Witchcraft Divination and Magic among the Balovale Tribes

Extract

Belief in witchcraft was a characteristic of the Middle Ages and earlier in Europe, and a witch was executed there as late as 1782. Belief in witchcraft does not therefore place the African automatically in a special category of mankind; it is the result of being born and brought up in a society in which it is inherent. Broadly speaking a belief in witchcraft is a belief in a theory of cause and effect. It is a species of logic to explain why certain events have occurred. More particularly it is a theory of the causes of misfortunes which the believer finds to have their origins in the enmity of people possessed of evil powers. Since the belief is conditioned largely by the society in which the African is born and lives in a tribal state there is danger in the often-uttered statement that every African without exception believes implicitly in witchcraft. That is a superficial observation which is certainly not true. The African brought up outside tribal society to a greater or lesser degree will have his faith in witchcraft modified accordingly since that faith is a social and not a mental condition. An African born and brought up, for example, in England would only know of witchcraft objectively as a belief of other people. In Africa to-day, although tribal society predominates, it is not static; on the contrary in many respects it is in a state of constant change and modification, some would even say of a disintegration. In the light of this it is not surprising to find some Africans whose belief in witchcraft is being modified too.