Gabe Hodge

I pledge to uphold the principles of honesty and responsibility at our University.

For any variety of reasons, people generally interpret the world according to their culture's collected set of rationalizations. Occasionally, some part of a culture's worldview will be challenged and overturned by further research, or unwarranted discovery. When evidence contrary to cultural belief surfaces, the people are forced to adopt the new evidence into worldview, recant their previously held belief, or irrationally continue to believe in the status quo anteverum. The worldview of the Azande people concerning witchcraft best demonstrates how cultures rationalize their traditions and beliefs, despite any new evidence.

It is first important to establish the worldview of the Azande people. The Azande people live in north central Africa with a concentration in the Sudan of nearly half a million people.[1]With some sources indicating a total Azande population of nearly four million, the Azande people have settled as crafts workers in and around the lower Nile-Congo river gap. [2]Over roughly three hundred years as a distinct tribe of people in the heart of Africa, the Azande people have experienced their fair share of assimilation and adaptation to neighbors.

Similar to many other experiences of assimilation in history, the Azande tribe has seen difficulty in forming a collective set of ideals among its people. Naturally, death, disease and murder occurred over their history in central Africa. But the Azande explain death, disease and murder very differently. The Azande people have believed since the beginning that “practically every death is due to witchcraft and must be avenged.”[3]According to the Random House Unabridged dictionary, witchcraft is defined as “the art or practices of a witch; sorcery; magic.”Basically, the Azande believe that misfortune is the direct result of witchcraft.

Witchcraft, as the aforementioned definition presents, consists of two avenues; namely, sorcery and magic. To any western grandchild of the enlightenment, witchcraft is a funny word commonly associated with Halloween and pagan ritual. But to the Azande, witchcraft is alive and flourishing. Indeed, “Zande culture as constituted at present and in the past could not have existed without (witchcraft).”[4] Witchcraft in Azande terms can be executed in the form of magic with either good or bad intentions. Sorcery, as the west understands it, to the Azande is the use of magic with intention to cause harm. With a basic tenant of witchcraft at the heart of Azande belief, a long and bloody line of retribution is threaded throughout the Azande culture.

The pioneer researcher into Azande culture is E. E. Evans-Pritchard. Evans-Pritchard studied the Azande culture for twenty months and compiled the first major, comprehensive, academic work that serves as the basis for studying the Azande people. In his book, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, Evans-Pritchard explored the Azande people’s deep-rooted beliefs and practices of witchcraft. In review of Evans-Pritchard’s research, one scholar notes that “Witchcraft in Zande belief is… a substance that resides in the body of the witch and that can be revealed at autopsy.” (Italics mine)[5]The witchcraft-substance is believed to be hereditary according to same-sex lineage among Azande families.

Although there are no outward signs that can reveal whether someone is a witch, the “witch-substance” that is recovered at autopsy is believed to be hard evidence of a person’s identity as a witch. Yet, Evans-Pritchard also found that the Azande believe that a witch can be “cool, i.e. inoperative.”[6] A “cool” witch is known to possess the witch-substance but does not actively use witchcraft. The belief in witchcraft is real and living belief option among the Azande, but to Evans-Pritchard, “Witchcraft is an imaginary offence.”[7]To the Azande, accusations of witchcraft come as frequently as misfortunes.

The classic example of Azande witchcraft that Evans-Prichard uses in his work is of that of the termites, the granary and the reclining workers. The example follows that some workers decided to recline in the shade supplied by the local granary which happens to be termite-infested. While the workers are reclining, the structure of the granary collapses, injuring the workers. Knowledge of the termite’s wood-eating nature is news to neither the enlightened Aristotelian nor Azande worldviews. Although both the Azande and the enlightened observers understand that the structure would eventually fall, they explain the event differently.[8]

The western worldview would offer no better explanation other than a coincidence that the workers happened to be sitting underneath the granary when it fell. But the

"Zande philosophy can supply the missing link. The Zande knows that the supports were undermined by termites and that people were sitting beneath the granary in order to escape the heat of the sun. But he knows besides why these two events occurred at a precisely similar moment in time and space. It was due to the action of witchcraft. If there had been no witchcraft people would have been sitting under the granary and it would not have fallen on them, or it would have collapsed but the people would not have been sheltering under it at the time. Witchcraft explains the coincidence of these two happenings"[9] (Italics mine)

It is appropriate and safe to note here that the worldview of the Azande people seems to defy logic and reasoning. The Azande’s explaining unfortunate events, such as granaries collapsing on workers, as the direct result of a hereditary witchcraft that is sometimes identifiable by a physical “substance” in the human body sounds like a stretch to any western, analytical thinker. But with some further inquiry into the soundness of Azande thought provided by Evans-Pritchard’s successors, a thread of internal logic surfaces.

The substance known by the Azande as “witch-substance,” that is found in autopsy of accused witches, is not unique to the Azande people. In fact, modern medicine has identified the “witch-substance” as a teratoma, or “monstrous tumor.” The teratoma is “made up of a disorganized jumble of different tissues, such as bone, muscle, skin and nerves.”[10] The teratoma in Azande terms is the “witch-substance,” that houses the ability for witches to carry out their desires, yet many people accused of witchcraft in Azande culture are found not containing a teratoma.

