The Sakalava Poiesis of History: Realizing the Past Through Spirit Possession in Madagascar

Using a broadly Aristotelian framework I propose poetic form as a means for distinguishing historicities. I analyze Sakalava performances of possession by royal ancestors as the creative production of a kind of history, distinguish it from a dominant occidental model of history, and elaborate the chronotope on which it is based and the heteroglossia and historical consciousness it enables. I argue that Sakalava spirit possession has a strongly realist bent and suggest the interest of poiesis for anthropological analysis and comparison more generally, [historical production, historicity, spirit possession, mimesis, poiesis, Aristotle, Madagascar]