ALONG AN AFRICAN BORDER

The divination baskets of south Central Africa are woven for a specific purpose. The baskets, known as <,i>,lipele<,/i>,, contain sixty or so small articles, from seeds, claws, and minuscule horns to wooden carvings. Each article has its own name and symbolic meaning, and collectively they are known as <,i>,jipelo<,/i>,. For the Luvale and related peoples, the <,i>,lipele<,/i>, is more than a container of souvenirs, it is a tool, a source of crucial information from the ancestral past and advice for the future.In <,i>,Along an African Border<,/i>,, anthropologist Só,nia Silva examines how Angolan refugees living in Zambia use these divination baskets to cope with daily life in a new land. Silva documents the special processes involved in weaving the baskets and transforming them into oracles. She speaks with diviners who make their living interpreting <,i>,lipele<,/i>, messages and speaks also with their knowledge-seeking clients. To the Luvale, these baskets are capable of thinking, hearing, judging, and responding. They communicate by means of <,i>,jipelo<,/i>, articles drawn in configurations, interact with persons and other objects, punish wrongdoers, assist people in need, and, much like humans, go through a life course that is marked with an initiation ceremony and a special burial. The <,i>,lipele<,/i>, functions in a state between object and person.Notably absent from <,i>,lipele<,/i>, divination is any discussion or representation in the form of symbolic objects of the violence in Angola or the Luvale',s relocation struggles--instead, the consultation focuses on age-old personal issues of illness, reproduction, and death. As Silva demonstrates in this sophisticated and richly illustrated ethnography, <,i>,lipele<,/i>, help people maintain their links to kin and tradition in a world of transience and uncertainty._,