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People of the Wind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2021

GERARDO BARBERA Open the ORCID record for GERARDO BARBERA [Opens in a new window]
GERARDO BARBERA*
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Abstract

This article contains ethnolinguistic observations and materials on the so called zâr cult, as practiced in present day Hormozgân province, Iran. The cult, which is spread across the Persian Gulf and central and north-east Africa, consists of practices and rituals of placation with which a category of spirits known as zâr and referred to as winds are warded off from a victim. The article, in particular, aims at offering an accurate description of the sub-lexicon associated with zâr in local Hormozgâni dialects, an aspect of research which has not been taken into consideration up to now.

Keywords

zârspirit possessionfolk medicineethnographylexicographysouthern Iran
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 421 - 432
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society

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References

1 Hormozgân is an Iranian administrative province of the Persian Gulf. It has the Strait of Hormoz at its centre and its capital is Bandar Abbâs. Its population was estimated in the 1390/2011 census to be almost 1,600,000, see Sâlnâme-ye âmâri-e keshvar, 1391, (ed.) Markaz-e âmâr-e Irân (Tehran, 1392/2013), p. 141.

2 The Persian and local word for wind is bâd.

3 Note that, according to Hassan, S. Qassim, Les instruments de musique en Irak e leur role dans la société traditionnelle (Paris, 1980), p. 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in Iraq zār winds are Muslim and positive.

4 N. Aghakhani, Les «gens de l'air», «jeux» de guérison dans le sud de l'Iran, preface by O. Douville (Paris, 2014).

5 Q. Sâ’edi, Ahl-e havâ [“People of the air”] (Tehran, 1345/1966; repr. Tehran, 2535/1976). The book was translated into Russian and edited by A. M. Mixaleva, see Saedi, Golamxoseyn, Oderžimye Vetrami (Moskow, 1977)Google Scholar; it was also almost entirely translated into Italian and edited by F. Ferraro, see Sâ’edi, Qolâmhoseyn, Ahl-e havâ. ‘La gente del vento’ (Naples, 1994)Google Scholar, and see the editor's introduction to her Italian translation (ibid., pp. 7–20); see also id., ‘Sviluppi recenti degli studi di antropologia in Iran’, Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, XLV/1 (1985), pp. 74–85, 80.

6 Riâhi, A., Zâr va bâd va Baluch (Tehran, 1356/1977)Google Scholar.

7 During, J., Musique et mystique dans les traditions de l'Iran (Paris and Tehran, 1989)Google Scholar.

8 M. Sabâye Moqaddam, ‘Negâh-i be e'teqâdât va marâsem-e zâr dar miân-e sâkenân-e savâhel-e jonub-e qarbi-e Irân’, Najvâ-ye Farhang, IV/11 (1388/2009), pp. 23–30, and, in book-format, but still succinctly, Zâr dar Irân va keshvarhâ-ye digar (Tehran, 1389/2010), a work in which the evolution of zâr traditions in Iran in the last fifty years is also hinted at. See also id. (M. Sabaye Moghaddam) ‘Zār’, Encyclopaedia Iranica, 20 July 2009, http://www.iranicaonline.org./articles/zar (accessed 10 July 2018).

9 Khosronejad, P., ‘The people of the air: healing and spirit possession in south Iran’, in Shamanism and Islam: Sufism, Healing Rituals and Spirits in the Muslim World, (ed.) Zarcone, T. and Hobart, A. (London and New York, 2013), pp. 131–167Google Scholar. It is not clear to what extent the fieldwork carried out by the author in Bashâgerd, eastern Hormozgân, did tangibly contribute to his presentation here of zâr rituals (see ibid., p. 131).

10 M. Aslemarz and S. Zavieh, ‘Motâlee-i tatbiqi-e âin-e zâr dar Irân va Sudân’, Honarhâ-ye zibâ: Honarhâ-ye namâyeshi va musiqi, XLII/2 (2011), pp. 17–26.

