The Azande people of Central Africa have long believed in the power of witchcraft and incorporate it into their daily lives. In this cultural context, witchcraft serves multiple functions that are deeply rooted in their social and metaphysical beliefs. One key function of Azande witchcraft is to explain and assign causes to misfortunes and illnesses. According to their belief system, any unfortunate event, such as sickness, death, or crop failure, is attributed to the malevolent actions of witches. Azande believe that witches possess supernatural powers that allow them to harm others from a distance, often through the use of magical substances or spells. By attributing misfortunes to witchcraft, the community can make sense of seemingly random and unexplainable incidents that would otherwise be attributed to chance or natural causes.
Azande Witchcraft and the Evil Eye
The study and desire to understand magic within human society has been a driving force behind anthropology since the earliest works of Tylor and Frazer. The “father” of modern ethnographic methods, Bronislaw Malinowski, produced Magic, science and religion, a seminal work, which made anthropologists turn their gaze towards the social functions of magic within the day-to-day lives of their research communities and, in particular, led to Evans-Pritchard writing what has become the “bible” of modern understandings of this “supernatural” phenomenon, Witchcraft, oracles and magic among the Azande.
Unlike the Azande society studied by Evans-Pritchard in the late 1920s (and which has changed significantly since then), I have nonetheless, experienced another form of “magic”, the evil eye, while growing up in a “rational” and “modern” Greek society. The popular understanding is that witchcraft is a deliberate practice, in which its practitioners intentionally direct and cause harm to others, whereas, the evil eye is thought to be within all of us, causing unintentional harm based on our uncontrollable inner emotions. Both, however, psychically attack their victims and cause physical harm by draining their life essence. In this article, I seek to better understand the practices of witchcraft, and the evil eye, as well as the social functions they imply.
Evans-Pritchard’s study of the Azande of central Africa (between the Nile and the Congo), resulted in what is the seminal ethnographic study of witchcraft. “A witch performs no rite, utters no spell, and possesses no medicines” (Evans-Pritchard, 1976), but they deliberately direct psychic acts to harm others, a capacity made possible by the presence of a physical “substance” in their bodies, “attached to the edge of the liver” (Evans-Pritchard, 1976). As the only way to prove this is through autopsy, it is usually impossible to tell a witch by their physical appearances. A witch may choose not to use the power of the witchcraft substance, which remains “cool” in their body, making the capacity for witchcraft an individual choice.
Evans-Pritchard claims the Azande are rational about witchcraft. If a known witch is in his hut when an act occurs, this is rationalized since it is actually the witch’s soul that travels to attack the victim. This mbisimo mangu (soul of witchcraft) operates over short distances, usually at night, and “sails through the air emitting a bright light” (Evans-Pritchard, 1976). The one time that Evans-Pritchard witnessed such a light was followed by the death of an old man in a hut on the path of the light. The mbisimo mangu travelled to his victim where it devoured his organs’ “soul” (mbisimo pasio). The mbisimo mangu is not autonomous but must be intentionally guided by the witch to its actual physical destination, allowing people who believe themselves to be targets of witchcraft to hide in places unknown to the suspected witch.
Witchcraft is “ubiquitous” within Zande life; any time something goes wrong, it is presumed to be the result of witchcraft. It can be something as simple as a minor accident in the bush or a “sulky and unresponsive” wife, or something graver such as the failure of game hunting or the groundnut crop (Evans-Pritchard, 1976). Certainly, almost all illnesses and deaths are the result of witchcraft. Witchcraft is most powerful when performed at close distances, suggesting that any time something “bad” happens to a Zande, it must be the result of an envious or jealous local person (Evans-Pritchard, 1976). The Azande recognize the same “obvious” causes for misfortunes as do those who think with “Western” “rationality”. They know the symptoms and causes of many diseases, but there is always the possibility of witchcraft contributing to the illness. When witchcraft is suspected, the usual course of action is to consider which neighbors are holding a grudge and then consult the poison oracles to confirm the witch’s identity (Evans-Pritchard, 1976). Consulting the oracles actually reveals “histories of personal relationships”, for the suspected witches’ names provided are the people with whom the accuser has known social problems. When Azande evoke witchcraft, they are simply “foreshortening the chain of events and in a particular social situation are selecting the cause that is socially relevant and neglecting the rest” (Evans-Pritchard, 1976). A Zande, then, will rationalize that a man might be sick for natural causes, but if he dies, it will be due to the umbaga of a witch. Thus witchcraft explains unfortunate events by providing the missing link in a chain of causation, filling in the gaps so that the whole of life, and death, is imbued with meaning” (Evans-Pritchard, 1976).
