Papers by Marcela Perdomo
"The Return of my Grandfather Napoleon": Ancestor worship, impiety, and collective possession in North Honduras, 2025
This paper analyzes Dolores's case of collective spirit possession as a paroxysmic form of posses... more This paper analyzes Dolores's case of collective spirit possession as a paroxysmic form of possession idiom, serving as a powerful and creative internal mechanism that both safeguards and revitalizes the core structure of ancestor worship. Drawing on my ethnographic research in North Honduras since 2009, my study reveals that rather than leading to the erosion of possession rituals, entropic forces, such as resistance, modernity, and impiety serve as vital resources, reinforcing the foundations of ancestor worship. This paper explores possession idioms and striking events, such as contagion, abduction, dramatization, illness, and death to highlight the resilience of a possession-based religion as a selfsustaining total social system rooted in "tradition," yet shaped by a dynamic interplay of historical, cultural, and personal experiences. While traditional interpretations of spirit possession have viewed possession cults as forms of protest against hegemonic power-"a weapon of the weak" used to gain respect and process trauma-I suggest that spirit possession is multifaceted, ambiguous and underdetermined, operating within a social theater where critique, social irony, impiety, historical consciousness, and the carnivalesque intersect.
Material Religion. The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief, 2024
The present article explores how the construction of a guli, the
spirits’ shrine and the central ... more The present article explores how the construction of a guli, the
spirits’ shrine and the central ritual space par excellence in the
Afro-Amerindian religion of Dugu, reveals a material-spiritual
dialectic between the spirits of the dead and spirit mediums. I
argue that the anthropomorphizing of the guli occurs not only
through intense, repetitive ritual activity but also through the
potent association of embodiment and uncomfortable
psychosomatic experiences. Contrary to simply attributing
humanity to the guli for representation of the divine, my
ethnography shows that the shrine also transforms into a
material extension of the practitioner, creating a triadic
configuration of materials, bodies, and spirits. In this manner, the
Garifuna shrine gives rise to two ontological possibilities of
animation: being ritually “ensouled” with human substances and
invisible forces and becoming animated when it manifests in the
medium’s body.
Keywords: Afro-Amerindian Garifuna Dugu, ritual, materiality,
animation, agency, psychosomatic experience
Me Possessed? Interpreting Spirit Possession Through Ethnographic Reflexivity. An Afro-Honduran C... more Me Possessed? Interpreting Spirit Possession Through Ethnographic Reflexivity. An Afro-Honduran Case Study This Article explores the conditions of ethnographical knowledge production during my fieldwork on spirit possession in Dugu, the religion practiced by the Garifuna, an 156 Marcela Perdomo AM 52. 2021 Afro-Amerindian community of northern Honduras. Drawing on my journey from novice to potential priestess, but also from an ethnographer to anthropologist, I will argue the validity of putting my own body and subjectivity in favor of full participation as a powerful ethnographical tool to approach this phenomenon. The kind of anthropological investigation that I defend in this paper is neither a strictly native religious perspective, neither a cold distant scientific analysis. Instead, I will give close attention to the interplay of the Garifuna's practice of spirit possession and my own experience of possession as it was interpreted by my hosts. My intention here, is to show that my personal involvement in a possession-based religion worked as a meaning mediator to phenomena difficult to grasp solely from an intellectual and outsider's perspective.
The Journal of Africana Religions, 2022
This article explores the connection between individual experience, religious initiation, histori... more This article explores the connection between individual experience, religious initiation, historical consciousness, and ethnicity within the context of Dugu, the religion practiced by the Garifuna, an Afro-Amerindian group that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent. During colonial times, in 1797, the British Crown forced the Garifuna people to leave their homeland; they were displaced to the Atlantic coast of Central America, where they now live in scattered communities. This traumatic event remains entrenched in Dugu and
Book Reviews by Marcela Perdomo
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Papers by Marcela Perdomo
spirits’ shrine and the central ritual space par excellence in the
Afro-Amerindian religion of Dugu, reveals a material-spiritual
dialectic between the spirits of the dead and spirit mediums. I
argue that the anthropomorphizing of the guli occurs not only
through intense, repetitive ritual activity but also through the
potent association of embodiment and uncomfortable
psychosomatic experiences. Contrary to simply attributing
humanity to the guli for representation of the divine, my
ethnography shows that the shrine also transforms into a
material extension of the practitioner, creating a triadic
configuration of materials, bodies, and spirits. In this manner, the
Garifuna shrine gives rise to two ontological possibilities of
animation: being ritually “ensouled” with human substances and
invisible forces and becoming animated when it manifests in the
medium’s body.
Keywords: Afro-Amerindian Garifuna Dugu, ritual, materiality,
animation, agency, psychosomatic experience
Book Reviews by Marcela Perdomo
spirits’ shrine and the central ritual space par excellence in the
Afro-Amerindian religion of Dugu, reveals a material-spiritual
dialectic between the spirits of the dead and spirit mediums. I
argue that the anthropomorphizing of the guli occurs not only
through intense, repetitive ritual activity but also through the
potent association of embodiment and uncomfortable
psychosomatic experiences. Contrary to simply attributing
humanity to the guli for representation of the divine, my
ethnography shows that the shrine also transforms into a
material extension of the practitioner, creating a triadic
configuration of materials, bodies, and spirits. In this manner, the
Garifuna shrine gives rise to two ontological possibilities of
animation: being ritually “ensouled” with human substances and
invisible forces and becoming animated when it manifests in the
medium’s body.
Keywords: Afro-Amerindian Garifuna Dugu, ritual, materiality,
animation, agency, psychosomatic experience