THE ZANDE CORPORATION OF WITCHDOCTORS.l

[WITH PLATES XXIX-XXXI.]

THEstudy of witchdoctors in Africa opens up a number of important sociological problems. Not only are these problems related to the whole field of ritual and refer to the manner in which expression of sentiment is conditioned in human society, but also they are connected with the existence of specialized behaviour and division of social labour. For witchdoctors are one of the few specialized associations which we find among savages. They possess knowledge withheld from other members of their community and they belong to a corporation which has its own particular social structure and modes of behaviour. One might have thought, there-fore, that they would have received unusually careful attention in descriptions of African peoples. This paper is restricted in its scope to the limits of a field-work report but I may remark in passing that its subject has generally received cursory treatment at the hands of ethnologists.

The Azande are a case in point. Those who have lived among them and have described their customs have been content with the merest sketch of their corporation of witchdoctors which is one of the most prominent departments of their culture. Major Larken hardly mentions witchdoctors in his valuable accounts of Zande life, v h l e Mgr. Lagae allows them only half-a- dozen pages of terse description in his well-known monograph on the Azande.

Apart from the interest which the subject has for students, it has some importance for white men whose work as missionaries, doctors and administrators brings them into touch with Africans. These functionaries seldom regard the witchdoctor with favour and often enough are bitterly opposed to his activities. I have found that it is sometimes our own doctors who display the strongest feeling against their lowly confrhres. With their training and traditions and contempt of quackery it is not difficult to comprehend their attitude. I hope that this account will permit some one or two to see more clearly how easy it is to condemn and how hard to understand. I have ventured to express this hope because I have realized how lucky were my Zande friends in this respect in the wise and tolerant rule of their whte guardian.

I t will not be necessary for me to give more than a brief outline of Zande social organization and means of livelihood since the reader may easily refer to the writings of my friends Mgr. Lagae,

The information given in this paper was collected on three ethnological expeditions to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. These were financed by the Government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, The Royal Society, and the Trustees of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund, to all of whom I make grateful acknowledgments.

T 2

292 E. E. E ~ A N ~ - P R I T c H A R D . - ~ ~ ~ ~Zande Corporation of Witchdoctors.

Bishop of Niangara, and Major Larken, District Commissioner of Yambio, about the Azande on either side of the Sudan-Congo border.1

Zande culture has an immense area of extension comprising districts under three European administrations, Anglo-Egyptian, French and Belgian. Though the Azande are at the present time culturally homogeneous they represent an amalgam of many tribes at one time in possession of their own separate languages, customs, and institutions, whch were absorbed by the dominant Mbomu culture during the last two centuries. The nature and process of this absorption are complicated and though they have received detailed treatment in the writings of several students in French and Belgian Africa they are still little unders to~d.~

The Zande empire was split into a number of kingdoms founded by adventurous princes who preferred to carve out domains for themselves rather than to remain in feudal subjection to father or brother. A kingdom was divided into provinces administered by a king's younger brothers and sons and a few wealthy commoners appointed by him. These provincial governors in their turn exercised authority through local deputies directly responsible to them for the conduct of their districts. The territorial correlative to this political system was a king's court from which broad paths struck out, starlike, to the minor courts of his princely and commoner governors where lesser paths radiated to hamlets at which resided important deputies. The whole country- side was dotted with homesteads, abodes of single families, often widely separated from each other by cult,ivations and stretches of virgin forest. If we took a cross-section of a Zande district we should find that a homestead comprised a man and his wife, or wives, and children, while his neighbours were generally related to him by bonds of kinship or marriage. A chief's deputy would choose a site near some stream and along both banks were stretched out the homes of h s relatives and those whom he patronized. I have used the past tense when speaking of Zande territorial distribution, since lately they have been slowly concentrated along government roads or into large settlements in order to combat sleeping-sickness. Though I had an oppor- tunity on my first two expeditions to Zandeland to observe the natural distribution of the peopie most of my work was done in Government Settlements. Long rectangular settlements straggle along both sides of government roads at distances varying from a mile to several miles between each. They are of so recent a formation that it is difficult to ascribe to them any great change in the life of the Azande, though here and there in this essay the reader will note evidences of their new epttcial density.

Bonds of communal life are to be found in the Zande political system rather than in their clan organization. For, though they possess exogamous groups sharing common descent and association with totemic beliefs, these have no territorial basis and perform neither economic nor ceremonial functions. There are, indeed, traditions of clan symbiosis in the past, but if clans occupying a common area ever existed they must have been broken up by the development of the royal Vongara House.

Lagae, Les Azande ou Niam-Niam, Bruxelles, 1926 ; Major P. M. Larken, O.B.E., three long papers in Sudan Notes and Records, A n Account of the Zande, 1926, Impressions of the Azande, 1927 and 1930.

2 A. de Calonne-Beaufaict, Azande, Bruxelles, 1921 ; and A. Hutereau, Histoire des Peuplada de I'Uele et de I' Ubangi, Bruxelles.

293 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Zande Corporation of bvitchdocto~s.

Each king rules over what we may designate a tribe, a population living under one adminis- tration which maintains peace within its borders and initiates military expeditions and organizes

defence along its boundaries. Each kingdom is separated from the next by a wide fringe of unpopulated forest. The king is invariably a member of the ruling Vongara aristocracy who form an exclusive caste into which no commoner can gain admittance. Birth into the clan of the Avongara alone gives aristocratic privileges. Modes of descent, inheritance, and succession are patrilineal, alike in the class of chiefs and in cornmoner clans, and residence is everywhere patrilocal. Besides this social cleavage between the Vongara and commoner classes one finds a certain amount of social differentiation between the Ambomu conquerors of the country and the

various tribes which they have subdued, though this depends less on birth than on political interests, the Ambomu as a rule keeping in closer touch with court life than the rest of the people. One observes a larger number of rich commoners among Ambomu than among other

elements in this ethnic conglomerate. The aristocracy takes no part in the production of food, other than the killing of an occasional beast, and relies for the necessities of life on the labour of commoners, which i t consumes partly in direct service and partly in food-dues.

The Azande have no knowledge of cattle nor indeed would cattle exist in their fly-infested country. They live by cultivating the soil, by killing animals and fish, and by collecting wild- fruits, roots and insects. Their chief cultures are millet, maize, sweet potatoes, manioc, ground- nuts,.bananas, and a number of leguminous plants. Game is plentiful in their country, and the annual swarmings of termites seldom disappoint them. Apart from economic activities directed to increase their food supply the Azande show great technical ability in arts and crafts. They have a reputation as smiths, are proficient potters and carvers in wood, and exhibit skill in basketry and a number of other crafts.

This brief summary of social organization and economic life must suffice. Within the cultural limits which I have sketched lives the Zande hoeing his gardens, hunting, paying visits to court, pursuing litigation, quarrelling with his neighbours, dancing, and fulfilling each day his obligations as subject, father, husband, son, brother, and so on. As we watch him carrying out the many economic and social tasks of day-to-day existence we shall be amazed a t the enormous part of his life which is given over to the practice of magic. Every Zande is a magician and believes firmly in the use of magic by properly qualified practitioners. Every man believes in witchcraft as an objective reality from which are projected its spiritual manifestations. Zande society is a magic-ridden community and might well challenge with its magical efflorescence the exotic blooms of Melanesia.

It is not that here and there, now and again, magical practices attract the notice of an

ethnologist among the Azande so that he hastens to describe them in his notebooks but, on the contrary, magic lies around him like a deep flood. He is constantly perplexed by its cross- currents and overwhelmed by its force and volume. At times he is inundated not so much with descriptions given him by informants as with a deluge of ceremonies, quarrels, cases, and other situations in which the principles and practice of Zande magic and their belief in witchcraft

294 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.--T~~.?.hnde Corporation of Witchdoctors.

play a prominent rale and are clearly delineated. I have attempted in a series of papers to sort out into departments and describe a portion of the abundant ideas and customs relating to Zande magic and witchcraft, and, where I have had confidence enough, to suggest the motives which underlie them.1 The present paper deals with a sphere which I have not even cursorily described elsewhere and which, as I have already pointed out, is of great importance to Social Anthropology.

