evans pritchard whitchcraft 18 33

8/2/2019 Evans Pritchard Whitchcraft 18 33

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Witchcrafl I 9

CHAPTER IIThe Notion ofWitchcraft explains

Unfortunate EventsI

WITCHES, as the Azande conceive them, clearly cannot exist.None the less, the concept of witchcraft provides them with anatural philosophy by which the relations between men andunfortunate events are explained and a ready and stereotypedmeans of reacting to such events. Witchcraft beliefs also embrace a system of values which regulate human conduct.Witchcraft is ubiquitous. It plays its part in every activityofZan e life; in agricultural, f ishing, and hunting pursuits; indomes c l ife ofhomesteads as wefl as in communal life ofdistrictand court; it is an important theme of mental life in which itforms the background ofa vast panorama oforacies and magic;its influence is plainly stamped on law and morals, etiquetteand religion; it is prominent in technology and language; thereis no niche o r corne r of Zande culture into which it does no ttwist itself. If blight seizes the ground-nut crop it is witchcraft;ifthe bush is vainly scoured for game it is witchcraft; ifwomenlaboriously bale water out of a p00 and a re rewarded by bu ta few small fish it is witchcraft; if termites do no t rise whentheirswarmingisdueand a cold useless night is spent in waitingfor thei flight it is witchcraft; ifa wife is su lky and unresponsiveto her husband it is witchcraft; if a prince is cold and distantwith his subject il is witchcraft; ifa magical rite fails to achieveits purpose it is witchcraft; if, in fact, any failure or misfortunefalls upon anyone at any time and in relation to any of themanifo d activities of his life it may be due to witchcraft. TheZande attributes all these misfortunes to witchcraft unless thereis strong evidence, and subsequent oracular confirmation, thatsorcery or some o ther evi l agent has been at work, or unlessthey are clearly to be attributed to incompetence, breach ofa taboo, or failure to observe a moral rule.

To say that witchcraft has blighted the ground-nut crop, thatwitchcraft has scared away game, and that witchcraft has madeso-and-so ill is equivalent to saying in terms ofour own culturethat the ground-nut crop has failed owing to blight, that gameis scarce this season, and that so-and-so has caught influenza.Witchcraft participates in all misfortunes and is the idiom inwhich Azande speak about them an d in which they explainthem. To us witchcraft is something which haunted and disgusted our credulous forefathers. But the Zande expects to comeacross witchcraft at any time of the day or night. He wouldbe just as surprised if he were not brought into daily contactwith it as we would be if confronted by its appearance. Tohim there is nothing miraculous about it. It is expected thata mans hunting will be injured by witches, and he has at hisdisposal means ofdealin-g with them. When misfor unes occurhe does no t become awestruck at the play ofsupernatural forces.He is no t terrified at the presence of an occult enemy. He is,on the other hand, extremely annoyed. Someone, out of spite,has ruined his ground-nuts or spoilt his hunting or given hiswife a chill, and surely this is cause for anger! He has done noone harm, so what right has anyone to interfere in his affairs?It is an impertinence, an insult, a dirty, offensive trick! It isthe aggressiveness and no t the eerieness of these actions whichAzande emphasize when speaking of them, and it is anger andnot awe which we observe in their response to them.Witchcraft is no t less anticipated than adultery. It is so intertwined with everyday happenings that it is part of a Zandesordinary world. There is nothing remarkable about a witchyou m ay be one yourself, and certainly many of your ciosest

neighbours are witches. Nor is there anything awe-inspiringabout witchcraft. We do no t become psychologically transformed when we hear that someone is ill we expec t peopleto be illand it is the same with Zande. They expect peopleto be ill, i .e . to be bewitched, and it is no t a matter for surpriseor wonderment.I found it s trange a t first to live among Azande and l is tento naive explanations of misfortunes which, to our minds, haveapparent causes, but after a while I learnt the idiom of theirthought and applied notions of witchcraft as spontaneously asthemselves in situations where the concept was relevant. A boy