11 Modarresi, T., ‘The Zar cult in south Iran’, in Trance and Possession States, (ed.) Prince, R. (Montreal, 1958), pp. 149–155Google Scholar. Note that I. Afshâr Sistâni, Shenâkht-e ostân-e Hormozgân (Tehran, 1378/1999), pp. 312–323, described zâr practices following Sâedi, Ahl-e havâ, too, or also marginally on the basis of first-hand experience. A few hints on the zâr practice on Lârak island can be found in Sh. Nadjmabadi, ‘Identité ethnique contre nationalité: le cas de l’île de Lārak (Golfe Persique)’, in Le fait ethnique en Iran et en Afghanistan, (ed.) J.-P. Digard (Paris, 1988), pp. 65–74, 72–73.

12 Especially pp. 40–44, 51–73 on zâr proper.

13 Linguistic data in this article include (usually in brackets) the Minâbi sub-lexicon associated with the zâr practices, a good part of which can be found in G. Barbera, ‘Lingua e cultura a Minâb (Iran sudorientale). Profilo grammaticale, testi e vocabolario’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, L'Orientale University, Naples, 2005); some notes on zâr in Hormozgân were presented also in id., ‘Hormozgan: situação linguística e aspectos culturais’, Âyiné. Revista internacional de culturas e sociedades islâmicas, I (2013), pp. 131–147, 138–147. A small number of lexical items presented hereafter are crossreferenced by means of the abbreviation “q.v.” to the Appendix, where they are discussed in more detail. The Appendix also contains an explication of the presentation of Persian in this article.

14 See Boddy, J., ‘Spirit possession revisited: beyond instrumentality’, Annual Review of Anthropology, XXIII (1994), pp. 407–434, 409CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 See Omidsalar, M., ‘Genie’, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, (ed.) Yarshater, E. (New York, 2000), X/4, 2 pp. 418–422Google Scholar.

16 Both markab and faras are Arabo-Persian words.

17 In Iran, zâr or other similar “cults” are considered to belong to magic (jâdugari) and sorcery (sehr) and are forbidden, see Khosronejad, ‘The people of the air’, pp. 134–135, fn. 7; see also Sabâye Moqaddam, Zâr dar Irân, p. 58, for a hint on the opposition of the Iranian government to the zâr ceremonies. Note that Natvig, R., ‘Oromos, slaves, and the Zar spirits: a contribution to the history of the Zar cult’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, XX/4 (1987), pp. 669–689CrossRefGoogle Scholar, first emphasized the importance of defining zâr practices in Africa and elsewhere, including Iran, as forms of cult, tending “to lay emphasis on religious rituals and practices, often of an instrumental kind aimed at the achievement of immediate, concrete results or benefits for the individual member, such as mental or physical healing, comfort, or personal ecstatic experiences, rather than long-term salvational benefits”, ibid., p. 670 onwards.

18 See Barbera, ‘Lingua e cultura’, p. 130 onwards, fn 137. Note also similarly in Bandar Khamir sar-e ketāb-kanden “consulting a writer of prayers and blessings [doânevis] in order to treat a sickness by means of books containing magic formulas [telesm] and mythological or superstitious stories [kharâfât]”, A. Qattâli, Barrasi-e guyesh va vâzhegân-e Bandar Khamir (Hormozgân) (Shiraz 1388/2009), p. 219. See reference to similar practices by people called bâbâ ketâbi in Hormozgân in Aghakhani, Les «gens de l'air», p. 209 onwards. See also ibid, p. 35: “Après avoir été amené, sans succès, chez le médicin, puis le doâ Nevis (celui qui écrit des prières, mollah, religieux, exorciste), le malade sera conduit chez le bâbâ (père, guérisseur)”.

19 For a succint description of the important notions connected to hejâb in Islam, see Chelhod, J., ‘Ḥidjāb’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, (ed.) Lewis, B. et al. (Leiden, 1971) iii, pp. 359–361Google Scholar.

20 See Aslemarz and Zavieh, ‘Motalee-i tatbiqi-e âin-e zâr’, p. 21; also known as [Persian] vâred shodan be goruh, see Sabâye Moqaddam, ‘Negâh-i be e'teqadat va marâsem-e zâr’, p. 25.