If, however, Social Anthropology is to derive maximum benefit from descriptions of savage peoples, it is desirable that more attention be paid to details of terminology, and in no other division is slackness in this respect more mischievous than in primitive ritual where " totemism," " black magic," " sorcery," " witchcraft," " fetishism," " animism," " dynamism," and a host of other terms are used with oft-differing and rapidly diminishing meanings. In a previous paper I have defined the terms by which I have referred to Zande ideas about magic and witch- craft,2 but I may be excused for briefly restating them in this place, especially as I have myself on several occasions sinned grievously by a slovenly use of terms which should have been defined with more e~ac t i t ude .~

I use the word " magic " to refer to that particular kind of behaviour which comprises a rite and accompanying spell both of which centre round some object, generally part of a tree or herb, which I denote by the word "medicine." Magic is performed by " magicians," whether directly by an individual owner of a medicine or vicariously by a professional expert. Magic is classed as (' good " or " bad " according to the moral ideas current in this community. When the magic is bad I speak of a magician as a " sorcerer." " Witchcraft " is something quite different to magicinthe eyes of a Zande. It has no rites nor spells nor medicines but, as is explained later, is a physiological condition in " witches." There is an organized body of magicians which fight against witchcraft, and these are referred to as "witchdoctors."

IV.

In describing the esoteric in native life, where knowledge of ritual is restricted to initiates, such as these witchcraft specialists among'the Azande, i t is even more important than in giving an account of beliefs common to every member of the community or ceremonies enacted in public that the ethnologist should be frank about the sources of his information. I t is not merely desirable, i t is imperative, that he should state openly his methods of enquiry. The reader may then know how to evaluate his account. Yet anthropological field-workers seldom distinguish between different kinds of evidence in the presentation of sociological material which they have collected, even though in their own minds they keep them apart. They do not

* " Oracle-Magic of the Azande," Sudan Notes and Records, 1928 ; "Witchcraft (Mangu) among the Azande," Sudan Notes and Records, 1929 ; "The Morphology and Function of Magic," American Anthropologist, 1929 ; "Sorcery and Public Opinion in Primitive Society," Africa, 1931 ; "Mani, a Zande Secret Society," Sudan Notes and Records, 1931.

Op. cit., Africa, 1931. Thus in the above-mentioned paper in the American Anthropologist I have spoken of witchcraft as

"Black-Magic."

295 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-TheZalzde Corporation of Witchdoctors.

escape detection in this subterfuge because it is easy for anyone with experience in the field to perceive where the crust of a completed structure conceals the different methods used in composing it. Hence it is useless as well as vicious to refrain from a description of methods of investigation. No man of science should give us a bald description of a custom or institution without prefacing his account by telling us how he gathered his information. An introductory note of this kind not only adds vividness to a description but also invests it with a precision and openness which ought to characterize all scientific work.

The manner in which Caucasian influence especially is carefully disregarded by many modern observers of savage life does little credit to our science. It is not only essential to record evidences of European contact in the domain of technology but to remember also that Political Officers, Missionaries and Traders are part of the reality of native life to-day, and have a profound influence on institutions. They must not be banished into the oblivion of total disregard because they spoil a romantic picture. For it is doubtless due largely to a desire to preserve the romance of unspoilt savagedom that the prosaic figure of the anthropologist himself is so often left out of the foreground. It results that an account of a primitive tribe seems curiously impersonal, whereas it is the product of an intimate blending of social actualities, scientific method, and the mind of the anthropologist himself.

In studying such an institution as the Zande corporation of witchdoctors, to take the subject of my paper as the most fitting illustration, it was necessary to divide the field of enquiry into two sections and to employ different methods in the investigation of each. One section com- prises their activities in relation to the rest of Zande society, the part they play in communal life, their place in national tradition, their position vis-d-vis the chiefs, and the current beliefs and stories associated with them in the public mind. This part of their life it is easy for an observer to record, for there can be no difficulty about witnessing public performances which are open to all comers. It is likewise easy to obtain a commentary on what is abstruse in the ritual from regular informants and casual bystanders alike. In this section of our study of Zande witchdoctors it is in fact possible to employ the usual methods of field-work inyestigation, direct and repeated observation of special behaviour, cross-questioning of natives both in the situation of ritual when their attention is directed to the performance about which infornlation is sought, more leisurely conversations in tent or hut, collection of texts, and even mild participation in native activities by an ethnographer himself.

On the other hand the corporation has an esoteric life from which the uninitiated are strictly excluded, and this forms the second section of our study. Not only are knowledge of medicines and tricks of the trade hidden from outsiders but to these also much of the inner social life of the corporation is unknown and many of the beliefs of its members obscure. The usual methods of enquiry were here largely ineffective and the ordinary system of controls inoperative. One could observe directly only by becoming oneself a witchdoctor, and while this would have been possible among the Azande I doubt whether it would have proved advantageous. Previous experience of participation in native activities of this kind had led me to the conclusion that an anthropologist gains little by obtruding himself into ceremonies as an actor. It is true that considerable progress can often be made by trying to take part in public ritual, but the White Man

296 Zn?~deM. H.EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Corj~orationoJ Witchdoctors.

is never seriously regarded as a member of an esoteric group and has little opportunity of checking to what extent the performance is changed for his benefit by design or the psychological responses of the participants to the rites are affected by his presence. I t is, moreover, difficult to use the ordinary methods of critical investigation when one is actually engaged in ceremonial and is supposed to be an eager member of an institution. The many practical difficulties of a European being actively engaged in the trade of a witchdoctor are also weighty enough to act as a deterrent to this mode of enquiry.

The course of enquiry which immediately suggested itself was to try to win the goodwill of one or two practitioners and to persuade them to divulge their secrets in strict confidence. This I attempted and made a certain amount of headway in my enquiries, but it soon became evident that I was not likely to proceed very far along this path. RIy informants were fully prepared to give information which they knew could be obtained without great difficulty from other sources, but were reticent about their principal secrets to the point of refusal to discuss them. Around these crucial points we played a game of wits in which I was a loser. It would, I believe, have been possible by using every artifice to have eventually wormed out all their secrets, but this would have meant bringing undue pressure on people to divulge what they wished to hide, so I dropped enquiry into this part of Zande life altogether for several months. Subsequently I adopted the only alternative course of using a substitute to learn all about the technique of witchdoctors. My friend, best informant, and personal servant, Kamanga, was initiated into the corporation and became a practising witchdoctor. He gave me full accounts of procedure from the commencement of his career step by step as it developed.

This might not be thought a very good method of enquiry and I had doubts about its fertility when I began to employ it, but it proved in event to be fruitful. While Kamanga was slowly being initiated by one practitioner into the knowledge of a witchdoctor's craft, it was possible for me to utilize his information to draw out of their shells rival practitioners by playlng on their jealousy, pride, and vanity. Kamanga could be trusted entirely to tell me everything whch he learnt in the course of his tuition, but I felt sure that, while he would be told much more than 1 would obtain from my own independent enquiries, part of his training would be cut out by his teacher since we acted straightforwardly in telling him that his pupil would pass on all information to me. I t was difficult for him to lie directly t'o Kamanga since he was aware that his st'atements would be tested with rival witchdoctors in the locality and with practitioners from other districts, but he could, on the other hand, keep information from him with fair success, and this is what he did do. In the long run, however, the ethnographer is bound to triumph. Armed with prelimiilary knowledge nothing can prevent him from driving deeper and deeper the wedge if he is interested and persistent.

This is the kind of enquiry which needs leisurely pursuit. Results can only be obtained by a patient approach and a long wait upon favourable conditions. I never intruded upon priva,te conversation between Kamanga and Badobo, his teacher, however dilatory their conduct. The astuteness of the teacher would have surprised me more had it not heen that I was well acquainted with the, extreme credulity of his pupil, whose deep faith in magicians never ceased to astonish me, though I bad daily evidence of it. Subtle procrastination might well have persuaded me to

I

jettison my enquiry into the technique of witchdoctors in favour of other anthropological cargo had it not been for the arrival of a noted witchdoctor on a professional tour froill a distant district. This man, named Bogwosu, was arrogant towards the local practitioners whom he treated with alternating contempt and condescension. Badobo bore his conceit less easily than the other witchdoctors since he was used to the deference and flattery now paid to his rival.

Here was an opportunity to be seized at once since it might not recur. I flattered Bogwosu's self-esteem and suggested that he should take over the tuition of Kamanga in magic and offered to pay him munificently so long as he withheld no knowledge of his craft from his pupil. explained to him that I was tired of Badobo's wiliness and extortion, and that I expected my generosity to be reciprocated by the equipment of Kamanga with something more than exoteric

knowledge of a witchdoctor's technique. To Badobo I excused myself on the grounds that this new practitioner was distinguished in his profession and had had the added experience of qualifying among the neighbouring Baka tribe, renowned for their magic, as well as among the Azande, so that he could give Kamanga the knowledge which he had gained of different medicines

in two cultures. At the same time he was to continue his instruction and receive remuneration for his services.