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20 Witchcrafl Witchcraflknocked his foot against a small stump of wood in the centreof a bush path, a frequent happening in Africa, and sufferedpain and inconvenience in consequence. Owing to its positionon h is toe it was impossible to keep the cut free from din andit began to fester. He deciared that witchcraft bad made himkno-k his foot against the stump. I always argued with Azandeand criticjzed their statements, and I did so on this occas ion.I to d the boy that he had knocked his foot against the stumpofwjocj because he had been careless, and that witchcraft hadnot placed it in the path, for it had grown there naturally. Heagreed that witchcraft had nothing to do with the stump ofwood being in his path but added that be bad kept his eyesopen for stumps, as indeed every Zande does most carefully,and that if be had not been bewitched he would have seen thestun-p. As a conclusive argument for his view be remarked thatall cuts do not take days to heal but, on the contrary, ciosequic~cly, for that is the nature ofcuts. Why, t hen, bad his sorefeste-ed and remained open if there were no witchcraft behindit? This, as I discovered before long, was to be regarded as theZande explanation of sickness.Shortly afte r m y arrival in Zandeland we were passingthrough a goverument settlement aud noticed that a but badbeen burnt to the ground on the previous night. Its owner wasovercome with griefas it had contained the beer he was preparing for a mortuary feast. He told us that he had gone tbe previous night to examine his beer. He bad lit a handful of strawand raised it above bis head so that light would be cast on th epots, aud in so doing he bad ignited the thatch. He , and mycomp.anions also, were convinced that the disaster was causedby w tchcraft.One of my chief informants, Kisanga, was a skilled woodcarver, one of tbe fines t carvers in the wboie kingdom ofGbudwe. Occasionally the bowis and stools which be carvedspilt during the work, as one may weil imagine in such aclimate. Tbough the hardest woods be selected they sometimessplit in process of carving or on completion of the utensil evenifthe Draftsman is careful aud well acquainted with the technica l ru es ofhis craft. When this happened to the bowis and stoolsof this particular craftsman he attributed the misfortune towitch raft and used to harangue me about the spite and jeal

21ousy of his neighbours. When I used to reply that I thoughtbe was mistaken and tbat people were weil disposed towardshim be used to hold the split bow l o r stoo~l towards me as concrete evidence of his assertions. If people were not bewitchinghis work , how would I accouut for that? Likewise a potter wiilattribute the cracking of his pots during firing to witchcraft.An experienced potter ueed have no fear that his pots will crackas a result of error. He seleets tije proper clay, kneads itthoroughly till be has extracted all grit and pebbles, and buildsit up slowly and carefully. On the night before digging out hisclay he abstains from sexual intercourse. So be should havenothing to fear. Yet pots sometimes break, even when they arethe haudiwork ofexpert potters, and th is can only be accountedfor by witchcraft. It is broken there is witchcraft, says thepotter simply. Many similar situations in which witchcraft iscited as an agent a re instanced throughout this and followingchapters.

IIIn speaking to Azande about witchcraft and in observing theirreactions to situations of misfortune it was obvious tbat theydid no t attempt to account for the existence ofphenomena, oreven the action of phenomena, by mystical causation aloue.What they expiaiued by witchcraft were the particular conditions in a chain of causatjon which related an individual tonatural happenings in such a way that be sustained injury. Theboy who knocked his foot against a stump of wood did notaccouut for the stump by reference to witchcraft, nor did hesuggest that whenever anybody knocks his foot against a stumpil is necessarily d ue to witchcraft, nor yet again did be accountfor the cut by sayiug that it was caused by witchc aft, for beknew quite weli that it was caused by the stump ofwood. Whatbe attributed to witchcraft was that on this particular occasion,wheu exercising his usual care, be struck his foot against a stumpofwood, whereas on a hundred other occasions be did no t do50, and that on this particular occas ion the cut, which heexpected to result from the knock, festered whereas be had baddozens ofcuts which had no t festered. Surely these peculiar conditions demand an explanation. Agaiu, every year huudredsofAzande go and inspect their beer by night and they a lways


