Weaving the Threads of Life

For the Yaka of Southwestem Zaire, infertility is a tear in the fabric of life, and the Khita fertility ritual is a trusted way of re-weaving the damaged strands. In "Weaving the Threads of Life", Rene Devisch offers an extended analysis of the Khita cult, which leads to an original account of the workings of ritual healing. Devisch analyzes the Yaka's understanding of existence as a fabric of firmly but delicately interwoven threads of nature, body and society. The fertility healing ritual calls forth forces, feelings and meanings that allow women to rejoin themselves to the complex pattern of social and cosmic life. These elaborate rites are not based on symbols or traditional beliefs; rather, Devisch shows, they themselves generate forces and meaning, creating and shaping the cosmic, physical, and social worlds of their participants. Devisch's praxiological approach is unique in using phenomenological insights into the intent and results of anthropological fieldwork.