When informants fall out anthropologists come into their own. The rivalry between these two practitioners grew into bitter and ill-concealed hostility. Bogwosu would give me infor- mation about medicines or magical rites to prove that h s rival was ignorant of the one or incapable in the performance of the other. Badobo became alert and showed himself no less eager to demonstrate his knowledge of magic both to Kamanga and to myself. They vied with each other to gain ascendency among the local practitioners who had till recently acknowledged the sole leadershp of Badobo. Kamanga and I reaped a full harvest in this quarrel, not only from the protagonists themselves but also from other witchdoctors in the neighbourhood and even from interested laymen. As I shall describe in the body of my paper internal dissensions among witchdoctors and shall illustrate it by reference to this quarrel, I discuss it no further

here, where it is mentioned in order that the reader may understand the situation in which my material was collected. From one source and another I collected, either directly, or through Kamanga, and as often through both channels, the information given in the second part of this paper. Names of medicines and small ritual acts which look unimposing enough in their literary setting or which have been excluded from my text in order that an abundance of native

words may not add to the weariness of the reader are the fruit of many months of patient waiting for opportunities and of laborious enquiries.

But in spite of their rivalry and my persistence, the two practitioners mentioned above did not divulge to Kamanga the method by which they extracted objects from the bodies of their patients, a surgical operation performed by witchdoctors all over Africa ; for they well under- stood that he was a sponge out of which I squeezed all the moisture of information which they put into it. I mention this fact because, although I caught them out and compelled them through force of awkward circumstances to divulge their exact mode of trickery, it shows that in spite of the methods of investigation which I employed, my informants did not communicate their entire knowledge to me, even indirectly, and suggests that there were other departments of their

298 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-TheZarzde Corporatio?z of Witchdoctors.

knowledge which they did not disclose. This may well have been the case. It was inevitable that I should learn sooner or later how objects are removed from the bodies of sick persons by Zande witchdoctors since I knew beforehand what happens among other African peoples, but it is possible that in other matters where there was not the same basis for enquiry the witchdoctors, if they wished to hide anything, concealed i t with greater success. Whether this is so or not, and I have no particular reason for believing that it is so, every effort was made to check the data of this essay. A part of it was collected on my first expedition to the Sudan in 1926-27, but the greater part was the fruit of special attention given to the subject on my second expe- dition in 1928-29. On my return to England I had sufficiently sifted and organized my notes to give a paper on the subject of Zande witchdoctors to the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1929 before my final trip to Zandeland. On this third expedition I constantly attended seances of witchdoctors and tried to see their activities in the social life of the Azande in better perspective than I had been able to do when immersed in the details of their craft. Consequently I collected little new material.

I have only to add that Kamanga's sustained interest and industry enabled me to take down the gist of his experiences in a large number of native texts, given week after week for many months, and that my constant association with him enabled us to discuss these texts informally and a t leisure ; and then, having given a preliminary account of means used in the collection of my data, I may proceed to set them down.

I shall ask the reader to accompany me on my visits to seances where a number of witch- doctors, strangely robed in skins and decked with bells and feathers, display their antics to a

gathering of the countryside. Here we shall a t once find ourselves puzzled by their grotesque movements and obscure revelations. We shall have to organize our rambling reactions to the turbulent scenes at which we shall assist into a number of coherent problems. These we shall attempt to solve.

A European living in Zandeland will be likely to come across witchdoctors (abinza or aira avu1e)l for the first time at a seance, at which they dance and make oracular utterances, because seances are held in public and heralded and accompanied by drums. These public performances are local events of some importance, and those who live in the neighbourhood regard them as interesting spectacles well worth a.short walk. They are hel% on a variety of occasions, but generally at the request of a householder who is suffering from some misfortune or apprehension of ill-luck. Maybe he or his wife is ill or that he fears his children will sicken. Maybe that his hunting is consistently unsuccessful or he wants to know in which part of the bush he is likely to find animals. Maybe that blight has begun to mar his ground-nuts or merely that he is uncertain where he had better sow his millet this year. Maybe his wife has not given him a child or perhaps he feels that someone is about to speak ill of him to his father-in-law.

Avule is used for the witchdoctors' dance. Hence a t a seance a specialist is known as ira avule, whereas when functioning as a physician he is called binza. Nevertheless these expressions are often used inter-. changeable.

299 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ Zande Corporation of Witchdoctors.

There is no end to the trials and difficulties of life, both those which actually confront a man and those which menace him only in his imagination, and i t is in all these manifold circum- stances of which he is the creature that the Zande seeks help from his witchdoctor. He turns to the witchdoctor because all the misfortunes of his life, due to ignorance, incompetence and the workings of nature, are in Zande belief the direct results of witchcraft. Witches, besides having caused him loss and pain, threaten his future health and enterprise. The witchdoctor is a professional fighter against witches, and by eating special medicines he is able to tell who is responsible for mischief and the best way to counteract it. He can also reveal misfortunes which lie in the womb of the future and the manner in which their birth can be prevented. Occasionally misfortune will be brought about by black magic or influence of the spirits of the dead, but in the vast majority of cases it is due to witchcraft. We must, therefore, t ry t o understand a t the outset what Azande believe witchcraft to be and how it functions in their society.

I have already described elsewhere1 a t length and analysed in detail the configuration of witchcraft in Zande society. There I have shown the differences between the concepts of magic and witchcraft. I have described exactly what witchcraft means to a Zande, what are i t s attributes, what phenomena are allied to it, and what is the part it plays in social and economic life. I have analysed the psychology of witchcraft from the point of view of both witch and bewitched and have studied its sociology by translating it into terms of law and morals. The whole problem of witchcraft in African communities is so abstruse and elusive that I can only attempt a short summary in this place of the salient points of my earlier paper. This earlier contribution may be read by anyone who is sufficiently interested to wish to grasp the full social meaning of witchcraft.

Witchcraft (marzgu) is a physical object which can be seen and handled in autopsies as a concrete blackish swelling in the abdomen, probably the stomach itself in certain physiological conditions. It is an anatomical endowment which is transmitted from father to son or from mother to daughter along the lines of sex dichotomy. Mangu as an agent is a spiritual projection from this physiological condition which leaves the witch's stomach and devours a spiritual part of its victim's body or frustrates his social and economic adventures. Among the Azande nature is not thought of as controlled directly by magic as it is in many portions of the world, but is looked upon as neutral unless manipulated against man's endeavours by witches. The aim of magic in Zande society is consequently to counteract the action of witchcraft rather than t o control nature directly. Man's path through life will be smooth so long as witches do not place obstacles in his way.

Although in theory only certain people are witches, in fact everyone is suspected, and there are very few who a t one time or other do not have to face an accusation. The peculiar machinery by which witchcraft is identified is of such a kind that i t ensures that the witch is your personal enemy, and that he is likely to be a man whose character is socially undesirable. Por a man to be an active witch i t is essential that he should possess the correct anatomical endow~r~ctrt in

Op. oit., Xzldan Notes and Records, 1929.

300 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARI) . -T~~.Zande Corporation of CVitchdoctors.

the first place, and that he should be moved by hatred, envy, or jealousy in the second place. The Zande holds, in fact, that performance of crime is due to a special inherited tendency, but that its motives are to be looked for in emotions common to all men and which are regarded in society as shortcomings. Nevertheless a witch is not a social pariah and must not be regarded as analogous to a criminal in our own country. Indeed his powers may earn him respect, though jealousy, which is the drive behind their use, is considered reprehensible.

VI.

One meets witchdoctors as they proceed in ones and twos towards a troubled homestead, each wearing his hat decorated with feathers and carrying his large hide bag containing skins, horns, magic whistles, belts, leglets and armlets made from various wild fruits and seeds. In olden days before European administration only two or three witchdoctors would attend a meeting in any one district, but to-day most government settlements can muster half-a-dozen, while occasionally a t popular sQances, as when a new magician is being initiated into the corpora- tion, as many as a dozen will assist.

When they meet a t their destination they exchange greetings and discuss in low tones among themselves the affairs of the seance while preparing the ground for dancing. In these conversations and preparations the lead is taken by an experienced magician who has generally been a witchdoctor for a longer period than the others, and who may have initiated many of the other ~erformers into the craft. Nevertheless, in spite of his priority his authority is in no way institutional, for there is no hierarchical organization among the witchdoctors, but leader- ship at these meetings depends, upon prestige of record, character, and knowledge of magic.