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22 Witchcrafl Witchcrafl 23take with them a handful of straw in order to illuminate thehut in which it is fermenting. Why then should this particularman on this single occasion have ignited the thatch ofhis hut?Again, my friend the wood-carver bad made scores of bowlsand $ ools without mishap and be knew all there was to knowabout the selection ofwood, use of tools, and conditions ofcarving. His bowls and stools did not split like the products ofcraftsrnen who were unskilled in their work, so why on rareoccasions should his bowls and stools split when they did no tsplit usually and when be had exercised all his usual knowledgeand care? He knew the answer well enough and so, in hisopinion, did his envious, back-biting neighbours. In the sameway, i potter wants to know why h is pots should break on anoccas on when he uses the same material and technique as onother occasions; or ratber he already knows, for the reason isknown in advance, as it were. If the pots break it is due to witchcraft.We shall give a false account of Zande philosophy if we saythat they believe witchcraft to be the sole cause of phenomena.This proposition is not contained in Zande patterns ofthought,which only assert that witchcraft brings a man into relationwith events in such a way that he sustains injury.In Zandeland sometimes an old granary collapses. There isnothing remarkable in this. Every Zande knows that termiteseat the supports in course of time and that even the hardestwoods decay after years of service. Now a granary is the summerhouse of a Zande homes tead and people s it beneath it inthe heat of the day and cha t o r play the African hole-game orwork at some craft. Consequently it may happen that there arepeop e sitting beneath the granary when it collapses and theyare injured, for it is a heavy structure made of beams and c layand may be stored with eleusine as well. Now why should theseparticular people have been sitting under this particulargranary at the particular moment when it collapsed? That itshou d collapse is easily intelligible, but why should it have collapsed at the particular moment when these particular peoplewere sitting beneath it? Through years it might have collapsed,50 why should il fall just when certain people sought its kindlyshelt r? We say that the granary collapsed because its supportswere eaten aw ay by termites; that is the cause that explains

the collapse ofthe granary. We also say that people were sittingunder it at the time because it was in the heat of the day andthey thought that it would be a comfortable place to talk andwork. This is the cause of people being under the granary atthe time it collapsed. To our minds the only relationshipbetween these two independently caused facts is their coincidence in time and space. We have no explanation of why thetwo chains of causation intersected at a certain time and in acertain place, for there is no interdependence between them.Zande philosophy can supply the missing l ink. The Zandeknows that the supports were undermined by termites and thatpeople were sitting beneath the granary in order to escape theheat and glare of the sun. But he knows besides why these twoevents occurred at a precisely similar moment in time andspace. It was due to the action ofwitchcraft. If there had beenno witchcraft people would have been sitting under the granaryand il would no t have fallen on them, or it would have collapsedbut the people would not have been sheltering under it at thetime. Witchcraft explains the coincidence ofthese two happenings.

flI hope I am not expected to point out that the Zande cannotanalyse his doctrines as I have done for him. It is no use sayingto a Zande Now tell me what you Azande think about witchcraft because the subject is too general and indeterminate, bothtoo vague and t oo immense , t o be described concisely. But itis possible to extract the principles oftheir thought f om dozensof situations in which witchcraft is called upon to explainhappenings and from dozens ofother situations in w ich failureis attributed to some other cause. Their philosophy is explicit,but is no t formally stated as a doctrine. A Zande would no tsay I believe in natural causation but I do not think that thatfully explains coincidences, and it seems to mc that the theoryof witchcraft offers a satisfactory explanation of them, but beexpresses his thought in terms of actual and particular situations. He says a buffalo charges, a tree falls, termites areno t making their seasonal flight when they are expected to doso, and so on. Herein he is stating empirically ascertained facts.But he also says a buffalo charged and wounded so-and-so,


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24 Witchcrafi Witchcrafla tree feil on so-and-so and kliled him, my termites refuse tomake their flight in numbers worth collecting but other peopleare collecting theirs all right, and 50 Ofl. He telis you that thesethings a re due to witchcraft, saying in each instance, So-andso has been bewitched. The facts do not explain themselvesor only partly explain themselves. They can only be explainedfu ly if one takes witchcraft into consideration.One can only obtain the full range of a Zandes ideas aboutca sation by allowing him to fill in the gaps himself, otherwiseone will be led ast ray by linguistic conventions. He teils youSo-and-so was bewitched and killed himself or even simplythat So-and-so was killed by witchcraft. But he is telling youthe ultimate cause of his death and not the secondary causes.You can ask him How did he kill himself? and be will tellyou that he committed suic ide by hanging himself from thebranch of a tree. You can a lso ask Why did be kill himself?and be wilI tell you that it was because he was angry witb hisbrothers. The cause of his death was hanging from a tree, andthe cause of his hanging from a tree was his anger with hisbrothers. If you tben ask a Zande why be sbould say that theman was bewitcbed if he committed suicide on account of hisanger with his brothers, he will tell you tha only crazy peoplecommit suicide, and that if everyone who was angry with bisbrothers committed suicide there would soon be no people leftin the world, and tbat if th is man b ad no t been bewitched bewould not have done what he did do. If you persevere and askwh y witchcraft caused tbe man to kill himself the Zande willreply that he supposes someone hated him, and ifyou ask Mmwh y someone hated him your informant will tell you that suchis the nature of men.

