Struggling to Understand

In regards to this entire blog, I want to address my own biggest issues. I feel this will give some insight of some kind. My difficulty with researching about Azande magic was suspending my own cultural belief. Maybe that’s not what I was supposed to do, but in order to practice cultural relativism (assuming that other cultural practices have a logic to them and make sense in their own cultural context), I felt I had to suspend my disbelief in magic and make sense of just how someone can believe in magic when all scientific evidence pointed to the contrary.

This was my struggle: I was stuck in my own culture’s rut.

I found it difficult not to analyze and make everything have a rational explanation! (Rational in my own culture) I thought about the practical purposes of consulting oracles (solving disputes in the community), but I couldn’t seem to see how people believe it’s magic and not random selection when in the Azande culture, the oracles and such cannot be proven wrong.

I know that’s the point of this blog, to engage in an anthropological study (though not field based) and find the logic in a practice that makes no sense to you. It was just very hard to do so when my own culture has entrenched the idea that magic is a fairy tale for people who don’t know anything about science.

Though in crude terms, that is what I struggled with in my cultural encounter (as book and article based as it was). The idea of magic and bewitching is just so far out of what I know. However, I did try to hold back my own belief in all things scientifically proven and tried to look into other possibilities. I still maintain that witchcraft is a good explanation for coincidence and I do believe it makes sense to the Azande. However, I do not think I’ll be a believer any time soon. I just haven’t grown up with it like the Azande have.

Instead of suspending my own disbelief, I just tried to make sense of it by itself. I compared it to my own culture and personal beliefs, but I tried not to state which I thought was right.

Death by Magic: Kinship and Reflection

Now, every culture has an idea of life after death, according to my Anthropology lecture class, it is one of the few things every culture has in common. However, in looking at my last post, which is essentially about the cause of death rather than what happens after (which by the way, Azande believe that we become spirits that reside by rivers…) I decided that what this shows most about the Azande is the importance of their kin groups.

Now, kinship, among the Azande, usually refers to a clan’s blood line, their blood kin. (their consanguinial relatives) This may seem like a random topic in a blog about witchcraft, however, lineage and kinship is very important to the Azande belief in magic.

For one, it is believed that mangu is passed down through mothers. So observing the matrilineage in a clan can help discover who is a witch. (though, their powers may never manifest or become useful) Also, loyalty and duty to one’s kin is the basis for the aforementioned vengeance magic. Your kin group, your family, is important enough to kill over. In fact, they are expected to either exact compensation (usually a large monetary or goods compensation) or vengeance magic. (This also depends if you can find the witch through the Poison Oracle, which you are also expected to do)

In my own culture, family is also important. At least, in my family, one is expected to keep in contact, celebrate each other’s birthdays, and spend Christmas together. But it seems in comparison to the Azande, we are not close at all. If one of my family members was killed (by witchcraft, or no) vengeance of any sort (other than the legal kind) would be highly frowned upon. This actually made me question my own ideas of vengeance a little. It got me thinking about the whole “turn the other cheek” sort of proverb my culture perpetrates. (Or at least, what my own personal culture tells me) Sure I would want some vengeance, but I don’t think I would go so far as to kill, and yet in this close-knit kinship in the Azande, it’s expected. It’s even disloyal if you do not.

Death by Magic

Death is a thing that every culture must deal with and in the Azande culture, death is caused by witchcraft. If someone dies prematurely, their passing is not blamed on the illness or accident that killed them, but on witchcraft.

However, not all death is blamed on witchcraft. The death of babies is attributed to a vague Supreme Being, the sudden onset of violent illness leading to death is blamed on sorcery (which is different from witchcraft), the unexplainable death of whole blood-brother groups may be explained as a problem in the blood not witchcraft (though the family might still try for vengeance), and the death of very old persons is often explained by non relatives as simple old age (though never in front of the deceased's kin).

However, murder via witchcraft must be avenged through death by vengeance magic or compensation.

Upon the death of your kin, you would go and visit the Poison Oracle to find who murdered him with witchcraft. This vengeance is not carried out in the spirit of anger or hatred, but rather in the spirit of pious duty and respect for one’s kin. It is a condoned killing. One could beg the question that vengeance would start untold blood feuds within the clan, but that is not the case since the identity of the murdering witch and the avenger are kept secret by the prince. So when the kin of the murdered ask him to give them the name of the avenger, the prince will politely decline and the family will know their kin was a witch, so the matter will end there.

It is only after the victim’s kin has avenged their death that they are permitted to stop the rituals of mourning. However, since the identity of those killed with vengeance-magic are kept secret between the prince and the witch’s kin, often families will continue to mourn for a while so that no one knows that their kin was a witch killed with vengeance-magic.

(More on this topic in my next post…)

Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Witchcraft Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Clarendon P: Oxford. Print.

Chase, Oscar G."The Lesson of the Azande". Law, Culture, and Ritual: Disputing Systems in Cross-Cultural Context. NYU Press: New York. 2005. pp. 15-29.