The evil eye is a phenomenon common throughout Europe, especially across the Mediterranean region, as well as the northern parts of Africa, the Middle East, India, and other areas of the world colonized by Europeans (Dundes, 1981). The evil eye is often linked to envy and jealousy; within the Orthodox Church it is known as vaskania, an envy born of the devil (Chrysanthopoulou-Farrington, 2008). This link between the evil eye and envy is also supported etymologically, for “envy”, associated with jealousy, derives from the Latin in videre, “to see”. The assumption is that to see something is to consciously or unconsciously desire it. Christina Veikou, the foremost anthropologist of the evil eye in Greece, defines it simply as “the harmful power which the insistent and penetrating gaze has on admirable persons and objects” (Veikou, 2008). She adds that, vision is the most social and penetrating of the senses; it “knows because it sees, and for this reason it has a possessive power over the objects it views” (Veikou, 2008). This power of the eye to possess is precisely what makes the evil eye so dangerous. People in the village of Eleftherna, in Crete, believe the evil eye is an “involuntary” action or reaction by the person casting it, and is not intended to cause any harm: “it just happens” (Veikou, 2008). The actual harm caused by the evil eye derives from the “intense emotions” associated with admiration, lust, and envy, that reside in the “heart” which is uncontrollable. The only way to control such feelings and avert the effects of the evil eye is to resituate them from the heart to the mind, the rational self.
Linking the evil eye to their Orthodox belief system allows Greeks to rationalize their personal misfortunes arising out of social interactions. Indeed, in what has become the seminal Greek ethnography, based on the Sarakatsani transhumant herders in northern Greece, John Campbell noted that these people (like many modern Greeks) are predominantly Greek Orthodox with a strong belief in God but do not attend Church regularly (Campbell, 1964). They also fear the Devil, believing that “sudden or extraordinary material success can only be the result of communion with the Devil” (Campbell, 1964). The Sarakatsani view human nature as sinful, prone to jealousy, but caused by the diabolic effects of the evil eye. Key to the rationale of the evil eye is the notion of limited good. Alan Dundes argued that many people believe there is a finite amount of health, wealth, and happiness that must be shared by society as a whole: therefore, when an individual is particularly fortunate or successful, the assumption is that this is at the expense of someone else (Dundes, 1981).
So what effects can the evil eye have? Dundes suggests that an evil eye attack results in one’s vital liquids and, therefore, one’s life essence, being drained (Dundes, 1981). However, the effects of the evil eye can also be socially structural. The Sarakatsani observe that their animals, the source of family and community sustenance, can be negatively affected by the evil eye cast by a neighbor or even their own wives when they are menstruating (Campbell, 1964). In fact, the evil eye negatively affects the appearance, health, and fertility of community members, specifically, “whatever is of value for the survival and reproduction of a community” (Veikou, 2008).
Vassiliki Chryssanthopoulou studied the concept of the evil eye among Castellorizian Greeks. These people mostly emigrated from the island of Castellorizo to Perth, Western Australia, between the two World Wars. Such is the cultural weight of the evil eye, that many of these “Cazzies”, as they are known in Australia, still maintain their beliefs in its effects. The evil eye, to mati or to matiko, is particularly revealed through their modern pre-wedding rituals, where lavender and mousoukarfia cloves are used to protect the couple and to assure fertility (Cryssanthopoulou-Farrington, 2008). Likewise, the groom carries a pair of scissors to “cut the evil tongues”, another form of the evil eye, in order to protect himself from the jealousy of another woman whose gaze is capable of impeding his ability to sleep with his new wife (Cryssanthopoulou-Farrington, 2008).
Although Evans-Pritchard’s study of Azande witchcraft is almost a century old, and the practices he describes have certainly adapted and changed to modernity, I feel that we can nevertheless draw certain similarities between witchcraft of that earlier time and the evil eye as it is experienced in today’s Greece. One of the first obstacles that could impede such a comparison is the inevitable understanding that Azande witchcraft is intentional and physically directed by the witch, whereas on the surface, the evil eye is quite the opposite. Indeed, Veikou, from who, I have drawn heavily, states the “randomness and the indeterminacy” of the evil eye “are precisely the features that differentiate it from ‘sorcery’” (Veikou, 2008).