For ifAzande cannot enunciate a theory ofcausation in termsacceptable to us tbey describe happenings in an idiom that isexplanatory. They are aware that it is particular circumstancesofevents in their relation to man, their harmfulness to a particular person, that constitutes evidence of witchcraft. Witchcraftexplains why events are harmful to man and not how tbeyhappen. A Zande perceives how they happen just as we do.He does not see a witcb charge a man, but an e lephan t. Hedoes no t see a witch push over a granary, but termites gnawingaway its supports. He does not see a psyehical flame igniting

25tbatch, but an ordinary lighted bundle ofstraw. His perceptionof how events occur is as clear as our own.

IvZande belief in witchcraft in no way contradicts empiricalknowledge of cause and effect. The world known to th e sensesis just as real to them as it is to us. We must not be deceivedby their way of expressing causation and imagine that becausethey say a man was killed by witchcraft they entirely neglectthe secondary causes that, as we judge them, were the truecauses ofhis deatb. They are foreshortening the chain ofevents,and in a particular social situation are selecting the cause thatis socially relevant and neglecting the rest. If a man is killedby a spear in war, o r by a wild beast in hunting, or by the biteof a snake, or from sickness, witchcraft is the socially relevantcause, since il is the only one which allows intervention anddetermines social behaviour.Beliefin death from natural causes and belief in death fromwitchcraft are no t mutually exclusive. On tbe contrary, theysupplement one another, tbe one accounting for what the otberdoes not account for. Besides, death is not only a natural factbut also a social fact. It is no t simply that the heart ceases tobea t and the lungs to pump air in an organism, but it is also tbedestruction of a member of a family and km, of a communityand tribe. Death l eads to consultation of oracles, magic rites,and revenge. Among the causes of death witchcraft is the onlyone that has any significance for social behaviour. The attribution of misfortune to witchcraft does not exclude wha we callits real causes but is superimposed on them and gives to soc ia levents their moral value.Zande thought expresses the notion of natural and mysticalcausation quite clearly by using a hunting metaphor to definetbeir relations. Azande always say of witchcraft that it is theumbaga or second spear. When Azande kill game there is adivision ofmeat between tbe man who first speared the animaland tbe man who p lu nged a second spear into it. These twoa re considered to have killed tbe beast and the owner of thesecond spear is called tbe umbaga. Hence if a man is killed byan elephant Azande say that the elephant is the first spear andthat witchcraft is the second spear and that together they killed


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26 Witchcrafl Witchcraft 27the man. If a man spears another in war the slayer is the firstspear and witchcraft is the second spear and together they killedhim.Since Azande recognize plurality ofcauses, and it is the socialsituation that indicates the relevant one, we can understandwhy the doctrine of witchcraft is not med to explain everyfa i u re and misfortune. It sometimes happens that the socialsituation demands a common-sense, and no t a mystical, judgement of cause. Thus, if you tell a lie, or commit adultery, orsteal, or deceive your prince, and are f ound out , you canno telude punishment by saying that you were bewitched. Zandedoctrine deciares emphatically Witchcraft does no t make aperson tel! lies; Witchcraft does no t make a person commitadultery; Witchcraft does no t put adultery into a man.Witchcraft is in yourself you alone are responsible), that is,your penis becomes erect. li sees the ham of a mans wife andil ises and becomes erect because the only witchcraft is,itseif (witchcraft is here used metaphorically); Witchcraftdoes not make a person steal; Witchcraft does no t make a person disloyal. Only on one occasion have I heard a Zande pleadthat he was bewitched when he had committed an offence andthis was when he lied to me, and even on this occasion everybody present laughed at him and told him that witchcraft doesno t make people tell lies.If a man murders another t ribesman with kni fe o r spear heis put to death. It is not necessary in such a case to seek a witch,for an objective towards which vengeance may be directed isalready present. If, on the other hand, it is a member ofanother