Members of the ruling class never, to my knowledge, become practitioners. A member of the aristocracy would at once lose prestige by associating with commoners at their joint meals of medicine and public dances. I have even heard contemptuous remarks made about a commoner headman who occasionally took part in these proceedings as i t was considered to be beneath the dignity of a man holding a political position from his prince to bemean himself in this manner. It was thought more fitting that he should restrict himself to political life and remain a spectator of those activities, participation in which must lessen the social distance which divided him from those who owed him allegiance as the representative of his prince and might cost him some of the respect due to his position. Consequently the political pattern of Zande social life has left no imprint upon the institution of their witchdoctors, for had the chiefs entered into the corporation they must necessarily have done so as leaders. Or one might rather express i t that the clear division between class and class is maintained rigidly in this as in every phase of ~ociallife and not merely in political functions.

Tn the same way marked social differentiation between the sexes is prominent here also. ;It is very seldom that women become witchdoctors. There are, i t is true, a few who are qualified to act as physicians in the r81e of medicine-women (abinza),and occasionally a woman will gain in this capacity a considerable reputation among her patients and will be appointed practitioner

301 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ %mde Corporation of Witchdoctors.

to a prince's harem. It is very rare, however, for a woman to take part in the dances which mTe are about to describe, though one is shown in Pig. 1, P1. XXIX and Fig. 1, P1. XXX, where she is easily distinguished, by the skirt of split banana leaves which she is wearing, from the male dancers who are clothed in barkcloth covered with skins.

Preparations for the dance consist in marking out an area of operations, and when that has been done, of robing. Starting from the drums a large circle is drawn on the ground, and this is generally made more conspicuous by white ashes being sprinkled along it. No layman is supposed to enter into this circle reserved for the witchdoctors' dance, and were he to do so he would risk having a blackbeetle or piece of bone shot into his body by an outraged magiciai:. Each practitioner, having unslung from his shoulder his leather bag, produces from it a number of horns of waterbuck, bushbuck, dik-dik, bongo, and other animals, and sticks these in the earth along the circular ash line. On one of these straightened horns often rests a pot of water into which the witchdoctor gazes in order to see witchcraft. Interspersed among the horns are gnarled pieces of wood of magical value, and from both these and the horns magical whistles sometimes dangle (see Pls. XXIX and XXX, where these ceremonial objects may be noted). The place where his horns are stuck in the earth and the space in front of them are regarded by a witchdoctor as his own particular field of operations upon which he will resent encroachment by any other magician.

The horns, straightened out by being heated in fire and bent, while hot, on the ground, are filled with mbiro, that is with ashes and juices of various herbs and shrubs mixed with oil, and they are replenished from time to time when the supply is running short or becoming unusually dry. These medicines have great importance, which it is necessary to allude to at the outset if their proper meaning is to be understood. Knowledge of the medicines means knowledge of the art of a witchdoctor. I have pointed out elsewhere1 that in Africa medicines take the place of the spell which in the Pacific dominates a magical performance. In Africa the spell is always subsidiary, rarely formulated, and often absent altogether. It is the medicines which are the nuclear element around which every magical performance revolves. It is not magic words nor ritual sequences which are stressed in initiation into the corporation of witchdoctors, but trees and herbs. A Zande witchdoctor is essentially a man who knows what plants and trees compose the medicines, which, if eaten, will give him power to see witchcraft with his own eyes, to know where i t resides, and to drive it away from its intended victims.

The Zande witchdoctor exercises supernatural powers solely because he knon-s the right medicines and has eaten them in the right manner. His prophecies are derived from the magic inside him. His inspiration does not spring from Mboli,2 the supreme Being, nor from the atoro, spirits of the dead. The spirits tell a witchdoctor nothing. When he leans forward inteutly listening, or gazes expectantly towards bush or gardens, it is not the spirits whose conimands or appearance he awaits but the medicines upon which he relies for visions of witchcrart and words of direction. This point must be stressed because there are in Zande society persons who

Op. cit., Amevican Anthropologist, 1929. Save in the sense that all magic powers are thought of as having been created by Mboli, who created the

world and everything in it.

302 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Za?zde Corporation of Witchdoctors.

divine through communion with spirits of the dead, whereas the witchdoctor is fatidical in virtue of medicines. Mgr. Lagae is as explicit on this point as I have been. He writes : "Le ira avule est le devin qui profitre ses oracles au cours de la danse sp6ciale de l'avule. I1 n'est pas un f6ticheur. Nous avons d6jl signal6 que les Azande ne connaissent pas les f6tiches. La cofitume de se tailler des figurines It formes fantastiques dans lesquelles des esprits protecteurs sont cens6s habiter, leur est totalement inconnue. De plus le devin en question, appel6 ira avule, ne peut Btre consid6r6 comme un personnage ayant une fonction religieuse. I1 ne communique

4

pas avec Mboli, 1'Etre supreme, ni meme avec les Atolo, les minis. I1 doit sa clairvoyance uniquenlent aux drogues sp6ciales de l'avule, qui lui permettent de voir, au cours de la danse augurale, des choses cach6es."l

VII.

The professional robes with which a witchdoctor adorns himself while the dancing ground is being marked out consist of his straw hat topped with a large bunch of feathers of geese and parrots and other marsh and bush birds. Strings of magic whistles made from peculiar trees are strung across their chests and tied round their arms. Skins of wild cats, civet cats, genets, cervals, and other small rodents and carnivora, as well as of monkeys (especially the colobus), are tucked under their waist strings so that they form a fringe which entirely covers the loin barkcloth worn by all male Azande. Over the skins they tie a string of large black fruits of the gbagcr tree fastened together by a cord. A wooden tongue has been inserted into each of these fruits making of them dull-sounding bells which rattle together from the waist on the least movement. They tie round their legs and ankles bundles of orange-coloured seeds and some- times round their arms also, while in their hands they hold iron bells with wooden handles which they shake up and down in the performance. As they dance each witchdoctor is in himself a complete orchestra, which rattles and rings and bangs to the rhythm of the drums. Pls. XXIX to XXXI, show their ceremonial dress more vividly than i t can be described in words.

Besides the witchdoctors there are many other people present a t a s6ance, and we may refer to them according to their functions as spectators, drummers, and chorus oi boys. A small crowd of men and boys gathers under a tree or granary to watch proceedings as they sit a t the sides of or behind the drums. The womenfolk congregate in another part of the homestead a long way removed from the men, for men and women never sit together in public in this community. SQances are generally well attended by the neighbourhood, some people coming with questions to be put t o the witchdoctors, others coming to hear local scandal and to look on a t the dancing. To a woman especially i t is a relief from the monotony of family life to which she is tied by her duties, and from the drab daily routine of the household to which the jealousy of her husband restricts her. As a rule the owner of the homestead will throw i t open to all comers, since a large audience flatters the performers and their host alike.

Those who wish to put questions to the witchdoctors will often bring small presents with them in order to place them before the man whose oracular powers they desire to make use of.

Lagae, op. c i f . , pp. 96-97.

303 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARL-ThZalzde Corporatiolz of Witchdoctors.

"These presents include small knives, rings, piastres and half-piastres, but most commonly a small heap of eleusine or a bundle of maize heads or a bowl of sweet potatoes.

The host will spend most of the afternoon sitting with his guests. He has to provide gong and drums, and since i t is only here and there that one finds a household possessing these instru- ments he will almost certainly have to spend part of the morning borrowing them from neighbours and carrying them to his own residence. The host has also to supervise the various household arrangements consequent upon a visit of witchdoctors. If there are only one or two magicians a generous householder will entertain them to a meal and will probably ask a few of the more influential spectators as well. The host must also bear in mind that he must prepare a few small presents for the witchdoctors as a reward for their services when the afternoon's work is over.

Drummers are not specially summoned, but are recruited on the spot anlong the men and boys who form a crowd of spectators in the shade of tree or granary. Those whom one fhds beating a little wooden gong and leather-topped drums are chosen, if selected a t all, for their ability in this art, but generally there is no choice of drummers, and he who can first get possession of an instrument plays it. There is often much competition among boys and youths to act the part of drummer, so that squabbles frequently result. Only if a drummer tires or proves inefficient will someone else take his place, unless, as often happens, he is prepared to let a friend take turns a t the drums with himself. There is keen competition among youths, partly because of the sensory pleasure to be derived from close rhythmic contact with the drums, and partly because of the satisfaction of displaying their technical proficiency in public and in the sight of their womenfolk. In exchange for their services witchdoctors will sometimes give the drummers one or two inspired revelations without demanding a fee.