From this perspective, it is clear that the evil eye affects everyone, but in the same manner, so does Azande witchcraft. The key difference here is that the witch must direct the evil, whereas the evil eye is presumed to act autonomously from the person casting the gaze. However, this seems too simplistic. Firstly, the person must gaze upon the victim, in effect directing the ‘evil’, so this then becomes a question of conscious or unconscious intent. Acknowledging both witchcraft and intentionality Campbell argued that “the witchcraft or the sorcery of the evil eye is recognized by the Church as one of the Devil’s weapons” (Campbell, 1964). Moreover, he added that the Sarakatsani recognized that certain individuals were known to possess and use the evil eye; that they had “an eye infected by the Devil. Therefore, I see a direct analogy between this diabolical essence of the evil eye and the “substance” that resides within the Azande witches’ bodies and which attacks and consumes the “innards” of the victim.
Finally, to return to Veikou’s choice of word, “sorcery”, the Azande clearly differentiate between it and witchcraft. A witch uses no spells or rites to inflict harm, but rather depends on “psycho-physical powers”. This entire description can be equally applied to the “practitioner” of the evil eye. Furthermore, Azande sorcery is just bad “magic” as opposed to the good magic of magicians who fabricate medicines and spells to heal witchcraft attacks (Evans-Pritchard, 1976) . In Greece, this role is played by cherikarides who use spells and ritualistic performances to heal victims of the evil eye. In addition, Campbell indicates that opposing the evil eye first requires identifying its possessor, which of course, is precisely the objective of the poison oracles in Azande society. Symbolically, these two social functions are the same.
Probably the most important parallel is that witchcraft in Azande society and the evil eye in Greek society are both important cultural constructs which highlight the expected values of social relationships and community cohesion (Chrysanthopoulou-Farrington, 2008). In both cultures, intense emotions, especially those linked to envy or jealousy, can cause social frictions, resulting in a witchcraft or evil eye attack. While it is important to identify the competitive parties, the associated rituals help restore order and calm to the community. Such transgressions of social norms are, of course, common and quite normal within small communities, as are misfortunes and good luck, and despite witchcraft and the evil eye being illogical and irrational by “modern” standards, they can still play a significant role in reducing inevitable friction.
Illustrations provided by the author.
References
Campbell, John K. Honour, family and patronage: a study of institutions and moral values in a Greek mountain community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1964. Print.
Chryssanthopoulou-Farrington, Vassiliki. “The evil eye among the Greeks of Australia: Identity, continuity and modernization.” In, J.C.B. Petropoulos. Greek Magic: Ancient, medieval and modern. London, New York: Routledge. 2008. Pp. 106-118. Print.
Dundes, Alan. “Wet and dry, the evil eye: An essay in Indo-European and Semitic worldview.” In, Dundes, Alan (ed.). The Evil Eye: A Folklore Casebook. Pp. 257–312. London, New York, 1981. Print.
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Witchcraft, oracles, and magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1976. Print.
Veikou, Christina. “To Kaku Mati: I Kinonkiki Kataskevi tis Optikis Epikinonias.” Athens. 1998. P. 144. Print. Cited in Chryssanthopoulou-Farrington, Vassiliki. “The evil eye among the Greeks of Australia: Identity, continuity and modernization.” In, J.C.B. Petropoulos. Greek Magic: Ancient, medieval and modern. London, New York: Routledge. 2008. Pp. 106-118. Print. P. 109
Veikou, Christina. “Ritual word and symbolic movement in spells against the Evil Eye.” In, J.C.B. Petropoulos. Greek Magic: Ancient, medieval and modern. Pp. 95-105. London, New York: Routledge. 2008. Print.
Evans-Pritchard: Witchcraft, Oracles & Magic Among The Azande Summary
Witchcraft is discovered by means of oracles. Both oracles and stories of witches obey certain hierarchical expectations. Witchcraft is not strange, but an expected part of everyday life. Azande believe it to physically manifest through the the small intestine. In accord with their sexual beliefs, being-a-witch promulgates along relatives of the same sex. Witchcraft powers grow with the small intestine, and so children are generally considered harmless. As a strategy, accusing social superiors of witchcraft often backfires. Distance is seen as proportional to susceptibility to witchcraft. By these mechanisms, witchcraft accusations are local affairs that do not often cross social boundaries of class, sex, and age.
