Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande
 Title page for Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (1937) | |
| Author | E. E. Evans-Pritchard |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Ethnography |
| Publisher | Oxford: The Clarendon Press |
Publication date | 1937 |
| Media type | |
Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande is one of social anthropology's most noted texts. In this work E. E. Evans-Pritchard examines the witchcraft beliefs of the Azanade, a group of agricultural people in southern Sudan on the upper Nile. There are two main points he makes in the work. One is that witchcraft can be seen as a safety valve, that releases potential harmful conflict into less damaging activities. The other is that it can be seen as an attempt to explain a complex alien world in a society's own terms of reference. Together these make for a practical solution that is consistent and rational.[1][2][3]
Eriksen and Nielsen (2013) argue that the remarkable thing about Evans-Pritchard is the way the two approaches are combined into a single approach. In this approach the Zande are seen to have developed a belief systems that both acts stabilise and harmonise the order of society, but also is both rational and logically consistent. A logical consistency based on the presuppositions of the Azande's thought. Eriksen and Nielsen also report the criticism of other scholars of Evans-Pritchard's monograph. They record Peter Winch (1958) as making a big deal out of Evans-Pritchard's structural-functionalist approach where in he is reported as arguing that the Azande's belief in witchcraft is reduced to its ‘social functions’.[4][5]
The work was a development of his earlier (1928). Oracle-magic of the Azande. Sudan Notes and Records, 11, 1-53..
The book
[edit]Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1937). Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande. Oxford: The Clarendon Press
Contents
[edit]- I. Witchcraft is an organic and hereditary phenomenon
- II. The notion of witchcraft explains unfortunate events
- III. Sufferers from misfortune seek for witches among their enemies
- IV. Are witches conscious agents?
- V. Witch-doctors
- VI. Training of a novice in the art of a witch-doctor
- VII. The place of witch-doctors in Zande society
- VIII. The Poison Oracle in daily life
- IX. Problems arising from consultation of the poison oracle
- X. Other Zande oracles
- XI. Magic and medicines
- XII. An association for the practice of magic
- XIII. Witchcraft, oracles, and magic, in the situation of death
References
[edit]- ^ Eriksen, T. H., & Nielsen, F. S. (2013). A history of anthropology. Pluto Press. (pp.70-71)
- ^ Wheater, K. (2017). An Analysis of EE Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande. Macat Library.
- ^ Otto, B. C., & Stausberg, M. (2014). Edward E. Evans-Pritchard Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. In Defining Magic (pp. 155-169). Routledge.
- ^ Eriksen, T. H., & Nielsen, F. S. (2013). A history of anthropology. Pluto Press. (pp.70-71)
- ^ Winch, P. (1958). The idea of a social science and its relation to philosophy. Routledge.
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