tribe who has speared a man his relatives, or his prince, wiIltake steps to discover the witch responsible for the event.It would be treason to say that a man put to death on theorders of his king for an offence against authority was killedby witchcraft. If a man were to consult the oracies to discoverthe witch responsible for the death ofa relative who had beenput to death at the orders of his king he would ~un the fisk

of being put to death h imseif . For here the soc ia l situationexcludes the notion of witchcraft as on other occasions it paysno attention to natural agents and emphasizes only witchcraft.Also, ifa man were ku ed in vengeance because the oracies saidthat he was a witch and had murdered another man with his

witchcraft then his relat ives could not say that he had beenkilled by witchcraft. Zande doctrine lays it down that he diedat the hand of avengers because he was a homicide. If a manwere to have expressed the view that his kinsman had beenkilled by witchcraft and to h ave acted upon his opinion by consulting the poison oracie, he might have been punished for ridiculing the kings poison oracie, for il was the poison oracie ofthe king that had given official confirmation of the mans guilt,and it was the king himseif who had permitted vengeance totake its course.In these situations witchcraft is irrelevant and, if not totallyexcluded, is not indicated as the principal factor in causation.As in our own society a scientif ic theory of causation, if notexcluded, is deemed irrelevant in questions of moral and lega lresponsibility, so in Zande society the doctrine of witchcraft,if not excluded, is deemed irrelevant in the same situations. Weaccept scientific explanations ofthe causes ofdisease, and evenof the causes of insanity, but we deny them in crime and sinbecause here they militate against law and morals which areaxiomatic. The Zande accepts a mystical explanation of thecauses ofmisfortune, sickness, and death, but he does no t allowthis explanation if it confiicts with social exigencies expressedin law and mora ls .For witchcraft is no t indicated as a cause for failure whena taboo has been broken. If a child becomes sick, and it is knownthat its father and mother have had sexual relations before itwas weaned, the cause of death is already indicated by breachofa ritual prohibition and the question of witchcraft does notanse. If a man develops leprosy and there is a history ofincestin his case then incest is the cause of leprosy and not witchcraft.In these cases, however, a curious situation anses because whenthe child or the leper dies it is necessary to avenge their deathsand the Zande sees no difficulty in explaining what appearsto us to be most illogical behaviour. He does so on the sameprinciples as when &man has been killed by a wild beast, andhe invokes the same metaphor of second spear. In the casesmentioned above there are really three causes of a personsdeath. There is the iliness from which he d ies, leprosy in thecase of the man, perhaps some fever in the case of the child.These sicknesses are no t in themselves products of witchcraft,


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28 Witchcraft Witchcrafl 29fo r they exist in their own right just as a buffalo or a granaryexis in their own right. Then there is the breach of a taboo,in the one case ofweaning, in the other case of ncest. The child,and the man, developed fever , and leprosy , because a taboowas broken. The breach of a taboo was the cause of their sickness, but the sickness would not have killed them it witchcrafthad not also been operative. If witchcraft bad no t been presentas second spear they would have developed fever and leprosyjust the same, but they would not have died from them. In theseinstances there are two soc ia lly significant causes, breach oftaboo and witchcraft, both of which are relative to differentsocial processes, and each is emphasized by different people.But where there has been a breach of t aboo and dea th is no tinvolved witchcraft will not be evoked as a cause of failure. Ifa man eats a forbidden food after he has made powerful punit ive magic he may die, and in this case the cause of his deathis known beforehand, since it is contained in the conditions ofthe situation in which he died even ifwitchcraft was also operative. But it does not follow that he will die. What does inevitablyfollow is that the medicine he has made will cease to operateagainst the person for whom it is intended and will have to bedestroyed lest it turn aga inst the magician who sent it forth.The failure of the medicine to achieve i ts purpose is due tobreach ofa taboo and not to witchcraft. If a man has had sexualrelations with his wife and on the nex t day approaches thepoison oracle it will not reveal the truth and its oracular efficacywill be permanently undermined. If he had no t broken a tabooit would have been said that witchcraft bad caused the oracleto ie, but the condition of the person who bad attended theseance provides a reason for its failure to speak the truth withouthaving to bring in the notion ofwitchcraft as an agent . No onewilI admit that he has broken a taboo before consulting thepoison oracle, but when an oracle lies everyone is prepared toadmit that a taboo ma y have been broken by someone.Similarly, when a potters creations break in firing witchcraftis no t the only possible cause ofthe calamity. Inexperience andbad workmanship may also be reasons for failure, or the pottermay himseif have bad sexual relations on the preceding night.The potter himself will attribute his failure to witchcraft, butothers may not be of the same opinion.