Chapter 2: The notion of witchcraft explains unfortunate events
Witchcraft is primarily invoked for social phenomena that are deemed significant and/or slow-moving. Witchcraft complements, rather than dominates, the causal beliefs of the Azande. If a man is killed by spear throw in battle, the explanatory criteria (social, involves death) point towards witchcraft. But the Azande do not deny that the spear killed the man; rather, they say that the witchcraft and the spear in tandem caused the tragedy. They draw parallels to their hunting experience where a man first spears an animal, and his compatriot delivers the fatal second blow – witchcraft is often denoted as “the second spear”. In this way, the Azande infuse a narrative into socially significant events.
Chapter 3: Sufferers from misfortune seek for witches among their enemies
Witchcraft is most often invoked for slow-developing illness. The victim’s kinsmen will appeal to an oracle, bringing forward names of social equals typically suspected of the jealousy motive. If the oracle indicates the witchcraft-inspired responsibility of one or more of these, a messenger will be sent to politely request cessation of psychic violence. The accused will deny the charges while maintaining goodwill towards the victim. Should the victim recover, life proceeds; else the cycle continues. If the victim should die, the kinsmen can resort to compensation demands or vengeance magic. Since this process is considered private, little is known about individual cases other than by the kinsmen, oracle, and political authorities. Witchcraft, not theism, is the fuel of Azande morality: witches are generally accused as a function of their adherence to social norms.
Chapter 4: Are witches conscious agents?
Azande asserts intentionality and scheming to participants of witchcraft. However, for Europeans, witchcraft was an omnipresent, metaphysical reality; for the Azande, witchcraft only manifested for personal misfortunes. As such, accused Azande could not deny the oracle’s decision, but typically denied intentionality of their purported actions. Contrary to many accused European witches, Azande were willing to live with this inconsistency, modelling themselves as exceptional cases.
Chapter 5: Witch-doctors
Witch-doctors practice magic to provide leechcraft, revelatory information, and witchcraft protection. Their modus operandi is the seance, which serves as a rare opportunity for the community to participate in an extra-familial social situation. Seances are typically hosted by someone affected by misfortune desiring the services of the witch-doctor. At least one practitioner performs for the commoners in attendance; to drums and song he wildly dances, so as to acquire answers to questions.
Chapter 6: Training of a novice in the art of a witch-doctor
Trade information obtained through sole informant, although it is typically well-protected. Witch-doctors generally charge prospective students fees for ritual participation and medicinal information. Trade knowledge of medicines and their correlated plants are shared by journeys into nature.
Chapter 7: The place of witch-doctors in Zande society
This particular profession is not considered politically important; only commoners adopt its methods. The associated magic and revealed wisdom are not held to be as important as the poison oracle, or even the termite oracle; rather, it is held roughly as authoritative as the lowest of the oracles: the rubbing-board oracle. Witch-doctors apart from the seance are treated as any other commoner. Intelligent commoners may pursue the craft in order to explore more diverse social roles. Skepticism on the efficacy of witch-doctors is prevalent, and possibly increasing on account of contemporaneous developments (influx of more practitioners more readily revealing a greed-motive). However, observer suspicions of trickery are couched in context of the Azande metaphysic: witch-doctor spells do not work but they secretly coordinate efforts with witches. Even witch-doctors themselves may believe in the authenticity of their colleagues; and their secret understanding of the efficacy of their medicines does not conflict with their beliefs. Azande cannot readily explore pure skepticism as they know no other explanatory worldview than the witch-oracle-magic paradigm.
Chapter 8: The Poison Oracle in daily life
Oracle poison is socially valuable, and its potency must be preserved. Poison is protected via observance of taboos, hiding it from malevolent witches and women, and from the sun. Use of the poison oracle represents a function of social control: women are formally prohibited from its use, or even knowing its relevance, and the poor cannot often afford to spare fowls during the ceremony. The seance is performed away from the village, and the constituents are the operator, the questioner, the witnesses, the poison, and the fowls. First, the operator administers the poison to the fowl (proportionate to its size). Then, the questioner formally addresses the poison inside the fowl, its lethality is thus hinged on the answer to a certain pressing question. No mechanism of the operator to manipulate the resultant verdict is known. Verdicts are not considered binding until their opposite verdict is confirmed (oracle must kill for confirmation of the affirmative, and then spare for dis-confirmation of the negative); however, questioners are known to delay secondary verdicts according to their interests.
