Sada Mire: Divine Fertility: The Continuity in Transformation of an Ideology of Sacred Kinship in Northeast Africa
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BOOK REVIEW
Sada Mire: Divine Fertility: The Continuity in Transformation of an Ideology of Sacred Kinship in Northeast Africa Routledge, Abingdon, 2020, 371 pp., ISBN 978-1-138-36850-7 Timothy Insoll # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Dr. Sada Mire has done much to publicize the archaeology and heritage of the Horn of Africa, particularly Somaliland, and is an inspiration to a new generation of scholars, both inside Africa and elsewhere. This book is exciting in its interdisciplinary approach, vision, and scope in moving beyond the central sacred landscape case study, focusing on the Aw-Barkhadle shrine in Somaliland, to propose the far-reaching impact of an archaeologically attested Eastern Cushitic ritual complex with an emphasis on fertility. However, because such a general perspective is employed, certain problems emerge in attempting to construct the grand narrative whilst at the same time having to present the primary data to support it. Thus, this review has to take a critical tone, but it should be emphasized that with its more grandiose elements removed, the study provided by Dr. Mire has, at its core, significant value in presenting new material inaccessible to anyone without her linguistic skills and cultural background. The book is well-illustrated with maps and photographs, though some are missing scales (e.g., Figures 2.4 and 2.5a). The writing style is engaging but sometimes almost autobiographical and would have benefitted from a firmer editorial hand removing some of the repetitious elements, as in the dual reference to Dr. Mire obtaining her PhD in 2009 (p. 15 and p. 42), or in the triple use of “I have already noted” on one page alone (p. 274).
T. Insoll (*) University of Exeter, Exeter, UK e-mail: [email protected]
The introductory material is quite substantial with a rationale for the study given in the preface of seven pages, as well as a shorter two-page “About this book” section. This is followed by the introductory Chapter 1 which sets out the aims, objectives, theory, and methodology and presents the religious context. The critical perspective employed is of course useful—there has been an absence of indigenous scholarship, a prevalence of male-dominated research, a continuation of colonial legacies, etc.—but sometimes these critical points need to be better substantiated. Hence, it is noted that “African archaeology appears, currently, to make little use of any anthropological research into the issue of rituals in the past and carries out even less of its own anthropological research into this topic in contemporary society” (p. 2). This is incorrect; voluminous literature exists indicating quite the contrary from many areas of Africa (cf. Insoll 2015). More potentially problematic within the context of the Horn of Africa is the ethnic perspective on the past that is employed. The notion of “Cushitic” is applied both generally and widely in the study and could, theoretically, be used by others with less benevolent intentions in the context of clai
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