WITCHCRAFT NOTES

WITCHCRAFT
• Anthropologists committed to cultural relativism in the early
twentieth century were more interested in stressing the sensible
side of seemingly exotic beliefs and practices like magic and
witchcraft.
• For example, Malinowski focused on the positive effects and
beliefs in the efficacy of magic spells.
• E E Evans-Pritchard in his classic monograph Witchcraft, Oracles
and Magic among the Azande demonstrated that the beliefs and
practices associated with all three phenomenon were perfectly
logical if one accepted cetain basic assumptions about the world.
 WITCHCRAFT

• Among the Azande withcraft involves the

performance of evil by human beings believed to
process an innate (inborn) non human “witchcraft
substance” that can be activated without the
individual’s awareness.
• Other anthropologists using Azande witchcraft as
their prototype, have applied the term to similar
beliefs and practices found in other societies.
 WITCHCRAFT
• For the Azande witchraft tends to explain misfortune when other possibilities
have been discounted.
• Evans-Pritchard showed that the entire system of Azande beliefs and practices
concerning witchcraft, oracles, and magic was perfectly rational if one
assumed that unseen forces exist in the world and that nothing happens to
people by accident.
• For example, when someone falls very ill or dies, the Azande assume that the
person has been bewitched.
• But the Azande are not helpless because they know they can consult oracles
who will help them pinpoint the witch responsible.
• Once a guilty person is discovered, retribution may be gained by public
exposure and punishment or by counter witchcraft attack.
 WITCHCRAFT

• The Azande do not collapse in fear in the presence of

witchcraft because they know how to deal with it.
• They usually make an accusation of witchcraft only after
cross checking the oracle’s pronouncements carefully.
• Because all the steps in the process are carried out in
great secrecy, who has accusssed whom and who has
killed whom with vengenance magic is not open to public
scrutiny so contradictions in the system are rarely
exposed.
 WITCHCRAFT

• Evans-Pritchard’s work has inspired many subsequent

studies that debunk ethnocentric Western notions abut
the supposed irrationality of magic and religion.
• Beliefs and practices bearing a resemblance to Azande
witchcraft are found in many societies, in Africa and
elsewhere.
• Comparative studies of these phenomena revealed
interesting variations in the patterns of withcraft
accusations in a given society.
 WITCHCRAFT
• Patterns of accusation fall into two basic types: Witches are evil
outsiders or witches are internal enemies, either members of a rival
faction or dangerous deviants.
• These different patterns of accusation have different effects on the
structure of the society in which they are made. If the witch is an
evil outsider , witchcraft accusations can strengthen in group ties as
the group unites in opposition to the witch.
• If the witch is an internal enemy, however, accusations can weaken
in group ties, to a point where one or more factions in a community
might leave and build a new village then the entire social structure
may be rebuilt.
 Witchcraft
• This, anthropologists argued that was not really a bad thing because what had
prompted the accusations of witchcraft in the first place was a community that had
grown too large for the prevailing political organisation to maintain social order.
• Thus witchcraft accusations provided a relatively nondestuctive way to restore the
community to the proper size for a kinship based political system.
• If on the other hand the witch is a dangerous internal deviant, to accuse that person
of witchcraft might be an attempt to control the deviant in defense of the wider
values of the community.
• Anti social or otherwise deviant behaviour often results in an individual being
labelled as a witch, thus when witchcraft is a widespread belief in a society, it may
be used as a means of social control. Since witches fear being ostracized or even
killed when discovered, the mere threat of being accused of witchcraft is sufficient
to force people into modal behaviour.
 WITCHCRAFT..
• Witchcraft is inheritable, for it is transmitted unileally from parent
to child. Parents transfer witchcraft to a child of the same sex.
• This means that if a man is accused of witchcraft his paternal
kinsmen are also suspected and they go to lengths of denying their
involvement to an extent that they may deny relations.
• Most neighbours who live together often accuse each other because
only neighbhours can envy each other. Women usually accuse
women, men usually accuse men.
• Sudden illness and mental illness are usually attributed to
witchcraft.