The drum is an ordinary dance drum (see Fig. 1. P1. XXXI) but the gong, though of the same shape as ordinary dance gongs, is much smaller in size. For a dance one requires a large gong with far-reaching sound, whereas these little gongs used in seances of witchdoctors have only a restricted range within which they emit a clear staccato rhythm. The gong is beaten with sticks, often by two boys together, one sitting on the ground a t either side of it. Its mouth is sadly lacerated by frequent beatings by bare sticks, whereas the mouths of the great dance gongs, though they eventually give way, are more easily preserved since they are protected from direct contact with the sticks by leather thongs bound round their striking ends.

Before commencing to dance and sing songs witchdoctors will often order out of the crowd of spectators all the small boys and will range them on the ground near the drums to back up their songs. Everyone in the crowd will to some extent back up the songs of the performers, but these boys may be considered as constituting a special chorus, as they are ranged up for this purpose where they can easily be seen by the magicians, and admonished if they are not singing lustily enough. If a magician is much annoyed with them he will shoot a bone or black beetle into one of the boys and then extract it to show what he can do if he is really exasperated by their slackness.

304 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-Thez%nde Corporation of IVitcl~docto~s.

A normal seance in which several performers are taking part has therefore the ground-plan

shown beneath :-

Female spectators. Male spectators.

Chorus Chorus

P Drums

........................ Area of single witch

Dancing space doctor where he places his medicines and dances.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

VIII.

A seance consists in a witchdoctor or witchdoctors dancing and singing in accompaniment to drums and gong and answering questions put to them by spectators. They dance in front of the drums, behind and on either side of which sit the spectators. It tages some time before the performers are warmed up. They commence slowly with sedate hops and then gather momen-tum, leaping and whirling with remarkable agility and force. Weighted down with excess of clothing and exposed to the full glare of the sun they pour with perspiration. After a short dance one of them rushes up to the drums and shakes his hand-bells a t them to stop. When they cease he lectures the drummers and tells them that they must beat the drums better than that. They commence again. Drums and gong resound ; hand-bells go wia wia ; wooden bells strung round waists clatter ; and anklets click ; in a confusion of sound but with a rhythmic pattern since the dancers move hands, legs, and trunks to the beats of gong and drums. One of the witchdoctors goes over to the drums and orders a cease-beating. He faces the crowd and harangues them, especially his chorus of boys : " Why are you not backing up my songs properly, everyone must sing the chorus ; if I see anyone slacking I will injure him with my magic ; I will seize him as a witch. Now, does everyone hear what I am saying ? " Always there are such preliminaries before the witchdoctors commence to reveal hidden things.

They begin to sing and dance again. One magician performs a t a time in front of the drums, leaping and turning with his full vigour, while the others keep their positions in a row behind him, dancing with less violence and supporting his songs. Sometimes two or three of them will advance together up to the drums and give a joint performance. When a member of the audience wishes to put a question he or she will put it to a particular witchdoctor who will respond by dancing alone up to the drums and there giving a spirited solo performance. When he is so out of breath that he can dance no longer, he shakes his hand-bells a t the drummers for them to cease beating and he doubles up his body to regain breath, or stumbles about the place as though intoxicated. This is the moment for giving an oracular reply to the question put to him. Usually he commences to do this in a far-off voice with the faltering speech of a dreamer.

305 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Zande Corporation of Witchdoctors.

I t appears as though the words come to him from without and that he has difficulty in hearing and transmitting them. As he proceeds with his utterances the witchdoctor begins to throw off his air of semi-consciousness and to give forth his revelations with assurance and eventually with truculence. When he has finished what he has to say he will dance again to obtain further knowledge of the matter about which he is being questioned, since full information maynot have come to him during his first dance, or he may dance to another question if he considers that he has satisfactorily dealt with the first one.

Sometimes a t these meetings the performers will dance themselves into a state of fury and will gash their tongues and chests with knives. I have witnessed scenes which remind one irresistibly of the priests of Baal who "Cried aloud, and cut themselves, after their manner, with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them." I have seen men in a state of wild excitement, drunk with the intoxicating orchestral music of drums and gongs, bells and rattles, throw back their heads and gash their chests with knives till blood was pouring in streams down their bodies. Others cut their tongues and blood mixed with spittle foams a t the corners of their lips and trickles down their chins where i t is carried away in a flow of sweat. When they have cut their tongues they dance with them hanging out of their mouths to show their art. They put on ferocious airs, enlarge the pupils of their eyes and open their mouths into grimaces as though contortions, due to great physical tension and exhaustion, were not gruesome enough. Lagae says that if the dance takes place a t night the witchdoctors walk through the burning ernbers of the fire.l

The dance of the Zande witchdoctors is one of the few performances which I have witnessed in Africa which really comes up to the standards of sensational journalism. It is weird and intoxicating. Seen as a whole i t is a picturesque performance, but i t is only by dissecting i t and by making a careful analysis of its parts that we can discover its meaning and lay bare the sociological and psychological problems which emerge from our examination. I shall give first attention to the type of questions which are asked a t a sBance and the revelations made by witchdoctors in answer to them. I shall then consider the dance itself and the songs which accompany it-what is the meaning of all this fury and grotesque expression ? Then I shall t ry to explain why it is that people put faith in these wild-looking men, their neighbours and friends of day-to-day life, but now got up in strange garments and imbued with prophet fervour ; and to decide whether their faith in them is complete, or is tempered with scepticism.

IX.

SBances are held when a householder has suffered some misfortune. It may be asked why under these circumstances he does not consult one of the Zande oracles in private rather than go to the trouble of summoning several practitioners to a more expensive public performance, especially, as we shall see later, since other oracles are, generally considered to be more reliable than witchdoctors as sources of revelation and since he will in any case have to ask them for a confirmation of a witchdoctor's utterances before he can act upon them. The reasons are that

Lagae, op. cit., p. 100. I have never witnessed this feat myself.

VOL. LXII. U

306 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-TheZunde Corporation of Witchdoctors.

public sBances increase the social prestige of a householder who initiates them, and that revela- tions of witchdoctors have a peculiar social value in that although considered more liable to error than several other oracles, such as benge, the poison-test oracle, nevertheless they have the special advantage which an open investigation gives in delicate personal matters. Moreover, the witch- doctor functions a t these seances not only as an oracular agent but also as a fighter against witchcraft, so that he can not only tell a person in which direction he must look for the witch who is injuring him and what steps he shall take to counteract the influence of witchcraft, but also by his magic and dances he wages immediate war on the powers of evil and may succeed in driving them from his patient, and, by showing them he is aware of their identity, scare them for ever from his homestead. But I believe that the first of these reasons, the desire to enhance one's reputation by giving a public entertainment, is the most important. To those present a seance is a very good show which is amusing to watch, now and again exciting, and always provides material for comment and gossip for a long time afterwards. To the master of the homestead i t is a means of finding out who is troubling his welfare, of warning the witch, who is probably present in person a t the seance, that he is on his tracks, of gaining public support and recognition in his difficulties, and esteem and publicity by throwing open his house to the countryside and by employing performers.

I have already mentioned some of the situations in which a man might summon witch- doctors to his assistance-sickness, failure in hunting, indecision in agrjcuItura1 activities, barrenness of wives, social difficulties of various kinds, especially with relatives-in-law and chiefs. A table of these situations would cover the whole sphere of native life. Mgr. Lagae gives an excellent picture of a typical seance written by one of his Christian converts,l and this shows in a striking manner the type of problems that practitioners are expected to solve :-

" He sings his song and the people all sing i t in chorus wholeheartedly, and then he commences to dance the dance of the witchdoctors with vehemence. He dances a little

and then stops the drums and says, ' As I have come to dance to-day I will not hide the name of the witch who is injuring this sick man. When I see him I will disclose his name in the midst of all these people.' The relatives of the sick man beseech the witchdoctor not to fail to disclose the name to-day because they are deeply troubled with his sickness. The witchdoctor says, ' Give me some gift because I have come to cure this sick marl and his illness will assuredly finish soon.' The relatives say that the witchdoctor is quite right, and they take a spear and give it to him. They take a large axe and give it to him also. Everyone makes him little gifts. One man makes his gift and says, ' You examine my health to-day whether I will die this year.' Another makes his gift and says, ' Examine my health whether I shall sicken.' Another says, ' Examine my eleusine, whether I shall reap a large harvest this year.' Another says, ' You examine my hunting this year and let me know whether it is witchcraft which is always spoiling it.' Another says, ' Look irlto the affairs of my wife, whether she will give me a child in the path of my spear^.'^ The

I have translated this passage freely from Mgr. Lagae's Zande text. OP.cit., pp. 100-101. A phrase which means that spears are handed over in marriage to the father of a girl as payment for a

variety of services, including the liirth of children.

