modes of historicity in their articulation with dominant conceptions of history, traces the legacy of slavery and the role of memory, and invites comparisons with Middle Eastern, Sahelian, and even New World societies regarding stigmatised identities, slavery, race, memory and history. It will be of interest to scholars of anthropology, history, religious studies, Islamic studies and African studies.

The ramifications of the trans-Saharan, trans-Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and domestic African slave trades are immeasurable, and they continue to disaffect black people from Africa to Haiti and Los Angeles to Lagos. Shackled Sentiments focuses on the memories and embodiments of slavery through case studies from western, eastern, and central Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The contributors to this collection examine the ways that memories of slavery have been internalized. Slavery and memory are assessed from multiple perspectives: as sets of ritual practices, community-based systems of spirit veneration, mechanisms of resistance and national pride, sacred languages informing personhood, and instruments for healing and well-being. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, history, religion, art, and linguistics.

The ramifications of the trans-Saharan, trans-Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and domestic African slave trades are immeasurable, and they continue to disaffect black people from Africa to Haiti and Los Angeles to Lagos. Shackled Sentiments focuses on the memories and embodiments of slavery through case studies from western, eastern, and central Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. The contributors to this collection examine the ways that memories of slavery have been internalized. Slavery and memory are assessed from multiple perspectives: as sets of ritual practices, community-based systems of spirit veneration, mechanisms of resistance and national pride, sacred languages informing personhood, and instruments for healing and well-being. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, history, religion, art, and linguistics.