I. M. Lewis and the Somali saar
Doing fieldwork in British Somaliland from 1955 to 1957, anthropologist Ioan Lewis recorded saar spirit possession among Somali women, cured with dancing, incense and gifts demanded by the spirit.
1955 CE · 9.56, 44.06 · status: account
The account
Lewis noticed that spirits often struck married women who felt neglected, and demanded clothes, perfume or jewellery from husbands. He made these cases the basis of his influential theory, in 'Ecstatic Religion' (1971), that possession can give a voice to people with little power. Somali religious men (wadaad) treated possession differently, with Qur'anic recitation, and condemned saar dances.
The sceptical view
Later anthropologists criticised Lewis's 'deprivation' model as too simple; the women involved describe the spirits as real.