The Poison Oracle

The poison oracle is the thing that holds my most disbelief about Azande magic. The Poison Oracle is the Azande belief specialist who the people go to if they believe that they are being bewitched or if they believe that one of their kin has been killed via magic. (Because in that case, they are expected to exact vengeance magic) When an oracle is called upon to discern whether or not someone is guilty (you cannot simply ask them who used magic, you have to be specific), they get a chick (fowl) and feed it a natural poison mixture from a leafy vine grown several days journey from the village. Then the questioner will ask specific, yes-no statements. Such as, “if so-and-so kill so-and-so by magic, let the chicken die?” or “If hunting in this part of the bush creates more game for so-and-so to hunt, let the chicken live?” Of course, this process is done twice to make sure that the poison is not discriminately causing the bird to die because of too potent mixtures, but if the oracle says one way or the other, the Azande take it as proof.

Now, Evens has made a convincing argument in his study Anthropology as Ethics: Nondualism and the Conduct of Sacrifice that there are two contradictions in their belief of the oracle. That one: the questions are usually very vague unless about someone’s identity. (“will the season be good” instead of “will I catch such-and-such tomorrow”) and when the poison does turn out to be too potent, they will look for explanations for it, but ones that are neither quickly nor easily tested. (Someone might have harvested the vine incorrectly or someone might not have observed a taboo to the ritual)

However, he does make the point that above all, these oracles solve disputes in the village. They are solved by the oracle with little fuss and no blood feuds. So that may be their practical purpose that makes sense to the village regardless of whether or not one believes in witchcraft. Witchcraft is blamed for misfortune and the poison oracle works to solve these misfortunes, thus they usually get solved with either little fuss or at least a rational (Azande culture) explanation.



Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Witchcraft Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Clarendon P: Oxford. Print.

Evens, T.M.S. Anthropology as Ethics: Nondualism and the Conduct of Sacrifice. Berghahn Books: New York. 2008. pp. 200-213.

Chase, Oscar G. "The Lesson of the Azande". Law, Culture, and Ritual: Disputing Systems in Cross-Cultural Context. NYU Press: New York. 2005. pp. 15-29.

IMPORTANT: ILL WILL

I find it rather prudent at this point that I tell you a huge aspect that I have completely forgotten to elaborate on.

Witches cast spells against their neighbor because of some ill will or grudge.

The Azande do not believe in magic like some other cultures might do: magic for them is not inherent in all living things. It is something that a person with the mangu in their body can wield against their neighbors. (Sometimes unconsciously, but usually not) According to the accounts of Evans-Pritchard, witched need close proximity to cast their spells on people, that’s why when misfortune strikes, Azande will often suspect their neighbors. A common way to counteract bewitchment is to leave when no one is around (usually at night) and camp out in the bush where no one can find you. That way the witch won’t know where you are to send her spirit-soul after you.

If they can’t find you, they can’t bewitch you!

My first instinct with this idea of sending one's soul out is to relate it to space. I thought that it was very weird that witchcraft had specific parameters of space in which to work in. Actually, they have to track you down to a specific place in order to bewitch you. Space is a place with no meaning. For witchcraft, a space gains meaning and becomes a place when the person they are trying to bewitch is in that space.

That analysis pretty much broke my last shreds of ideas on magic. (I know there are different kinds of magic in the world, but for Azande, this is it) I always thought that you just needed a bit of the person or something like that in order to bewitch them. This is a completely new way of thinking about it for me than what I am used to seeing in circles in the U.S. (Wicca, films, etc)


Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Witchcraft Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Clarendon P: Oxford. Print.

Where Soul Meets Body

The Azande believe that humans are made up of two types of soul: the body-soul and the spirit-soul. After death, the body soul becomes a totem animal for one’s clan (father’s clan for men and mother’s clan for women) while the spirit soul becomes a shadowy ghost residing at the head of streams. (Witches’ souls are malevolent and non-witches are benevolent, often thought to be helpful to their future kin)

While in life the body-soul stays with you to keep you functioning as a human being, the spirit-soul can also separate from the body in order to do magic. When a witch is able to separate this, the Azande refer to it as mbisimo mangu, or the soul of witchcraft. This part of the soul can leave a witch’s body, often while their body is asleep, and transport to the body of the person they plan to bewitch so that they can devour parts of his body-soul. They even say (according to Evans-Pritchard) that one can see the lights of the spirit-souls of witches when they go out to bewitch people. (Evans-Pritchard even thinks he may have seen one once, otherwise he would not even fathom to believe it…)

I can see the sense in this idea. That there are two parts to people’s souls. It creates a poetic sort of dualism and makes sense in the sense that if the spirit-soul leaves to perform magic, then the body-soul is there to sustain one’s actual flesh. (otherwise, a witch would die whenever they tried to bewitch someone…) I myself have always thought that the body is separate from the soul, so you only have one soul. However, when looking at it this way, it makes sense to have a body-soul rather than just a lump of flesh run by electrical pulses and one’s consciousness.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Witchcraft Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Clarendon P: Oxford. Print.

Chase, Oscar G. "The Lesson of the Azande". Law, Culture, and Ritual: Disputing Systems in Cross-Cultural Context. NYU Press: New York. 2005. pp. 15-29.