M ASS M OVEMENT OF W OMEN

Above I have discussed and evaluated a number of approaches in placing spirit possession phenomena in wider ramifications and have tried to assess their applicability to the Maasai situation. Although the suggestions given help us to understand individual cases to some extent, the epidemiological character of the phenomenon calls for more satisfactory explanation. Why did the phenomenon spread in the extent unparalleled even in Bantu societies, where it is an established phenomenon and integral part of the culture? Above I have stated that among the women in Maasai society there must have been an internal social pressure and desire for change, which found an outlet through spirit possession.

In addition, the phenomenon was spread through imitation, when women with various kinds of ailments and other symptoms were seen as victims of intruding spirits.

But there is more than this. Widespread spirit possession among women can be seen as a kind of mass movement of women, a collective expression of power, which has parallels in the old Maasai tradition.

Paul Spencer (1988: 198–209) has described in detail how Maasai women from time to time gather together to perform fertility rituals which may involve violence. The motivation for such collective rituals lies in their ambiguous position within the family and the larger society. As a member of family, a woman is dominated by the male domain from her early puberty. It is the right and duty of the father to arrange the marriage for his daughter. Understandably the father tries to arrange the marriage thinking the best of his daughter, but he has no obligation to investigate her opinion on the available bridegroom candidates. Because this is a custom, it does not seem to raise direct opposition among women. Marriage transactions in terms of cattle and possibly some amount of money play a role in deciding which spouse will be finally elected.

While in marriage, the woman is directly under the control of her husband. It is commonly accepted in the society that a disobedient wife should get a sound physical punishment from her husband. Such incidents often occur during the first years of marriage when the relation is still unstable and there are conflicting expectations from the side of the husband and his wife. A disobedient wife would make the husband subject to laughter and mockery from the side of his age-mates. Therefore, even a husband with gentle character is obliged to behave as if the wife were in his full control.

A disobedient wife is taken to the bush out of sight of other people. There her hands and legs would be tied together, decorations removed, and clothes taken away down to the waist. While she is lying down on her face, the husband would beat her with a finger-thick whip according to need, up to forty times.

Beating on head, breasts and eyes should be avoided, because any kind of permanent injury is prohibited. The purpose of such beating is to make clear what her duties are and where are the limits of behaviour. Bleeding wounds on a woman's back are not a rare sight among the Maasai, and when asked for the

origin of wounds, they would laughingly tell that they are because of their misbehaviour, and that it was just right that the husband beat them.

The subservient position of women is of course not without problems. A wife may run away from a husband, who was chosen for her by somebody else.

A recently married woman is likely to do this, if the behaviour of the husband is too harsh. She may go to her parental home or seek for help from her husband's age-mates, who by custom are responsible for the behaviour of the age-set members. A runaway young wife may be sent back, if the reason for running is considered insignificant. If she runs away repeatedly, she may endanger the reputation of her father's family, and the issue becomes more serious. In this case the father has to take the initiative and ask his sons to beat the daughter in the bush, because by custom he himself as a father is not supposed to touch his grown-up daughter.

The life of a woman is, therefore, strictly controlled by her father and husband. It is not exaggeration to call this relation as 'ownership', because a wife as a woman and individual is under full control of the husband. And the threat that a husband of a high spirited wife would be ridiculed by his age-mates will ensure that also timid and gentle husbands try to keep control of their wives.

Whereas women as individuals and wives do not have much choice, they do have their institutionalised ways of expressing their power and dissatisfaction in a number of occasions. In fact, women as a group have an important role in all communal rituals. In initiation rituals, for example, which are quite frequent and involve a lot of communal action, men have the official overall responsibility.

The women's dances accompanied by prayer songs are, however, a necessary part in them. Women as agents of continuity and reproduction of the society are in a critical position, and their fertility is continually at stake. Therefore, it is not uncommon to find that most of women's prayers in various ritual contexts are concerned with fertility, of their own and of their livestock. These songs are not merely prayer. They involve also playful mockery and scorn of menfolks, who abuse women in everyday life. Therefore, what men are allowed to do to women outside of ritual, that women are permitted to do within ritual (Spencer 1988:

200).

Women may also sometimes gather together as a semi-irresponsible gang, which moves from compound to another, attracting more women to join while the group proceeds. Their ultimate purpose is to restore the fertility, which is threatened. Signs of danger are barrenness of some women or increased miscarriages and stillbirths in the society. These gatherings erupt when the society enjoys lax time after the start of rains and there is less work in looking for food and water.