Not even all deaths are invariably and unanimously attributed to witchcraft or t o the breach ofsome taboo. The deathsof babies from certain diseases are attributed vaguely to theSupreme Being. Also, ifa man falis suddenly and violently sickand dies, his relat ives may be su re that a sorcerer has mademagic against him and that it is no t a witch who has killed him.A breach of the obligations of blood-brotherhood may sweepaway whole groups of km and when one after another ofbrothers and cousins die it is the blood and not witchcraft towhich their deaths are attributed by outsiders, though the relatives of the dead will seek to avenge them on witches. Whena very old man dies unrelated people say that he has died ofold age, but they do no t say this in the presence of kinsmen,who deciare that witchcraft is responsible for his death.li is also thought that adultery may cause misfortune, thoughit is only one participating factor, and witchcraft is also believedto be present. Thus is it said that a man may be killed in warfareorin ahuntingaccidentasa result ofhis wifes infidelities. Therefore, before going to war or on a large-scale hunting expeditiona man might ask his wife to divulge the names of he r lovers.Even where breaches of law and mora ls do not occur witchcraft is no t the only reason given for failure. Jncompetence, laziness, and ignorance may be selected as causes. When a girismashes he r water-pot or a boy forgets to close the door of thehen-house at night they will be admonished severely by theirparents for stupidity. The mistakes of children a re due to carelessness or ignorance and they are taught to avoid them whilethey are still young. People do not say that they are effects ofwitchcraft, or if they are prepared to concede the possibilityofwitchcraft they consider stupidity the main cause. Moreover,the Zande is not so na ve that be holds witchcraft responsiblefor the crackingofa pot during firing ifsubsequent examinationshows that a pebbie was left in the clay, or for an animal escaping his ne t ifsomeone frightened it away by a move or a sound.People do not blame witchcraft ifa woman burns her porridgenor ifshe presents iL undercooked to her husband. And whenan inexperienced craftsman makes a stod which lacks polishor which spl its, this is put down to his inexperience.In all these cases the man who suffers the misfortune is likelyto say that it is due to witchcraft, but others will not say so.


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30 Witchcrafl Witchcrafl 3 IWe must bear in mmd nevertheless that a serious misfortune,especially ifit results in death, is normally attributed by everyone to the action of witchcraft, especial ly by the sufferer andhis km, however much it may have been due to a mans incompetence or absence ofself-control. If a man falis into a fireand is seriously burnt, or falis into a game-pit and breaks hisneck or his leg, iL would undoubtedly be attributed to witchcraft. Thus when six or seven of the sons of Prince Rikita wereentrapped in a ring of fire and burnt to death when huntingcane-rats their death was undoubtedly due to witchcraft.Hence we see that witchcraft has its own Iegic, its own rulesof thought, and that these do no t exclude natural causation.Beliefin witchcraft is quite consistent with human responsibilityand a rational appreciation of nature. First of all a man mus tcarry out an activity according to traditional rules oftechnique,which consist of knowledge checked by trial and error in eachgeneration. li is only if he fai ls in spite of adherence to theserules that people wiIl impute his lack of success to witchcraft.