Chapter 9: Problems arising from consultation of the poison oracle
All Azande oracles are addressed as people, even though they are not personified. Rather, their efficacy is attributed to their spiritual dynamism, or soul. Further, Azande exhibit contradictory behavior and beliefs when it comes to benge poison. Azande are careful not to eat fowls killed through the poison-test of the seance. However, no one can express the reasons behind this behavior – for an Azande, benge only functions as poison when in a magical context. Further, given that the poison acts randomly, often the confirmatory answer will contradict the initial answer. However, the Azande utilize no less than eight explanatory vehicles to justify these contradictions, the result of which paradoxically results in a stronger affirmation of poison oracle efficacy. Contradictions are further dismissed via a combination of language barriers, disinterest, and the promotion of ambiguous expectations. Doubt is not repressed but is always couched in the context of the mystical paradigm.
Chapter 10: Other Zande oracles
Azande use other, less expensive and reliable, oracles for preliminary or less significant matters. The termites oracle is operated by sticking two different sticks into a termite mound and assigning different answers to the consumption of either stick. The rubbing-board oracle is imbued with medicine and had the detachable rim circumvents the table, with smooth motions and getting stuck being associated with different outcomes. The three sticks oracle is arranged as a tent on the hut floor, and its status overnight (collapsed or not) is indicative of its message. Finally, dreams are sometimes imbued with oracle-like significance.
Chapter 11: Magic and medicines
Magic is the third component of the Azande belief-triangle. Its use through various medicines can either be socially accepted (positive magic) or condemned (sorcery). Use of magic is used towards a large set of social goals, through a diversity of plants. Magic is generally private and rarely practiced. Magic is moral. Good magic is impersonal: it will affect unknown individuals whose guilt is assured. Bad magic is personal: it is used against a particular person in malice. Sorcery in its full sense probably is not practiced, and only exists in rumors. Light afflictions are treated empirically, only significant ailments are cause for magical remedies. Magic is not thought to positively affect everyday life, but only to ward off negative mystical effects.
Chapter 12: An association for the practice of magic
New communal, illegal magic gatherings have become eminent due to current (circa 1920s) political events. They represent wide and deep social change. These Mani exhibit crude evidences of associative groups: organization, leadership, grades, feeds, initiation rites, and esoteric vocabulary. Water immersion contributes to initiation rites, as does other behavior reminiscent of freshman hazing. Four officials lead the group: the leader, cook, stirrer, and sentry. None have much authority. Meetings are highly emotional, in stark contrast with more public ceremonies. Mani allow for female members, youth, poor (fees are minimal), and royalty (although, significantly, their authority is moot). Nobility dislikes these groups on grounds of sorcery suspicion, marital jealousy, and general conservatism. The organizations are grassroots, and lack inter-group cohesion.
Chapter 13: Witchcraft, oracles, and magic, in the situation of death
Azande belief structures are ill-defined and are only partially expressed in any given situation. Their beliefs reach an cohesion and the height of synthesis in situations of death. During later stages of illness, witchcraft is identified and addressed and both magic and leechcraft are invoked. Should these efforts be unsuccessful, vengeance magic is prepared. Vengeance practitioners are generally young men who will not suffer sex and food taboos as forcefully as others, although all kinsmen are affected. Vengeance magic requires significant patience, and after enough time has past, kinsmen will oracle-inquire whether a socially-relevant death is the result of their magic. Reactionary outburst are thus channeled through magical recourse, and are thereby tempered through uncomfortable, extended taboo-observances and wait-times that scale to years.
What are two functions of azande witchcraft
The Witch-Doctors of the Azande
Introduction
One of the most important and intriguing aspects of a culture is how they attempt to influence or manipulate their environment as well as others around them. Among the ways in which people throughout the ages have attempted to control the hands of fate, magic is the one of the most mysterious. Of the many societies and cultures in the world today, few believe in a structure of magic as complex and multifaceted as that of the Azande . Much of the Zande way of life is influenced by their religious system of beliefs, which is centered around ngua, which means �magic.� Magic is considered advantageous and is used to help and protect people, but there is also the belief in mangu (�witchcraft�) and gbegere ngua (�sorcery�), and both of these are considered bad magic that brings harm to others.
