Guyanese Komfa: The Ritual Art of Trance

Guyanese Komfa: The Ritual Art of Trance engages the Komfa perspective with the aim of locating strategies of cultural liberation. Formerly associated with the mammy water spirits from its ancestral roots in West Africa, Komfa was forced underground by British colonials who had likewise outlawed and discredited practices connected with Obeah. Practitioners absorbed some Christian aspects and identified a pantheon of spirits associated with Guyana’s historical formation, ensuring that Komfa is not forgotten despite ongoing cultural ambivalence towards the practice.  

Using a multidisciplinary framework Michelle Asantewa explores questions of cultural identity and the ‘arts of imagination’ embedded in the Komfa practice.  The theoretical body of the work is complemented by the inclusion of a novella called Komfa, based on the foregoing themes and issues highlighted in the overall text. This book contributes to the developing interest in African derived religious and spiritual practices, foregrounding Guyana which has largely gone unnoticed.

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