Paper short abstract:

Sukuma remedies are incomprehensible unless we think of meanings as physically part of the objects and sounds affecting participants. In analogy with Bantu word composition, the ingredients of magical hybrids make particular spacetime connections. These render the senses 'ulteroceptive'.

Paper long abstract:

Healing practices permeate the everyday life, decision-making and search for innovation among Sukuma farmers in Tanzania. Medicinal remedies and accompanying rituals not only treat illness but give protection against misfortune or assist in business, dance and romance. Any serious therapy means cult membership for life. The simplest magical recipe envisages experiential transformation by working on a both sensory (receptive) and emotional (expressive) level. First, each recipe specializes in sensory modes such as the visual, tactile or olfactory. Secondly, the magical ingredients convey meanings, in clear analogy with prefixes and suffixes composing Bantu words. The meanings inhere the physical objects with a particular emotional quality or 'code' affecting the participants. Sensory modes, I thus argue, are crosscut by experiential codes. Vision is not by definition intrusive (as in ocularcentric science); it can be seductive or comforting. I discuss how Chwezi initiation manages to shift codes, from intrusive possession to synchronous mediumship. Participants learn to supplement the classic exteroceptive, proprioceptive and interoceptive senses with what could be called an 'ulteroceptive' sense, where states of the world enter the spirit-medium. Here perception and emotion become one. More common forms of ulteroception remind of 'gut feelings'. They take place in the individual's stomach and liver, registering respectively happiness and conflict in the clan.