Of unique position in Zande society is the abinza, or �witch-doctor,� who is a magician by trade. He has two main functions. The first is to sell to people items such as medicines, spells and charms. The witch-doctor�s second specialty is in tracking down and combating witchcraft. The objective of this paper is to look at the distinctive place of witch-doctors in Zande society as well as to explain why it is so.
Basic Facts
The Azande have a population of about a million. They are located from the upper Nile basin in southern Sudan to the borders of semitropical rain forests in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Approximately spanning the present-day boundaries of the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Zaire, the land on which Zande live is mainly savannah country, with small forested areas and countless small streams. Agriculture, as well as hunting and gathering, both make up the primary subsistence activities. Cattle, goats and sheep are entirely absent. This is because a type of parasite that is attracted to such animals carries the sleeping sickness disease, and it can affect both animals and people. Chickens are kept, but not as food; rather, they play a key role in divining through certain oracles.
Marriage and Social Class
The Azande people mostly live in small groups of polygynous families, though the local and regional governors live in separate, small settlements, and the important chiefs live in villages of a few hundred people. In polygynous marriage, bride-price is paid, generally in the form of spears. Because there is inequality in power and prestige, Zande society is most like a class society. One cannot move from one social rank to a higher one. The Avongara class, or the class of nobles, kings and princes, is highest in rank. Below them are the commoners � the ordinary citizens. The commoners are subdivided into the Mbomu (the native Azande and their descendants) and the Auro (the descendants of the various conquered tribes). At the bottom of the social order are slaves, generally acquired in war.
Magic
Though the Azande generally believe that magic may be made by anyone, it is not normally used by women. On occasion, a woman may have a small role in a ritual ceremony, but as a general rule women have practically no involvement. Witch-doctors who sell their magical services are commonplace in the Azande, and their magic generally takes the form of whistles, amulets, charms or the like. Magic may be purchased; also, it is individually owned. �Fear of magic (mangu) is universal among Zandes. If bad luck or misfortune occur to a man, he will cast about in his mind for any person he can think of who might benefit by it, or who would be pleased at his affliction, and will firmly believe that he is the victim of this individual�s spell.� [1]
Witch-Doctors
A witch-doctor has the capability for both magic and witchcraft, and since he can either help or harm others, he is respected. During s�ances (in Zande society, ritual dances that take place before consulting an oracle), he has increased power and authority, and so people will do as he instructs. However, when he is not working as a magician, the witch-doctor does not have a social status any different from the commoners. There are many witch-doctors, but there are not many at all who are particularly well-known or renowned. Witch-doctors are generally well-respected, but there are a number of people who firmly believe that most witch-doctors are frauds who are only around to make money. Even some witch-doctors have confessed that not all are honest. If a person is skeptical of what a witch-doctor has said, he can consult what is called the poison oracle, and its �decision� is more or less the final judgment. It will either confirm or refute what the witch-doctor has said. The poison oracle is so called because the procedure involves whether or not a fowl dies upon having poison fed to it.
Witch-doctors do not have any sort of political power, but this does not mean that they are not occasionally sought out by those who do have such power. Princes occasionally consult witch-doctors, as do nobles, because the witch-doctors have power of good magic, and this is considered the nemesis of bad magic. Even though the witch-doctor does not have political importance, or even much social influence, the profession still shows a degree of social specialization; that is, he is a professional, is well-respected, and is a reliable expert in his field.
Witch-doctors of the Azande are skilled in a number of different aspects of magic, and they are consulted for a number of different purposes. The witch-doctor has different specialties and functions in the field of magic, and they are related and integrated with one another: �The Zande witch-doctor is both diviner and magician. As diviner he exposes witches; as magician he thwarts them. But chiefly he is a diviner.� [2]
The Azande consider the witch-doctor one of the many oracles they use, but do not usually refer to them as such. While the witch-doctor uses his magic and medicines for the good of others, some may be surprised to learn that they also control some powers of witchcraft. It is simply that witch-doctors have strong control over the witchcraft so that it does not injure others or their property. The belief about witchcraft is that people who have it can use it without being consciously aware that they have done so. While it is difficult to explain exactly the differences between sorcery and witchcraft, the former is magic that is immoral and used as such. ��two different types of magic, one moral, legal, and �good,� which only harmed persons who had committed a crime; the other immoral, criminal, and �bad,� which was directed against an individual whom the worker of magic wished to harm.� [3] Legally acceptable magic includes ngwa kisa kpolo (�homestead-protection magic�) or benge (�oracle magic�). One type of oracle magic, the poison oracle, is regarded as the most important of any Zande oracles. The poison oracle�s decisions carry the force of law, if it is so ordered by a prince.