307 E. E. EVAKS-PRITCHARD.-T~~zande Corporation of Witchdoctors.

witchdoctor tells them again to beat the drums. When the drummers have commenced beating he dances for a short while and tells the drummers to cease beating. There is silence. The witchdoctor takes his magic whistle and blows i t and tells them to beat the drums again, and when they do so he begins to dance again. Then the witchdoctors' medicine which he had eaten earlier glows1 in his body and through i t he begins to see witchcraft clearly."

Mgr. Lagae's informant writes with an economy of words which one expects from a native scribe. The account is short and i t gives a vivid picture of events, but it is limited by bare necessities of description which confine those of little literary training. An account of a st5ance which I wrote myself after returning home in the evening after witnessing i t will amplify the preceding one and tell what happened from an European's point of view.

One of the witchdoctors steps forward after a short dance and demands silence. He calls out the name of one of those present-" Zingbondo, Zingbondo that death of your father-in-law, listen, that death of your father-in-law Mugadi, Mugadi is dead, i t is true Mugadi is dead, you hear ? " He speaks as though in a trance, his speech laborious and disconnected. " Mugadi is dead, his daughter is in your homestead (your wife), her mother has come to live with you. Listen, they must not go and weep near the grave of Mugadi. If they continue to do this then one among them will die, do you hear ? " Zingbondo replies meekly, " Yes chief, I hear, it is indeed as you have spoken, you have spoken the truth." (Zingbondo is very pleased a t this announce- ment as he resents his wife having an excuse, which cannot be denied, for frequent absence from his household.)

Another witchdoctor steps forward smiling with confidence-he is an old hand-and turns to the local headman, named Banvunu, and addregses him thus, " Chief, your companions are slandering you, they are speaking evil of you and wish to injure you, be careful to consult the rubbing-oracle about them frequently." The headman does not reply, but someone who wishes to curry favour with him and to show that it is not he who is playing Judas, calls out " Tell us the names of these men.'' (This is more difficult for the witchdoctor who wishes to avoid making enemies by personal accusations.) He retires, saying that he will dance to the question. He signals to the drummers to commence beating the drums, to which he dances and leaps about wildly. Meanwhile, one of his fellow-performers rushes into the crowd and gives them the makama test. (The makama is a conical instrument consisting of two pieces of wood, the one hollowed out and the other a long pin which fits exactly into the hollow. According as the pin is thrust into the hollow it is easy or almost impossible to pull it out. Those to whom the witch- doctor presents this instrument as a test and who fail to pull i t out are suspected of witchcraft, though the suspicion is regarded very lightly by everyone and rather in the nature of a joke.)

While his friend is testing the audience the witchdoctor does a final spurt of energetic dancing ; his bells go wia wia wia ; the gbaga seed's knack together around his waist ; sweat pours from his body, he and his companions utter wild yells. He pants for breath and, exhausted, stumbles towards the drums which he silences by a downward stroke of his bells. 111 sudden

1 ki is here translated by Lagae " brille." Its probable meaning is that the medicine pulsates inside the witchdoctor's stomach.

u 2

308 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-TheZarzde Corporatiorz of Witchdoctors.

silence he stands for a long while in front of the headman. He does not speak. In a moment he falls helplessly to the ground as though in a faint, and for several minutes he writhes there, face to the earth, with the movements of one who suffers great pain. Then he makes a dramatic recovery, bounding to his feet a,nd uttering a revelation. " Those men," he says, "who are injuring you with witchcraft, who are slandering you, they are so-and-so " (he mentioned the name of the headman who preceded the present holder of the title in office), " and so-and-so " (he gives the name of the man from whom the headman has lately taken away his daughter to give in marriage to someone else). The witchdoctor hesitates. He utters "and . . . -,,. then pauses, looking fixedly a t the ground beneath his feet as though searching for something there while everyone awaits another disclosure. One of his companions comes forward to his assistance and says in an assured voice " . . . and so-and-so, he also is injuring you, there are three of them." He mentions the two persons whose names had previously been disclosed and the one which he has just added to his list. Another witchdoctor interrupts him. "No," he says, "there are four of them, so-and-so is also bewitching you (he mentions the name of one of his own personal enemies whom he wishes to place out of favour with the headman for his own purposes. The other practitioners understand his motives, but witchdoctors never contra- dict one another a t a public sBance ; they present an united front to the ~nin i t ia ted . )~

The headman on his part listens to what he has been told but he does not speak a word. Later he will place these four names before the berzge oracle and learn the truth. He thinks that after all the witchdoctors ought to be correct in what they say for they are witches them- selves and ought to know their own mother's sons.2

Oracles having been delivered for the benefit of the chief person present3 the dance is resumed and continues for hour after hour. An old man calls out the name of a witchdoctor and gives him some maize heads. He wants to know whether his eleusine crop will succeed this year. The witchdoctor runs to look into his medicine-pot. He gazes for a little into the medicated water and then springs forward into a dance. He dances because i t is in the dance that the mbiro medicine of the witchdoctors works and causes them to see hidden things. It stirs up and makes active the medicine within them so that when they are asked a question they will always dance i t rather than ponder it to find the answer. He concludes his dance, silences the drums, and walks over to where his interlocutor sits. "You ask me about your eleusine, whether i t will succeed this year ; where have you planted i t ? " " Sir," he replies, " I have planted it beyond the little stream 'Bagomoro.' " The witchdoctor soliloquizes, "You have planted i t beyond the little stream ' Bagomoro,' hm ! hm ! How many wives have you got ? " "Three." I see witchcraft ahead, witchcraft ahead, witchcraft ahead : be ~aut~ious, " for your wives are going to bewitch your eleusine crop. The chief wife, the chief wife, i t is not she, eh ! No, it is not the chief wife. Do you hear what I say ? It is not the chief wife. I can see i t in

1 These bracketed asides are comments which I elicited from natives after the s6ance. Only the last comment is my own reading of the situation.

2 For an explanation of this passage see Section xiii. 3 Zingbondo was a servant of mine and out of compliment to me was given the first oracle. Otherwise

Lhe headman's affairs would have been given first attention.

309 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Zande Corporatio.n of Witchdoctors.,

my stomach, for 1 have great medicine. It is not the chief wife, not the chief wife, not the chief wife. Do you hear i t Z Not the chief wife." The witchdoctor is now entering into a trance-like condition and has difficulty in speaking save in single words and clipped sentences. "The chief wife, i t is not her. Malice. Malice. Malice. The other two wives are jealous of her. Malice. Do you hear, malice ? You must guard yourself against them. They must blow water on to your eleusine. Do you hear ? Let them blow water to cool their witchcraft. DO you hear ? Jealousy is a bad thing; it is hunger. Your eleusine crop will fail. You will be troubled by hunger ; you hear what I say, hunger ? "

I have reconstructed a seance from an account which I wrote when I had just witnessed it, but I have not attempted to give all the questions asked and answered during the afternoon. They are too numerous to record here, and, moreover, i t is not possible to note every statement made by witchdoctors a t a meeting where two or three of them are functioning a t the same time. Each talks to his own clients a t the time when the others are giving oracles on their own accounts, and i t is not possible to keep pace with more than one enquiry. Also even when there is only one wit~hdoct~or present it is far from easy to understand what he is talking about unless one is aware of the exact nature of the question asked because his replies are not concise and straightforward but long-winded, rambling, broken discourses. It is common for witchdoctors to give revelations to members of their audience without being requested to do so. They often volunteer gratuitous information about pending misfortunes.

In analysing the description of a dance which I have just given I wish to draw attention to the mode and content of a witchdoctor's revelations. Special notice should be taken of the manner in which a witchdoctor makes his declarations, since we shall have to refer back to it later when considering the whole field of belief in connection with their activities. They have two main modes of utterance and both differ from the speech forms of everyday life. The first of these two modes is one of truculence. . They are overbearing with their audiences, taking liberties with them which would a t once be resented in ordinary life. They assert themselves in an overweening manner, browbeating drummers, chorus of boys, and spectators alike, telling them to stop talking, ordering them to sit down, admonishing them sharply to pay attention, and so 0n.l 911 this is taken in good part by those present and no one takes offence a t what would on other occasions be considered unpardonable rudeness. The same blatant confidence envelopes their oracular utterances which from our point of view appear theatrical and unconvincing. They accompany their utterances with all sorts of dramatic gestures and extravagant poses, and abandon ordinary speech for the braggart tones of an oracle-giver imbued with powerful magic from which are derived words which cannot be doubted. They impress their revelations on their hearers with assurance and much repetition.