21 See Aghakhani, Les «gens de l'air», p. 43, Khosronejad, ‘The people of the air’, p. 151. This phase is referred to as “mojarati” by Aslemarz and Zavieh, ‘Motalee-i tatbiqi-e âin-e zâr’, p. 20. Compare Persian mojarradi “célibat, solitude; dépouillement” [but mojarrad “isolée”], Lazard, G., Dictionnaire persan-français (Leiden, 1991), p. 381Google Scholar, “nakedness; single life, solitariness”, Haim, S., Farhang-e bozorg-e fârsi-engelisi (Tehran, 1380/2001 16), p. 907Google Scholar.

22 According to Aslemarz and Zavieh, ‘Motalee-i tatbiqi-e âin-e zâr’, p. 20, in this very moment the sick whispers for three times the [Arabo-Persian] word shafâ “healing!”.

23 See also Aghakhani, Les «gens de l'air», pp. 43f., for a different description of the events occurring in this phase.

24 See Sabâye Moqaddam, Zâr dar Irân, p. 19 onwards.

25 Sabâye Moqaddam, Zâr dar Irân, p. 20, and id., ‘Negâh-i be e'teqadat va marâsem-e zâr’, p. 27, has noted “tah(a)la” as the expression in the local language (“zabân-e mahalli”) for “come!”; but this is actually Arabic. Minâbi and Bandarabbâsi have either “biâ” or “bodo”; Aslemarz and Zavieh, ‘Motalee-i tatbiqi-e âin-e zâr’, p. 21, also interestingly report “tahla”, saying again it means “biâ”, i.e. “come (2nd sg. imperative)”. It is most probable, then, that this Arabic expression belongs to a jargon.

26 On the complexity of this part of the ritual and on the not always easy way to obtain the name of the wind and its genealogy, see Aghakhani, Les «gens de l'air», pp. 187–189 and 204–206.

27 See Bourguignon, E., ‘Spirit possession belief and social structure’, in The Realm of the Extra-Human: Ideas and Actions, (ed.) Bharati, A. (The Hague, 1976), pp. 17–26Google Scholar. The literature on possession is vast. Some up-to-date references are provided in Keener, C. S., ‘Spirit possession as a cross-cultural experience’, Bulletin for Biblical Research, XX/2 (2010), pp. 215–236, esp. 219–220Google Scholar on zâr proper.

28 See Lewis, I. M., ‘Zar in context: the past, present, future of an African healing cult’, in Women's Medicine: The Zar-Bori Cult in Africa and Beyond, (ed.) Lewis, I. M., Al-Safi, A. and Hurreiz, S. (Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 1–16Google Scholar; see also Natvig, ‘Oromos, slaves, and the Zar spirits’, esp. pp. 678–683 for an account of the earliest (1839) documentation of zâr practices in Ethiopia.

29 See Edelstein, M. D., ‘Lost tribes and coffee ceremonies: Zar spirit possession and the ethno-religious identity of Ethiopian Jews in Israel”, Journal of Refugee Studies, XV/2 (2002), pp. 153–170CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Lewis, ‘Zar in context’, p. 3. See P. Constantinides, ‘The history of Zar in the Sudan: theories of origin, recorded observation and oral tradition”, in Women's Medicine: The Zar-Bori Cult in Africa and Beyond, (ed.) I. M. Lewis, A. Al-Safi and S. Hurreiz (Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 83–99. See also Sabâye Moqaddam, Zâr dar Irân, esp. pp. 27–39, for brief descriptions of zâr in different African countries; Aghakhani, Les «gens de l'air», pp. 79–84 and 131–139 for an outline of rituals in Yemen and in countries in the Persian Gulf and for the description of the “sacrifice” and the ritual system in Egypt, respectively. See also A. Rouaud, ‘Zār, 1. In the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, (ed.) P. J. Bearman et al. (Leiden, 2002), xi, pp. 455–456; T. Battain, ‘Zār, 2. In Egypt’, ibid, pp. 456–457.

