Spotlight on Students: Metaphysical Magic

The following is a post written by a student, Betsy Britt.  This post highlights her work that she completed as part of her requirements in Ant 411: Culture Areas of the World.  Students have the opportunity to explore material through their own research.  Please show your appreciation for her work through the comments.

By: Betsy Britt

For our third week documentary, the class watched a film on strange beliefs. One of these beliefs was of the Azande tribe in Africa. The Azande believe in magic and witchcraft, and they use several different oracles to both tell the future and answer any important questions they might have. There is a witch doctor in the village whose job is to combat witchcraft with spells and various procedures. He also sees the evil intentions of others. They believe that the only source of witchcraft could be human beings and that it is a psychic act. During the documentary, however, I could not help but question the logic behind their separation of the mystic arts. What separates the witch doctor, whom uses what could be considered witchcraft, from the other villagers who might be using witchcraft psychically?

Before I was able to adequately answer this question, I needed to gain a better, if still broad, understanding of witchcraft. The general definition of the practice of witchcraft is “the use of preternatural power by one person to damage others” (Grinker). What can be inferred from that definition is that practicing witchcraft is evil. In fact, a focus on these practices is how to counter them, and the actual practices of it are generally overlooked when discussing them (Grinker). This helped me to gain my first answer.

A possible answer to my question is fear. Human beings tend to fear what they do not understand. Therefore, the Azande attributing bad luck, especially when death is involved, with witchcraft and evil would make sense. A person who can fight what is feared would be revered in any society. It is likely that a witch doctor would gain special privileges from the tribe in exchange for his protection.

Further research revealed that there might be more than one likely answer, though. A common hypothesis for why people are accused of practicing witchcraft is that it is a punishment of sorts. Being labelled as a witch marks one as untrustworthy, thus causing others to conform to societal norms as to avoid the same fate (Mace). This makes sense; it is generally agreed upon that practicing witchcraft has social consequences (Grinker). Witch labelling, however, has been proven to undermine trust in a society and negatively affect social cohesion (Mace). The interactions of the tribe’s people on the documentary has led me to conclude that social control is probably not the reason for the with doctor. He did not seem to be the main authority figure in the tribe.

A possible answer would also be that he is male. In contrast to women who are labelled as witches, men are seen as both practicing the act and as political figures and have authority over rituals (Grinker). The public positions of male witches are seen as making their witchcraft more tolerable than women’s, going so far as to celebrate the witchcraft of men (Grinker). While possibly the correct answer, I decided to throw it out, as I did not feel that I had enough information on gender differences in the Azande to back it up.

Another answer is that the witch doctor is trustworthy. Almost all work involving witchcraft in rural Africa states that the relationship between witch and victim correlates to the effectiveness of it (Grinker). Witchcraft might be considered safer in the hands of someone who is not seen as likely to use it with ill intentions. In that case, the witch doctor would have to be chosen carefully, as to avoid picking one who held a grudge already.

This question has several possible answers, and I feel that I would need a much more extensive understanding of the inner workings of the Azande people than I could get from a documentary or online. Again, the most likely answer is an advantage regarding gender, but I could not find enough evidence to support it. Fear is the most obvious answer, but I feel as if might be too obvious to be right.

Bibliography

Grinker, Roy R, et al. “African Witchcraft Idiom as a Discourse of History and Power.” Perspectives on Africa, 2nd ed., John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2010, p. 271.

Mace, Ruth. “Why Are Women Accused of Witchcraft? Study in Rural China Gives Clue.” The Conversation, The Conversation US, Inc., 8 Jan. 2018.