ABSTRACT
The sickness or possession of Tanotka occurred a short time before the author's arrival in the field. But, eyewitness accounts, even allowing for considerable distortion, suggested that Tanotka had not intended to convey the impression that he was possessed. It is by no means certain that, in his delirium, Tanotka actually made the cryptic statements that were later attributed to him. Messages received from the ancestors in the Cemetery Temple came to be known as 'reports.' Over a four-month period, 41 per cent of these reports were concerned with the legitimation of emergent ideas. The transformation of Tanotka's role, from that of a kind of prophet to that resembling a remote and kingly divinity, corresponded to a shift in the elements of achievement and ascription which entered into his leadership. Baninge began by holding a great meeting at which he urged the population to unite behind him in a daring and controversial plan.
