Untangling the meaning of duawu in Mali.

摘要

The purpose of this dissertation is to untangle the meaning and practice of duawu in Mali, first through my case study among Bozo women and then through enlarging the sample to include other language groups. I show how they are similar or different from biblical teaching and the understanding of Malian Christians.;The central research issue is to analyze the understanding of duawu as cognitive schema, in order to enable Christians to appropriate it as part of a biblical spirituality, which expresses God's love and care for Muslims in Mali through a relevant form of prayer ministry.;Since no literature existed, either in the area of dua as blessings in Islamic countries, or on duawu in Mali, my description and analysis of this schema is a major contribution to Islamic studies. In both areas I discovered an 'invisible twin', a dimension of dua and duawu that exists only on a subconscious level.;The Bozo ethnography of the everyday lives and duawu of Bozo women contributes to the sparse literature in Bozo ethnography and Malian gender studies. It also demonstrates the economic and cultural changes that the lack of rainfall and a reduced fish population has imposed on the Bozo.;My biblical analysis results in the discovery of common denominators and attitudes, which became the template for using duawu in the context of a relevant prayer ministry as an expression of an incarnational spirituality.;The application of Cognitive Anthropology on the understanding of blessings of Muslims and Christians in Mali provides an empirical example for the cognitive study of religions. The comparison of the connectionist networks of Muslims and Christians in Mali, as well as Western expatriates, when speaking blessings, and those involved when biblical blessings are practiced, shows which assumptions (hidden units) lead to which behavior, expressions, expectations and interpretations (output units). Understanding this subconscious processing can help assess and transform inward assumptions in order to develop an outward, more biblical, use of blessings in Mali.