“The Return of my Grandfather Napoleon”: Ancestor worship, impiety, and collective possession in North Honduras

Collective spirit possession, as seen in the case of Dolores in North Honduras, acts as a paroxysmic idiom that protects and revitalizes ancestor worship rather than eroding it. Based on ethnographic research since 2009, entropic forces like resistance, modernity, and impiety reinforce the religion's foundations. Possession idioms and events such as contagion, abduction, dramatization, illness, and death illustrate the resilience of this possession-based religion as a self-sustaining total social system rooted in tradition but shaped by historical, cultural, and personal experiences. Spirit possession is multifaceted, ambiguous, and underdetermined, operating as a social theater where critique, irony, impiety, historical consciousness, and the carnivalesque intersect, challenging views that it is merely a weapon of the weak.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This paper analyzes Dolores's case of collective spirit possession as a paroxysmic form of possession idiom, serving as a powerful and creative internal mechanism that both safeguards and revitalizes the core structure of ancestor worship. Drawing on my ethnographic research in North Honduras since 2009, my study reveals that rather than leading to the erosion of possession rituals, entropic forces, such as resistance, modernity, and impiety serve as vital resources, reinforcing the foundations of ancestor worship. This paper explores possession idioms and striking events, such as contagion, abduction, dramatization, illness, and death to highlight the resilience of a possession‐based religion as a self‐sustaining total social system rooted in “tradition,” yet shaped by a dynamic interplay of historical, cultural, and personal experiences. While traditional interpretations of spirit possession have viewed possession cults as forms of protest against hegemonic power—“a weapon of the weak” used to gain respect and process trauma—I suggest that spirit possession is multifaceted, ambiguous and underdetermined, operating within a social theater where critique, social irony, impiety, historical consciousness, and the carnivalesque intersect.