Introduction
The book opens with a firsthand account of a grand buffalo sacrifice that was offered to the goddess Haḍimbā in 2009. The author, sitting on the roof of a nearby structure from which he could view the event, realized that this position was detached from the intense activities on the ground. As people below shouted, pushed, and clung to each other in an attempt to find a better spot, the author remained high and far away. This charged moment serves as an ethnographic starting point for a discussion of the methodology employed in the book: a multiperspective, interdisciplinary, and context-dependent portrayal of the goddess Haḍimbā and her cult, which is expansive in orientation and emphasizes the role of encounters. This is preferred to an allegedly all-encompassing account that imposes a single historical or theological narrative, articulated from a fictitious, transcendent viewpoint held by no one on the ground.