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Paper short abstract

This paper seeks to recast previous elaborate work in the anthropology of divination to provide a glossary adapted to current research into ecosocial (dis)balance and the reading of signs in ‘nature’.

Paper long abstract

Comparing the work of René Devisch on Yaka divination with other equatorial traditions, especially from the Great Lakes, the authors explore the role of divination and dream-interpretation practices in political (infra)structuring. The role is pivotal due to its facilitation of reading the (natural and social) environment (mazingira, Sw.) which chieftaincies are predicated on. No rainmaking without divination, which crafts a horizon of parallel eco-political scenarios. From the Bulima chief's dilapidated yet inhabited palace one can see across the lake the Mbarika shore where his rainmaker sits in a grass house considering the scenarios in light of the chief's capacity (tensor of -kum). Which vocabulary does anthropology require to lay bare the pluralist ontology? This is comparative work, based both on recent data collection and on Devisch’s last unpublished manuscript, which he invited the first author to edit. The authors welcome the audience to co-interpret certain ethnographic fragments.