Summary
In summary, the role of the witch-doctor in Zande society is about the same as that of an ordinary citizen, though he commands more authority during s�ances. While he is lacking in political power and social influence, the witch-doctor is still central to the Azande. Nearly everyone comes to such a person when they believe that they are under attack from another�s witchcraft. As both a diviner and magician, he not only seeks out evil spells but puts a stop to them. While a couple types of oracles are considered to be of better and higher judgment than a Zande witch-doctor � chiefly the poison oracle � the witch-doctor�s medicines, charms, spells and power over evil magic place him amongst the very highest of sources for people to come to when they need magical intervention. The Azande people have one of the most intricate, compound and fascinating system of beliefs and magical practices ever observed in the anthropological world. The Zande have been subject to other countries� ideas of religion for centuries, they have been enslaved, and they have been under the rule of other countries countless times, but still the vast majority of the Azande culture have adhered to their own faiths. They are their own people, and refuse to be overwhelmed by the world around them.
Bibliography
Baxter, P.T.W., and Audrey Butt. �The Azande, and related peoples of the Anglo-
Egyptian Sudan and Belgian Congo.� IN Ethnographic Survey of Africa,
East Central Africa, part 9 . HRAF. Ed. Daryll Forde. London : International
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[1] Larken , page 46. (Excerpt from HRAF article.)
[2] Evans-Pritchard, pg. 66.
[3] Baxter & Butt, page 56. (Excerpt from HRAF article.)
By attributing misfortunes to witchcraft, the community can make sense of seemingly random and unexplainable incidents that would otherwise be attributed to chance or natural causes. This understanding provides a sense of control and order in the face of uncertainty, allowing the Azande to assign blame and take measures to protect themselves from future harm. In addition to explaining misfortunes, witchcraft also functions as a system of justice and social control within the Azande community.
When a misfortune occurs, the Azande perform divination rituals to identify the witch responsible for the harm. The accused witch undergoes a "poison oracle" where a substance is administered to determine their innocence or guilt. If found guilty, the accused witch faces various forms of punishment, ranging from societal shaming to banishment from the community. Through this process, witchcraft becomes a form of social control, discouraging individuals from engaging in harmful or malicious actions that may harm others. It serves as a deterrent, ensuring social harmony and encouraging ethical behavior within the community. In conclusion, Azande witchcraft serves two important functions within the cultural and social context of the Azande people. It provides an explanation for misfortunes and illnesses, allowing individuals to make sense of the unpredictable and assign causality. Additionally, witchcraft acts as a means of justice and social control, deterring harmful actions and maintaining social cohesion within the community..
Reviews for "Exploring the Functions of Azande Witchcraft in Resolving Conflicts and Restoring Social Order"
- Jane Doe - 1 star - I really did not enjoy reading "What are two functions of azande witchcraft". I found the subject matter to be confusing and the writing style was very dry. The author's argument was not clearly stated and there were many instances of convoluted explanations that just left me scratching my head. I also found it difficult to connect with the examples provided, as they were not relatable to my own experiences or cultural background. Overall, I would not recommend this book to others.
- John Smith - 2 stars - "What are two functions of azande witchcraft" was not what I expected. I thought it would provide a comprehensive analysis of the topic, but instead, it felt disjointed and lacking in depth. The author seemed more focused on providing a general overview rather than delving into the specifics of the Azande culture and their beliefs. The writing style was also quite dense and academic, making it a challenging read for someone unfamiliar with the subject matter. I think there are better resources out there for understanding Azande witchcraft.
- Sarah Thompson - 1 star - This book, "What are two functions of azande witchcraft", was a disappointment. The author's argument was not convincing, and the examples provided did not adequately support their claims. I also found the writing style to be dry and difficult to follow. It felt like reading a textbook rather than an engaging exploration of the subject. Overall, I would not recommend this book to others who are interested in understanding Azande witchcraft.