Witchcraft – Overview (Part 3)

Good and Evil

Accusations of Witchcraft

Éva Pócs states that reasons for accusations of witchcraft fall into four general categories:

• A person was caught in the act of positive or negative sorcery
• A well-meaning sorcerer or healer lost their clients’ or the authorities’ trust
• A person did nothing more than gain the enmity of their neighbours
• A person was reputed to be a witch and surrounded with an aura of witch-beliefs or Occultism

She identifies three varieties of witch in popular belief:

• The “neighbourhood witch” or “social witch”: a witch who curses a neighbour following some conflict.
• The “magical” or “sorcerer” witch: either a professional healer, sorcerer, seer or midwife, or a person who has through magic increased her fortune to the perceived detriment of a neighbouring household; due to neighbourly or community rivalries and the ambiguity between positive and negative magic, such individuals can become labelled as witches.
• The “supernatural” or “night” witch: portrayed in court narratives as a demon appearing in visions and dreams.

“Neighbourhood witches” are the product of neighbourhood tensions, and are found only in self-sufficient serf village communities where the inhabitants largely rely on each other. Such accusations follow the breaking of some social norm, such as the failure to return a borrowed item, and any person part of the normal social exchange could potentially fall under suspicion. Claims of “sorcerer” witches and “supernatural” witches could arise out of social tensions, but not exclusively; the supernatural witch in particular often had nothing to do with communal conflict, but expressed tensions between the human and supernatural worlds; and in Eastern and Southeastern Europe such supernatural witches became an ideology explaining calamities that befell entire communities.

Violence Related to Accusations

Belief in witchcraft continues to be present today in some societies and accusations of witchcraft are the trigger of serious forms of violence, including murder. Such incidents are common in places such as Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal and Tanzania. Accusations of witchcraft are sometimes linked to personal disputes, jealousy, and conflicts between neighbors or family over land or inheritance. Witchcraft related violence is often discussed as a serious issue in the broader context of violence against women.

In Tanzania, about 500 older women are murdered each year following accusations against them of witchcraft. Apart from extrajudicial violence, there is also state-sanctioned violence in some jurisdictions. For instance, in Saudi Arabia practicing ‘witchcraft and sorcery’ is a crime punishable by death and the country has executed people for this crime in 2011, 2012 and 2014.

Children in some regions of the world, such as parts of Africa, are also vulnerable to violence related to witchcraft accusations. Such incidents have also occurred in immigrant communities in the UK, including the much publicized case of the murder of Victoria Climbié.

The Lost Bearded White Brother