Bori (Hausa)

Domain XI · Traditional medicine & indigenous healing · northern Nigeria and southern Niger

What it is

Bori is a Hausa spirit-possession tradition found in northern Nigeria and southern Niger. As Masquelier's publisher summary puts it, among the Mawri of Niger the word names both the invisible, mischievous spirits that live in the bush and the practice of taming them through possession ceremonies.…

Format

• Phase A: Preparation (before and between sessions). Goal: examine your own assumptions about spirits, Islam, gender, sexuality and West African healing, and learn the basic terms (bori, iskoki, aljan, 'yan bori, Sarkin Bori, Magajiya). Move on when you can ask about spirits without dismissing them…
• Phase B: Cultural assessment (sessions 1–2, usually woven into intake). Goal: the client's own account of the problem. Use the 16-question core CFI, in four domains: definition of the problem; perceptions of cause, context and support; self-coping and past help seeking; current help seeking. Add…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Who holds authority. Authority lies inside bori and its local groups, not with outside clinicians. Scholars report a hierarchy of titles. A Sarkin Bori (male) or a Magajiya (female, sometimes glossed "Mother of the Compound" or "heiress of the bori") leads a group. Possessed devotees are 'yan bori or masu bori ("spirit owners"). Male musicians are central to trance events. Historically a royal priestess, the Inna,…

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Phase E: Ongoing therapy and integration (weekly or fortnightly, length set by the presenting problem). Goal: treat the presenting problem with the evidence-based therapy that fits it, adapted to the client's explanatory model. Help the client make sense of spirit-related experiences in a way that…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• polite compliance that hides disengagement. It is working if the client corrects you or asks questions openly.
• the client being blamed for "bringing" spirits, or shamed for bori involvement. It is working if conflict drops and practical support rises.
• blaming individual girls, harsh discipline, or unsafe interventions on school premises. It is working if episodes become less frequent and students return to learning.
• records that later prejudice housing, immigration or custody decisions. It is working if another clinician reading the note would understand the client in their own terms.
• a family view that justifies restraint or confinement (see 4.14). Also watch for the client going quiet when a relative is present. It is working if you can describe each person's model and where…

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.