When they drop their overbearing attitude they lapse into tones even more abnormal. After a spirited dance they disclose secrets or prophesy in the voice of a medium who sees and

They do not display this hectoring attitude towards chiefs but substitute for it one of confidential respect.

310 ,?hnde JVitchdoctors.E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ corporation of

hears something from without. They appear to be listening for words which some agent will put into their mouths. They deliver these psychic messages in disconnected sentences, often a string of separate words not strung together grammatically, in a dreamy far-away voice. They speak with difficulty, like men talking in a trance, or like men talking in their sleep. This, as we shall see late^, is only partly a pose, but is also in part an actual psychic condition brought on by extreme physical exhaustion and coloured by strong belief in the workings of their magic.

How, we may ask, does this mode of delivery affect the content of their utterances ? Their revelations and prophesies are based on a knowledge of local scandal. It must be repeated that in Zande belief the possession of witchcraft (mangu)gives a man power to harm his fellows but is not the motive of crime. The drive behind all acts of witchcraft is to be looked for in emotions and sentiments common to all men-malice, jealousy, greed, envy, backbiting, slander, and so on. A witch does not injure a person unintentionally, but only when motivated by one of these evil passions. The witch is consequently your personal enemy, and if some misfortune befalls you you a t once run through in your mind as possible witches the names of those with whom you are on bad terms, such as those who bear you a grudge for some action in the past. Now the scandal of native society is largely common property, and witchdoctors, being recruited from the neighbourhood, are well acquainted equally with long standing enmities and recent squabbles. They are conversant with discords in family life, with local disputes, and with rivalries at the chief's court. Therefore, when a man asks them to account for some sickness or misfortune which has befallen him they will produce as the cause of the trouble the name of someone who bears their questioner ill-will, or whom their questioner imagines to bear him ill-will. The witchdoctor's success as an oracle-giver lies in the facts that he says what his listener wishes him to say and that he uses tact.

It is fairly easy for the witchdoctor because there are a number of stock enmities in Zande culture, as between neighbours because they have a greater number of contacts and hence more opportunities for quarrelling than those whose homesteads are separated by considerable distances, as between wives because i t is a common-place among the Azande that the polygamous family spells friction among its members, and as between courtiers whose political ambitions are bound to clash. The witchdoctor will ask his client for the names of his neighbours, mives, or fellow-courtiers as the case may be. He will then dance with the names of these people in mind and will disclose one of them, if possible by implication rather than directly, as a witch. I t is erroneous to suppose that a witchdoctor guesses a t random the name of a witch. This would be absurd from the Zande viewpoint, since a grudge of some kind is an essential motive of an act of witchcraft. What the witchdoctor does is to take the names of a number of people whom he knows wish his client ill or who have reason for wishing him ill; that is persons who have a motive for causing injury, and to decide by means of his magic who of these have the power to injure him and are exercising i t ; that is, those who have mangu in their stomachs. Hence it is not that witchdoctors just exercise cunning to find out those who are on bad terms with their clients and produce these names as witches to please those who pay them and cannot see through their subtlety. Everyone is fully aware of the manner in which they proceed t :~

E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Witchdoctors. 311Zande C'orporation of

discover witches and their procedure is a necessary outcome of ideas about witchcraft current in their culture.

At the same time it is important to note how greater weight is lent to utterances of witch- doctors by the manner in which they produce bhem. As we have already seen, a practitioner does not simply answer questions as they are put to him, but goes through a long rigmarole first, SO long, in fact, that i t will often take him from midday to sunset before the question is finally answered. Pirst of all, he will cross-examine his client. He may want to know the names of his neighbours or wives or of those who took part in some activity with him. Now, i t shonld be noticed that these names are put forward by the client and not by the witchdoctor himself and involve therefore a certain amount of selection on his client's part.

The witchdoctor also gets his listeners into a suitable frame of mind for receiving his revelations by a lavish use of professional dogmatism. Having obtained from his client a number of names, he says he will dance to them. After his first two or three dances he repeats rather than answers the question put to him, assuring his client that he will discover everything before long. He struts about telling his audience that they will hear the truth to-day because he has powerful magic which cannot fail him, and he will remind them of earlier prophecies made on other occasions which have been fulfilled. After anot,her bout of dancing he will come forward and give a partial answer couched in a negative form. If i t is a question about sickness of a child, he will tell the father that two of his wives are not responsible and that he will dance to the others. If it is a question about a bad crop of some food plant he will assure the owner of the gardens that those neighbours of his who live in a certain direction from his homestead are not responsible, but that he will now dance to the other directions. Thus I have witnessed witchdoctors dance for half a day about a question of unsuccessful hunting. After dancing for a long time they informed the owner of the hunting area (myself) that they had discovered that i t was neither women nor young men who were spoiling his sport, and that they would surely ferret out the real culprit before sunset. They danced again, and a t the end oi the dance they gave the information that those responsible were certainly married men. Later in the day they said that the same witchcraft which had ruined hunting the year before still hung over the hunting area, so that those married men who had entered the district since could a t once be exonerated. After further dancing they stopped the drums and announced, without giving their names, that they had discovered three men responsible for the bad hunting. They danced again and told their audience that they had discovered a fourth culprit and that they had ascertained that there were no others besides these four men. Towarcls evening they divulged that the reason for these four men using witchcraft to injure hunting was that the year before they had not been asked to take part in the activity. It was this which had first occasioned their envy. Although the question about who was injuring the hunting area was put to the witchdoctors in the morning, i t was not until after the sun had gone down that they whispered the names of those responsible to their client.

Often witchdoctors avoid even whispering names and convey their revelations by innuendo, by snnza, as the Azande call it. This conveyance 9f meaning by hints is extremely difficult for an ethnologist to follow, since he always stands to some extent outside that inner life of n

E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Zande Corporation of Witchdoctors.

community which often gives meaning to an undercurrent of speech which his knowledge of ordinary linguistic usage enables him to understand only in part. Even native listeners will sometimes miss the precise meaning of a witchdoctor's words because full meaning is supplied to them by the emotional response of the man who is asking about his troubles. Words which seem to convey no meaning to the ethnologist and doubtful meaning to other bystanders receive ready interpretation by the questioner t,hrough an influx of emotional colouring. This will perhaps be clearer to understand if I give an example. A man asks the practitioner who is causing blight on his ground nuts, and is informed that it is no one outside his household, nor the chief wife in his household who is responsible, but one of the other wives, who bears the chief wife malice. He may not give an opinion about which of the other wives it is, but the house- holder himself will have his own ideas about the matter, as he has full knowledge of the feelings of members of his homestead towards one another, of the whole history of their mutual contacts, and of any recent events which have disturbed the calm of his household life. When he knows that i t is not an outsider who is doing him an injury, but one of his wives, he can feel pretty certain which of them i t is, and check his surmise by consulting the berzge oracle, while strangers without the same knowledge of conditions are left in the dark. This is a very simple illustration, but it will serve. Often a witchdoctor's innuendo and its interpretation in the mind of his client are much more involved.

Hence we see how a t both ends of an enquiry the layman goes far to meet the magician. At the beginning he selects to some extent the names of those persons about whom the witch- doctor is to dance, and a t the end he supplies in part an interpretation of the witchdoctor's utterances from his own peculiar social circumstances and mental content.

I have said that a witchdoctor is successful because he reveals what his enquirer hopes that he will reveal and because he is tactful.

A witchdoctor will seldom accuse a member of the aristocracy of witchcraft. He may give an important chief information about attempts to use black magic against him by members of his family or clan, but he will not suggest that they are witches. It would hardly be politic to do this, since witchcraft is an hereditary trait. Moreover, the chiefs, however jealous of each other they may be, always maintain a class solidarity in opposition to their subjects and do not allow commoners to bring contempt upon any of their relatives. Consequently one seldom hears a witchdoctor disclose the name of a chief as a witch. I have heard commoners privately express the opinion that some chiefs are witches and use witchcraft, but this idea is seldom entertained pub1icly.l

Discretion is also advisable in revealing names of commoner witches as Azande do not always take an accusation quietly. I have seen a man rise from his place in the audience and threaten to knife a witchdoctor who was rash enough to accuse him of witchcraft, and so forcibly did he make his protest that the witchdoctor danced again and afterwards admitted an error. A witchdoctor will tell a chief who has commanded his services the names of witches, directly

I write " seldom entertained " because it does rarely happen to-day that a member of the royal clan is accused. of witchcraft, though in the one or two instances I have observed the accused has not been nearly related to any chief holding political office.