31 See Natvig, ‘Oromos, slaves, and the Zar spirits’, p. 669.

32 See Constantinides, ‘The history of Zar in the Sudan’, pp. 83–99.

33 See Lewis, ‘Zar in context’, pp. 13f.

34 Cerulli, E., ‘Zār’, in Encyclopedia of Islam, (ed.) Houtsma, M. Th. et al. (Leiden and London, 1936), iv, pp. 1215–1224Google Scholar. Connections have also been made with regard to to the homophonic Persian word zâr, with meanings including “deplorable”, “sad”, “weak”, “wounded”, “weeping”, “mourning”, Haim, Farhang-e bozorg, p. 483. See also Natvig, ‘Oromos, slaves, and the Zar spirits’, p. 678 n. 39, Sabâye Moqaddam, Zâr dar Irân, p. 10.

35 Massé, H., Croyances et coutumes persanes, suivies de contes et chansons populaires (Paris, 1938), 2Google Scholar vols. See ibid., ii, p. 44.

36 See Mirzai, B. A., ‘African presence in Iran: identity and its reconstruction in the 19th and 20th centuries’, Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire, LXXXIX/2 (2002), pp. 229–246, esp. 242–245CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for the association of Afro-Iranians, enslavement and the practice of zâr cult.

37 As different scholars have often been tempted to do; see Sabâye Moqaddam, Zâr dar Irân, pp. 67–79, with a disproportionate digression on black slaves in Iran from the pre-Islamic epoch; similarly Khosronejad, ‘The people of the air’, pp. 144–146; see also Modarressi, ‘The Zar cult in south Iran’, p. 150. The opinion by Aghakani, Les «gens de l'air», p. 28, according to whom “[l]es cultes du zâr seraient arrivé en Iran avec les esclaves amenés par les Portugais”, is not correct, as is a statement that the Portuguese arrived in the region in the fourteenth or fifteenth century and were replaced by the English in the sixteenth century. The Portuguese, in fact, showed up in the sixteenth century, with the siege on Hormoz by Alfonso de Albuquerque, and were expelled in 1622 by the Persian king, Shah Abbâs I with the help of the English East India Company (established 1600).

38 See, in particular, Aslemarz and Zavieh, ‘Motalee-i tatbiqi-e âin-e zâr’, p. 19, with pictures. The pictures show how these instruments are identical both in Hormozgân and in the Sudan, while being very different from other lute-type instruments known by similar names in Asia.

39 Consider the following impressions by I. Afshâr Sistâni: “During the night, in order to diminish their grief and sorrows [perhaps often generated by “bad winds” or probably for general suffering and displacement—G. B.], blacks gather all together, playing and singing in the tradition of their native land. In virtue of the combination of the Africans’ music with that of the indigenous people, gradually, the traditional music of Hormozgân and the whole coastal area of the south were born”, Afshâr Sistâni, Ostân-e Hormozgân, p. 66.

40 See Alpers, E., ‘The African diaspora in the Indian Ocean: a comparative perspective’, in The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, (ed.) de Silva Jayasuriya, S. and Pankhurst, R. (Asmara, 2003) pp. 19–52Google Scholar, who identifies African roots in individual zâr spirits as also mentioned above, “such as Pepe (from Swahili pepo, the generic term for any possessing spirit), Maturi (from Swahili Matari, a specific spirit), Dingmaro (still another Swahili spirit, Dungomaro),” ibid., p. 33.

41 J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ’Omān and Central Arabia (Calcutta, 1908–1915), 2 vols., ii, p. 10. Note also the following general opinion by M. R. Izady, ‘The Gulf's ethnic diversity: an evolutionary history”, in Security in the Persian Gulf: Origins, Obstacles, and the Search for Consensus, (ed.) L. G. Potter, G. G. Sick (New York, 2002), pp. 33–90, according to whom “[r]epresentatives of many important African families of languages, such as Bantu, Somali and Ethiopic, are found in compact communities on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz, in Iran, Oman, and the UAE”, ibid., p. 72. Actually, no African language has ever been found and documented in present-day Hormozgân.

42 See the pioneering research on the explanation of the deformed native lexicon in the apparently confused language of the possessed carried out among communities of Amharic-speaking Falashas in Ethiopia by Leslau, W., ‘An Ethiopian argot of people possessed by a spirit’, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, XIX/3 (1949), pp. 204–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar.