Witchcraft among the Azande

Directed by André Singer

1981 • Director - André Singer • Anthropologist - John Ryle • Granada TV - Disappearing World • 52 minutes • 1981 • Posted 2017 • 471 words

Synopsis

Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande—based on fieldwork conducted in Sudan in the 1920s and 1930s—is one of the classic texts of social anthropology. Fifty years later anthropologist John Ryle and film-maker André Singer—among the last of Evans-Pritchard’s students—revisited Zandeland, in Western Equatoria province of Southern Sudan, for Granada Television’s Disappearing World series. They recorded the continuities in Zande culture and the changes since Evans-Pritchard’s time. Among the Azande, misfortune has a human cause—there is no such thing as bad luck—and witchcraft is considered to be a constant threat. A person can be a witch—and cause others harm—without being aware of it. Effective means of diagnosing witchcraft are therefore vital to the moral order. One method is through the use of oracles. Several kinds of oracles are explored in the film: the rubbing oracle, the termite oracle and the poison oracle. The poison oracle, which involves administering benge poison to baby chickens, is also used to judge the veracity of evidence in chiefs’ courts.

The film explores the internal logic of Zande thinking through incidents in the lives of individual Azande. Hunters fail to catch wild pigs; they consult an oracle to find out why they failed. A man’s first wife is sick, so the man, Banda, consults an oracle to see if she will live. It confirms she is not in immediate danger, but he suspects his second wife of witchcraft. She says she bears no malice towards her co-wife and believes she is not the cause of illness, but after an oracle confirms that she is responsible she agrees to a propitiatory ritual. Adultery is one of the most frequent charges brought in a Zande chief’s court. A man, Gingiti, brings a case against his wife, Gume, and his friend, Bukoyo in the court of the traditionalist Chief Soro. Chief Soro consults the benge oracle, which confirms the charge of adultery. In the past, he says, the Zande king Gbudwe used the benge poison on humans instead of chickend

The film also examines the influence of Christianity, the role of government and related changes in the social order. A young man, Joseph and his girlfriend, Atonita, undergo a purification ritual after the birth of her first child. Older people interviewed in the film see their children abandoning traditional moral values. After church on Sunday, a Zande Catholic priest discusses the coexistence of Christianity and Zande traditional beliefs. He says he one of few Azande who does not turn to witchcraft in times of trouble. Witchcraft Among The Azande provides a glimpse of Zande society in the late twentieth century, before the civil war that brought independence to South Sudan and .further social change to South Sudanese communities.

Review of Witchcraft among the Azande

By John Corry, New York Times, 1 January 1985

Witchcraft among the Azande is straight-on anthropology, a no-frills documentary that wants to elucidate rather than entertain. There is nothing pretentious about this, however, and Witchcraft Among the Azande is absorbing, even entertaining, on its terms. It will be seen on Channel 13 at 10 tonight.

The Azande are an African people in Zaire and the Sudan. The documentary, produced by Britain’s Granada Television, is sketchy about numbers and geography, but it says that in the 19th century the Azande kingdom covered half of Africa. Slavery and colonialism decimated the kingdom, but a way of life remained. The Azande chart their lives by witchcraft, oracles and magic.

The witchcraft, apparently, is reasonably benign, and one may be a witch without knowing it. A witch, gnawed by jealousy, annoyance or other ill feelings, may simply be thinking bad thoughts about someone else. The bad thoughts can lead to illness or other misfortune in the person afflicted. The witch cannot help it; the witch is in the grip of an unseen demon. A ritual spitting of water washes the demon away.

In fact, there’s a good deal of modern psychology in all this, although the documentary, to its great credit, doesn’t mention it. If the documentary did, it would be romanticizing the Azande, and romanticization and patronization are almost the same thing. The documentary, which uses English subtitles when the Azande speak, wants to report, not interpret.

Thus we see an Azande trial. A wife has charged her husband and another married woman with adultery. They deny it. The chief consults the oracle Benge. Benge, poison with a strychnine base, is fed to a chicken. If adultery has taken place, the chicken will die. If there has been no adultery, the chicken will live. The chicken dies. Subchiefs, also consulting Benge, confirm the results. The accused, confronted with the evidence, admit their guilt, but they say they had strayed several years ago, not recently. The chief, unmoved, orders them fined.

We also see Benge consulted to determine why a woman is sick. She is a first wife; Benge says the second, and younger, wife thinks unkindly of her. Should the husband divorce the second wife? Benge says that would be pointless. The spitting of water by the second wife will suffice.

Meanwhile, we also see a man named Andrea, a prominent person in his village, who six times has failed to kill the wild pigs that are ravaging his crops. He consults a witch doctor. The witch doctor dances, and then he prescribes. It is the man’s own fault that the pig hunt has failed.

”Your heart is not at peace,” the witch doctor says. ”None of these people here know why. But I know why, Andrea, and I am after you. You must make your heart more peaceful.”

This may be sound advice. We have the impression that Andrea is a bit on the bossy side. Perhaps the other villagers are sabotaging the pig hunt. Whatever the case, ”Witchcraft Among the Azande,” part of a series called ”Disappearing World,” is engrossing. It is produced and directed by Andre Singe, and lists an anthropologist, John Ryle, as adviser.