Liminality and the Isoma Ritual

The Isoma ritual is a corrective ritual used to remedy a woman’s inability to produce children, a condition commonly known as lufwisha, meaning “to give birth to a dead child” (16) as well as the “constant dying of children.” Lufwisha is thought to be caused by angry shades that inflict the condition upon the would-be mother, because she has forgotten direct ascendants as well as “the immediate progenetrices of their matrikin” (13). Isoma, therefore, is used so that the afflicted woman, being able to once again remember the offended shade(s), will cease to be the angry shade’s victim and thus have the ailment affecting her fertility cease to exist. This ritual consists of three parts: phase one consists of Ilembi, where the victim is separated from the profane world; the second, known as Kunkunka, isolates her from secular life; finally, the third part, Ku-tumbuka, consists of a festive dance to celebrate the ending of the shade’s affliction and the victim’s ability to once again produce children. Before the Ilembi phase of the ritual can begin, the husband of the woman (if there is one) builds his wife a grass hut outside approximately a dozen huts, constituting the Ndembu village, that will be used during the second phase of the ritual. The attending doctor adept, led by the senior, collects the necessary medicines with symbolic purposes to treat her during the ritual, including a red cock and white pullet, supplied by the husband and the wife’s matrikin. The doctors search and locate the burrow of a giant rat or ant-bear, and upon finding one, address the animal as it represents the “troika” of the afflicting agencies, including the witch, shade, and ikishi (22). After this, they begin to prepare the hole for the ritual by digging into the hole, forming a tunnel (ikela dakuhanuka) big enough for a person to pass through to another hole or opening, the first entrance being “hot” to represent the animal or witch, and the second hole representing the “cooling