vIt is often asked whether primitive peoples distinguish betweenthe natural and th e supernatural, and the query may be hereanswered in a preliminary manner in respect to the Azande.The question as it stands may mean, do primitive peoples distinguish between the natural and the supernatural in theabst ract? We have a notion of an ordered world conformingto wha we call natural laws, but some people in our societybelieve that myster ious things can happen which cannot beaccounted for by reference to natural laws and which thereforeare held to t ranscend them, and we call these happenings supernatural. To us supernatural means v ery muc h the same asabnormal or extraordinary. Azande certainly have no suchnotions ofreality. They have no conceptions ofnatural as weunderstand it, and therefore neither ofthe supernatural as weunderstand it. Witchcraft is to Azande an ordinary and no t anextraordinary, even though it may in some circumstances bean infrequent, event. It is a normal, and no t an abnormal,happening. But if they do no t give to the natural and supernatural the meanings which educated Europeans give to themhey nevertheless distinguish between them. For our question

ma y be formulated, and should be fo mulated, in a differentmanner. We ought rather to ask whether primitive peoples perceive any difference between the happenings which we, theobservers of their culture, ciass as iiatural and the happeningswhich we ciass as mystical. Azande undoubtedly perceive a difference between what we consider the workings of nature onthe one hand and the workings ofmagic and ghosts and witcheraft on the other hand, though in the absence ofa formulateddoctrine of natural law they do not, a nd cannot, express thedifference as we express it.The Zande notion of witchcraft is incompatible with ourways of thought. But even to the Azande the re is somethingpeculiarabout the action ofwitchcraft. Normally it can be perceived only ip dreams. It is no t an evident notion but transcendssensory experience. They do no t profess to understand witchcraft entirely. They know that it exists and works evil, but theyhave to guess a t the manner in which it works. Indeed, I havefrequently been struck when discussing witchcraft with Azandeby the doubt they express about the subject, no t only in whatthey say, but even more in their manner of saying it, both ofwhich contrast with their ready knowledge, fluently imparted,about social events and economic techniques. They feel out oftheir depth in trying to describe the way in which witchcraftaccomplishes its ends. That it kilis people is obvious, but howit kills them cannot be known precisely. They tell you that perhaps ifyou were to ask an older man or a witch-doctor he mightg ive you more information. But the older men and the witchdoctors can tell you l inJe more than youth and laymen. Theyonly know what the others know: that the sou l of witchcraftgoes by night and devours the soul of its victim. Only witchesthemselves understand these matters fully. In truth Azande experience feelings about witchcraft rather than ideas, for theirintellectual concepts ofit are weak and they know better whatto do when attacked by it than how to explamn it. Their responseis action and no t analysis.There is no elaborate and consistent representation ofwitchcraft that wiIl account in detail for its workings, nor of naturewhich expounds its conformity to sequences and functional interrelations. The Zande actualizes these beliefs rather than intellectualizes them, and their tenets are expressed in socially


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2 Witchcraflcontrolled behaviour rather than in doctr ines. Hence the difliculty of discussing the subject of witchcraft with Azande, fortheir ideas are imprisoned in action and cannot be cited to ~HA PTE R II Iexplain and justify action. Sufferers from Misfortune seek

for Witches among their EnemiesWE must now view witchcraft in a more objective manner, forit is a mode of behaviour as well as a mode of thought. Thereader will rightly ask what a Zande does when he is bewitched,how be discovers who is bewitching him, how he expresses hisresentment and ensures his protection, and what sys em ofcontrol inhibits violent retaliation.Only when the misfortune is death can vengeance or compensation be exacted for injury from witchcraft. In a lesser lossall that can be done is to expose the witch responsib le and topersuade him to withdraw his baneful infiuence. When a mansuffers an irreparable loss it is therefore useless for him to pursuethe matter further, since no compensation can be obtained fcrthe loss, and a witch cannot undo what he has already done.In such circumstances a Zande laments his misfortune andblames witchcraft in general, but is unlikely to take steps toidentify any particular witch since the man will either deny hisresponsibility or will say that be is no t conscious of havingcaused anyone an injury, and that ifhe has done 50 unwittinglyhe is sorry, and in eitber case the sufferer will be no better off.But ifa misfortune is incipient there is sound reason for immediate identification ofthe witch responsible s ince he can be persuaded to withdraw his witchcraft before matters take a seriousturn. If game is scarce at the end of the hunting season it isuseless to seek out the witches who have scared it away, butat the height of the season discovery of the w itches may resul tin a good bag. If a man is bitten by a poisonous snake he eithergets weII soon or be dies. Should he recover , no good can comeofasking the oracles for the name of the witch responsible forthe b ite . But if a man falls sick and his sickness is likely tobe serious and of some duration, then his relatives approach

evans pritchard whitchcraft 18 33

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