ABSTRACT
In Kalahari religion an Oru’ manifests its presence not by frenetic behaviour but by the speaking of an alien tongue. There are many references in classical literature to spirit-or god-inspired ecstasy - but few, if any, that mention tongues. In these there are echoes of oriental languages mingled with gibberish, thought to have originated in allegedly supra-terrestrial tongues used by gods and spirits, each class being allocated its peculiar language or dialect. Sometimes as many as seven ancestral spirits can enter the possessed person, speaking different languages, and modern tongues such as ‘English’ tend to supplant the more traditional. This spirit-inspired human language is almost comparable with the Christian gift of ‘prophecy’ mentioned in Corinthians. In the Mortlock Islands of Micronesia, spirits act upon the priest, causing him to twitch, nod and speak in a language very different from his ordinary speech.
