Work · Sociology & Social Theory
Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande
Study of the Azande of the southern Sudan: witchcraft, a substance believed to sit in some people’s bodies, explains why misfortunes strike; oracles, above all poison given to chickens, identify witches and guide decisions, and failures are explained within the system.
Introduction
Evans-Pritchard published “Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande” in Oxford in 1937. It rests on about twenty months of fieldwork between 1926 and 1930 among the Azande of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The book describes witchcraft (mangu) as an inherited substance that can cause harm even without the witch being aware of it, and the poison oracle (benge), administered to chickens, which answers questions about witches and future events. A well-known example is the collapsing granary: termites explain why it fell, witchcraft why it fell just when people were sitting beneath it. Evans-Pritchard showed how contradictions are absorbed by secondary explanations. After Peter Winch’s essay of 1964 the book became a reference point of the debate on rationality and relativism.
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