With such attention to lineage and accusation, it is easy to understand how potential contradictions in reason and logic may arise. For example, it is not uncommon for the autopsy of an accused witch to reveal no witch substance. Also, when a man and a woman from families of presumably believed witch families marry, it is assumed that they, and their all their children will possess the witch substance. But even autopsies of likely witch candidates as these reveal no evidence of witch substance.

So there seems to be a contradiction: the Azande people believe that if the person is found to have a “witch-substance,” then that person participates in witchcraft. And conversely, the Azande people believe that if a person is found not having a “witch-substance,” then that person did not participate in witchcraft. But remember that the Azande also believe that a witch can be “cool,” having the “witch-substance” but not operating as a witch. The concept of a witch being “cool” sidesteps any apparent contradiction when a person not having been accused of witchcraft is found in possession of a “witch-substance. Also, when someone is accused of being a witch, but is not found in possession of a “witch-substance” the Azande logic follows that the person accused was not a witch, after all.[11] It is unclear whether or not and when the idea of a “cool” witch was added to the Azande worldview to avoid inconsistency.

Another heated area of contradiction to explore is that of the linear inheritance of the “witch-substance.” To any westerner, the reappearance of an inheritable trait is likely in immediate family members, and feasible in distant family members. So, in the case of the male and female “witch-substance” possessing parents, having children who do not possess the “witch substance,” there arises another contradiction. If both parents possess “witch-substance,” but none of their children do, then the belief in the hereditary passing of the “witch-substance” is challenged. But the Azande are not mindful of the contradiction, as stated vicariously byJennings:

“The Azande people do not perceive the contradiction as we perceive it because they have no theoretical interest in the subject and those situations in which they express their own beliefs in witchcraft do not force the problem upon them… One attempts to discover whether a man is bewitching someone in particular circumstances and not whether he is born a witch… A Zande is interested in witchcraft only as an agent on definite occasions and in relation to his own interests, and not as a permanent condition of individuals… Azande are interested solely in the dynamics of witchcraft in particular situations.”[12][13](Italics mine)

It is clear when analyzing the Azande belief of succession of the “witch-substance” and the accusation of witches that the Azande, from a naturalistic perspective, do not see any contradiction in their beliefs because they do not emphasize the need to rationally explain their convictions when accusing someone of witchcraft. Indeed, time and space are not bound by natural law, to the Azande.

Whether or not the Azande people were forced to integrate new ideas into their belief system is not the focus of this essay, even assuming that the documentation exists for such change to Azande belief. Ultimately, the Azande worldview is best summarized by Dr. Wagner, “The underlying idea of this system is that the control over human fate is not … attributed to a supreme being or other spiritual super-human agencies, nor the working of natural laws, but to powers wielded by other human beings.” [14] The Azande worldview is distinct from others because they place neither God nor Science on a pedestal for admiration and standard through which we perceive the world. The Azande march to a unique theoretical drum and have no need for logical explanation of misfortune because all of life is situational and circumstantial.

Bibliography

  1. Pemberton III, John. "African Art and Rituals of Divination." The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2007. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 25 Nov 2007 <
  2. The Azande People." Azande World-wide Organisation. 2007. Azande World-wide Organisation. 25 Nov 2007 <
  3. Wagner, Günter. "Witchcraft among the Azande." Journal of the Royal African Society Vol. 36, No. 145Oct., 1937 pp. 469-476. 25 Nov 2007 <
  4. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. "Witchcraft." Africa: Journal of the International African Institute Vol. 8, No. 4.Oct., 1935 417-422. 25 Nov 2007 <
  5. Miller, Julie Ann. "A Tumor in the Family." Science News Vol. 115, No. 4.Jan. 27, 1979 pp. 60-61. 25 Nov 2007. <
  6. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1937.
  7. Triplett, Timm. "Azande Logic versus Western Logic?." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 39, No. 3.Sep., 1988 pp. 361-366. 25 Nov 2007 <Stable URL:
  8. Jennings, Richard C. "Zande Logic and Western Logic." The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol. 40, No. 2.Jun., 1989 pp. 275-285. 25 Nov 2007 <Stable URL:

1

[1] Pemberton, III. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 25 Nov 2007.

[2] Azande World-wide Organisation. 25 Nov 2007.

[3] Evans-Pritchard. Pp 418.

[4] Evans-Pritchard. Pp 418.

[5] Wagner, Günter. Pp 470.

[6] Wagner, Günter. Pp 470

[7] Evans-Pritchard pp 417-418.

[8]Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. Pp 69-70.

[9]Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. pp 70.

[10] Miller. Pp 60.

[11]Triplett, Timm. Pp. 364-366.

[12]Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. Pp 26

[13] Jennings, Richard C. pp 282-283.

[14] Wagner, Günter. Pp.469.