Dancing women and colonial men
essay 2001 • Bastian, Misty L.

Igbo • Africa > Western Africa
Bastian has written an account of the Igbo Woman's War of 1929. The war, really a market riot, involved older married women attacking younger unmarried women in the marketplace and stripping them naked. The riot stemmed from the NWAOBIALA movement in...

The demon superstition
article 2001 • Bastian, Misty L.

Igbo • Africa > Western Africa
In the colonial period, the Igbo found themselves between a rock and a hard place with regard to the practice of twin killing. Animal-like multiple births (UMU EJIME) was an abomination (NSO ANI) against the earth deity ALA/ANI and infanticide a Chri...

Fires, tricksters and poisoned medicines
article 1998 • Bastian, Misty L.

Igbo • Africa > Western Africa
This is a study of the discourse surrounding market fires based on Bastian's doctoral research (see her dissertation, document no. 46.) The Igbo are inveterate traders and open air markets, some as large as 3,000 stalls, are a major Igbo institution....

Married in the water
article 1997 • Bastian, Misty L.

Igbo • Africa > Western Africa
This is another study of OGBAANJE (see document no. 37). Ogbaanje are incarnate spirits who 'possess' children at birth but soon have their fill of human life returning to the spirit world, which results in premature death. In one type of ogbaanje, t...

The world as marketplace
Book 2001 • Bastian, Misty L.

Igbo • Africa > Western Africa
This is a study of the discourse surrounding Igbo markets. Bastion examines what people say about market fires and money magic. According to Bastian the discourse on money magic reveals ambivalency about the commoditization of society. Listening to w...