Miscarriages and barrenness are considered to be caused by misbehaviour of women during the time of pregnancy. A woman is expected to abstain from sexual relations while she is pregnant, and the violation of this rule is thought to cause above-mentioned problems. It is not only the woman who is to be blamed;

also the husband has a share in it. Therefore, the group action of women is directed against the household, which is thought to be responsible for

reproductive problems. But often the behaviour of the women's group is unpredictable. Men would not stand to stop it. If a man would try to prevent his wife from joining the group, the women would take one of his favourite oxen and slaughter it and feed on it, and yet they would take the wife along with them.

The women have suddenly control of events in their own hands, and it is not known in advance which direction events take in the next turn, since the women do not have any appointed leader. Their advance and actions are tolerated since their ultimate aim is to ensure fertility, and nobody would take the risk of endangering it. In the end, it is thought, women's gathering brings blessing to the compound which they pass, and also to the whole society.

That such a women's gathering really brings about improvement in fertility may be subject to doubt, but there may be a certain point in it. When women are on their move in this way, men should not interfere in their activities, and in fact they stay respectfully aside. Signs of nervous behaviour in women are visible, especially in those with reproductive problems, and tension may lead to a mass hysteria with shaking and shivering. It also happens that women in this state may have sexual relations with men in bush, because they are not under the control of anybody, and therefore they are said to have good chances of becoming pregnant. By large these women's gatherings are controlled by elders, and they are supposed to give the final blessings to women after the ritual is over.

The above description of women's fertility rituals and license associated with them has parallels with spirit possession phenomena among the Tanzanian Maasai. Both are largely concerned with pregnancy and childbirth. In spirit possession cases, many women had problems with pregnancy or childbirth. As it is in the traditional society, also here the concern for offspring is of major importance, and if reproduction is endangered, various symptoms are likely to occur.

In addition to concern for fertility, perhaps even more important is the urge for joint activity of women that links the spirit possession and the traditional women's gatherings. Traditionally women have been able to exert power and temporarily reverse the normal order in society through women's fertility rituals.

According to the same model they have been able to upset the men-dominated society through epidemic spirit possession. As the women's gathering started from a few women and more and more joined them when it moved from compound to another, so did spirit possession spread through imitation. In both the driving force was temporary freedom, relief from the everyday joke, feeling that the women were not dictated by men; rather it was vice versa. Women had the initiative, and men were forced to do whatever the 'cure' of women required.

The problem could not be solved by putting discipline to the women by beating them. This was out of question. Neither could it be solved, as somebody suggested, by pouring cold water on the head of the victim. The women had the absolute lead and men had been left with no other choice than to obey.

But spirit possession was more than pure analogy to women's fertility prayers. Whereas in these the major concern was the overall fertility of women, and women with reproductive problems were the core element in them, in spirit possession many kinds of ailments and troubles were seen as an outcome of spirit intrusion. Therefore, women's mass movement was extended from fertility issues to concern women's problems as a whole.

Figure 5 illustrates the relationship of women's fertility rituals and spirit possession.

Figure 5: Women's fertility rituals and spirit possession.

Fertility rituals Spirit possession women's initiative women's initiative

concern for fertility concern for fertility and other problems not centrally controlled no control

mix of sanctity and mockery sanctity and shameful behaviour

temporary relief of tensions relief of tensions, temporary or permanent ends in elders' blessing,

ordinary relations resumed

ends in changed social position, ordinary relations only partially resumed and new created

We can see that whereas women's fertility rituals had, in addition to increasing fertility, the effect of temporary relief of tensions among women and between men and women, spirit possession brought irreversible changes and innovations to the society. It was not only one recurrent episode in a more or less static society with little change. Spirit possession can be characterised as a major agent or channel for change, and after the epidemic possession hysteria the society did not return to its previous course – it had changed permanently.

9.10 E

After having discussed the spirit possession phenomena among the Maasai from a number of viewpoints, I am tempted to return again to the question of absence of spirits in Maasai cosmology. It was assumed that while the Maasai cosmology does not have any categories of spirits, there should not be space for beliefs in spirit possession. Such an assumption sounds logical, no doubt, but it is not satisfactory, because it does not explain in any way why spirit possession did occur, and seemingly without resistance from the part of the Maasai. The explanation given by some, notably by one of the leading Maasai iloibonok, that spirit possession is simply a trick played by the women for getting modern clothing instead of the traditional leather garments, would, of course, fit to this picture. In this explanation, even the women did not in reality believe in spirits.

But this does not make justice to several such cases where women were really ill for long periods, and some even died.