| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Inside a small concrete church, lit by a few tungsten bulbs hanging from exposed wires, hundreds of people stood packed Together in stifling heat, repeating the words their pastor Bellowed into a microphone. It was after midnight in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the service was just getting under way. The pastor, Pierre Pinda Buana, wore a simple, blue button-down shirt. Its acrylic shimmered as he moved around the center of the room--smooth, practiced, confident. For almost an hour, Pinda led his congregation through songs and chants, the fervor in the church mounting. Then he preached about the main event they had all come to witness: exorcism. Charles, a Congolese friend of mine, who asked that I not use his real name, translated Pinda's words from Lingala, a local language, to French. But the cries, clapping, and ululations of the crowd often drowned out his voice. Pinda began describing a demon that was living in the body of a woman who stood before him, almost entirely blocked from my sight by the crowd: "It's attacking the heart. It's attacking the stomach. It strikes faster than an arrow." He called out to the demon, asking why it wanted to kill the woman. Electrical contacts crackled--I glimpsed a church assistant crouched over a fuse box in the rear doorway--and the bulb dangling above Pinda went dark. Light fell inward from the corners of the room, yellow and angular. Suddenly, the woman collapsed onto the ground and began shouting. The crowd pressed in around her as she writhed and arched her back.
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