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Concept
Zār
Summary
In the cultures of the Horn of Africa and adjacent regions of the Middle East, Zār (زار, ዛር) is the term for a demon or spirit assumed to possess individuals, mostly women, and to cause discomfort or illness.
The so-called zār ritual or zār cult is the practice of exorcising such spirits from the possessed individual.
Zār is also a form of women-only entertainment that has become popular in the contemporary urban culture of Cairo and other major cities of the Islamic world. Zār gatherings involve food and musical performances and they culminate in ecstatic dancing, lasting between three and seven nights.
The tanbūra, a six-string bowl lyre, is often used in the gathering. Other instruments include the manjur, a leather belt sewn with many goat hooves, and various percussion instruments.
Scholarship in the early 20th century attributed Abyssinian (Ethiopian and Eritrean) origin to the custom, although there
were also proposals suggesting Persian or other origins.
Thus, Frobenius suggested that zār and bori, a comparable cult in Hausa culture, were ultimately derived from a Persian source. Modarressi (1986) suggests a Persian etymology for the term.
The origin of the word is unclear; Walker (1935) suggested the name of the city of Zara in northern Iran, or alternatively the Arabic root z-w-r "to visit" (for the possessing spirit "visiting" the victim). The Encyclopedia of Islam of 1934 favoured an Ethiopian origin of the word.
The practice allegedly originated in Harar, Ethiopia via Sheikh Abadir, it was introduced by Harari and Somali women to Aden in Yemen. Messing (1958) states that the cult was particularly well-developed in Northern Ethiopia (Amhara), with its center in the town of Gondar.
One late 19th-century traveler describes the Abyssinian "Sár" cultists sacrificing a hen or goat and mixing the blood with grease and butter, in the hopes of eliminating someone's sickness. The concoction was then hidden in an alley, in the belief that all who passed through the alley would take away the patient's ailment.
Official source
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