When I was in middle school, my friends and I would go to the library every day after school. We would head straight for the comic book section, then sign up for an hour at the computer, and then head to the last aisle in the nonfiction section. This aisle contained books about palmistry, tea leaf reading, Wicca, magic spells, and sorcery of all kinds. My friends and I would check them out and try to learn the spells, thinking nothing of it. We would be “witches” casting magic spells to give us good luck by smashing different flowers together and chanting the spells while giggling fiercely. It was just fun and games then and for the most part, it still is now. Normally, I would never even imagine magic to be real. However recently, I learned that for some people it is.
For the African Azande people, magic is an everyday thing.
The Azande are a group of peoples residing in Sudan and portions of the Congo whose main distinguishing feature is their belief in Mangu, or Magic, that physically resides inside one’s body. It’s different from voodoo, a branch of magic more widely known throughout 1st world countries, in the fact that it is not only malevolent or invoked by specialists. It just IS.
So for this blogging experience, I plan to attempt to make this concept of real magic make sense. I want to learn all about their magic, and hopefully then I will understand the logic behind their culture not just tolerate it as being strange but different.
Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Witchcraft Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Clarendon P: Oxford. Print.
Magic is very real to other people besides the African Azande people. I know people here in the U.S. who truely believe in magic and practice Wicca as a religion. They find me strange because I just accept the small occurances in everyday life and don't believe that it's important to read into these small events. Good luck with your blog, I hope you gain some insight.
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