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whispering them into his ear as he sits in court, and he will oblige important commoners in the same manner. They will often divulge names of witches to ordinary clients in privacy after the seance has ended, and the spectators have returned to their homesteads. But they try as far as they are able not to be explicit in public by avoiding direct statements and, above all, by keeping clear of names. It is only when denouncing women and weak people that they are less scrupulous about mentioning names in public. It must be remembered that, apart from the possibility of an immediate scene, a witchdoctor has to live in close daily contact with his neighbours and has no desire to alienate any one of them, together with his relatives and friends, by a public insult. Also one must not forget that a witchdoctor believes in witches quite as firmly as a layman, and that he fears them equally; I$is true that while dancing a t a seance witchdoctors a,re safe since they are well primed with medicines and are on the alert against attack, but when they are unprotected and off their guard they may easily succumb to a witch who desires to avenge a public insult. On the other hand, if they whisper the names of witches to t,heir clients, then i t need never be known whom they have denounced, for their clients will not immediately disclose them, but will first place them one by one before the berqe oracle for corroboration, so that it is as a verdict of benge and not of a witchdoctor that the name is fina'lly made public?

It.is not difficult to see that a witchdoctor's revelations are largely based on local scandal and that to some extent he thinks out his answers to questions while dancing and strutting about. The Azande themselves are aware of this fact. I have attended too many seances to have any doubt about their cunning. They t'ry to couch their answers in a,s vague terms as possible so that they will give their questioner just enough information to enable him to spot a witch in his household or in the households of his neighbours, while keeping i t so in- definite that i t will not cause open offence t,o the object of denunciation. Often enough a revelation is quite impersonal, e.g. advice about hunting grounds or gardens. In their efforts to maintain this balance witchdoctors display great mental agility. To a European who stands right outside their culture their ingenuity seems rather and its products quite unconvincing, but to the native whose belief is culturally and emotionally determined the skill and inspiration of witchdoctors are very remarkable.

Nevertheless, I feel very strongly that even Europeans like myself must allow the Zande witchdoctor a measure of inspiration and not attribute his utterances solely to his reason. We must remember that people only bewitch those against whom they have a grievarce, and that the witchdoctor and his client quite consciously select between them a number of likely persons to have caused sickness or loss. The witchdoctor then commences to dance with these names in his head until he is able to decide which of them are injuring his client, and I believe that in this secondary process of selection he is very little influenced by logic. If you ask a Zande, layman or practitioner, he will tell you that what happens is that the witchdoctor begins to dance with the names of three or four likely persons in his head, and that he dances to these people and goes on. dancing until the medicines which he has previously eaten produce in him

For a description of a benge oracle see my article in Sudan Notes and Records, 1928.

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a realization of witchcraft in one of them. He becomes inspired. It is difficult to be more explicit, but I am convinced that they select one of the names through what is largely 1,111- conscious mental activity. In the first place, they dance themsclves into a condition bordering on dissociation. They are intoxicated with music created by themselves and others and dance themselves into a state of physical prostration, so that the peculiar manner in which they chop out disconnected sentences is probably only in part a traditional pose and is partly due to exhaus.tioi1 and intoxication, which, together with a firm belief that they are no longer their own masters, but in the supernatural control of medicines, produces a state tending towards dissociation. ,4s far as I can gather from what witchdoctors have told me, they keep the names in t,heir head and repeat them now and again, but otherwise allow their minds to become a complete blank. Suddenly one of the persons to whom he is dancing obtrudes himself upon the witchdoctor's consciousness, sometimes, it seems, as a visual image, but generally by an association of the idea and name of the man with a physiological disturbance, chiefly in a sudden quickening of the heart beats, which begin to pulsate violently pat-a-pat, pat-a-pat, pat-a-pat. Kamanga described to me what happens in the following words :-

" iiwitchdoctor dances and begins to see men with his eyes ; his eyes see a certain man and his heart shakes about him. He dances the witchdoctors' dance again in order to consider him further, and his heart shakes and shakes again about him. Por this reason a witchdoctor knows that that man is a witch. When the medicines take hold of him a man begins to dance with reference to someone. He dances in vain and goes in the spirit of the medicine and arrives a t another man. He sees him and his heart cools about that man. The witchdoctor says to himself, that man does not bewitch people. If he sees witchcraft in the direction of his home- stead, then the medicine will stand alert within him. So he examines his wives. If it is one of the wives of that man who is a witch, then the heart of the witchdoctor will patter about her and he will commence to make his revelations public."

I think that i t is clear from this account that a witchdoctor, while dancing, does not simply weigh up the advantages of denouncing this or that man. Doubtless he does this to some extent, but i t is evident that there is a measure of free and unconscious association. Their revelations present not a simple but a complicated psychic problem.

XI.

The witchdoctor does not merely give oracles with his lips, but he gives them with his whole body. He dances them. A witchdoctor's dance contrasts strikingly with the usual ceremonial dance of the Azande. The one is spirited, violent, ecstatic, the other slow, calm. restrained. Thi one an individual performance organized only by traditional movements and rhythm, the other a collective expression. It is true that several practitioners may perform together and when they do so they generally conform to a rough common movement, i.e. they keep in line and make similar steps to rhythm of gong and drums. But in this case they often form themselves into a professional chorus which backs up the songs of an individual performer and gives him a supporting background. Usually only one, or two a t the most, will be actually

315 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.--T~~.&6nde Corporation of TVitchdoctors.

dancing questions put to them a t the same time. Very often there is only one witchdoctor present a t a s6ance.

Their dancing is the most spirited performance of the ar t which I have ever witnessed. Once I was accustomed to their peculiar costume and weird gestures and saw their movements only as rhythmic expression I was able to observe how fine a spectacle they presented. They dance mainly on their toes, twisting their feet into every imaginable position, but always in time to song and drums. Occasionally an individual will perform some grotesque movement of his own in order to attract the attention of the spectators. Thus I have seen a man dance for a considerable time while sitting on the ground with his legs spread out in front of him. In this position he managed to propel himself about with his buttock muscles. Such an exhibition is, however, rare, being invented as a stunt by the performer, and as a rule witch- doctors restrict themselves to a common form of dance. These dances provide an additional reason why no aristocrat could become a witchdoctor, since what is a proper ritual expression in others would be for him an undignified display. On those rare occasions when a woman witchdoctor takes part in a seance she keeps in the background and performs a sedate dance on her own. She does not attempt to imitate the violent dancing of the men, as this would be regarded as most unseemly conduct and lewd exposure.

It is, moreover, important to notice that witchdoctors not only dance, but make their own music with hand-bells and rattles, so that the effect in conjunction with gong and drums is intoxicating, not only to the performers themselves, but also to their audience, and that this intoxication is an appropriate setting for the compulsive manner in which they give their oracles. Music, rhythmic movement, facial grimaces, grotesque dress, all lend their aid in creating a proper psychic atmosphere for the manifestation of esoteric powers and faith. I have myself often been carried away by this sensory stimulation to such an extent that I could almost resign myself to accepting anything said by witchdoctors, and have been surprised afterwards a t the emotional unrest which their revelations have caused me. It is perhaps more to the point to describe how their native audience reacts psycho-physically to these dances. They follow the display eagerly and move their heads to the music and even repeat the songs in a low voice when they are pleasing themselves rather than adding to the volume of chorus. It would be a great mistake to suppose that there is an atmosphere of awe during the cerem0ny.l On the contrary, everyone is jovial and amused, talking to each other and malting jokes and displaying an attitude quite untinged with mysticism towards the performance. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the success of the witchdoctors' profession is largely due to the fact that he does not rely entirely upon the settled faith of his audience, but makes belief easier by compelling their surrender to sensory stimuli.

We have to remember, moreover, that the audience is not observing simply a rhythmic performance, but also a ritual enactment of magic. It is something more than a dance, i t is a fight, partly direct and partly symbolic, against the powers of evil. The full meaning of a

I cannot agree with Mgr. Lagae that the witchdoctor " inspire B tous une crainte r&v8rencielle, surtout au cours des danses augurales " (op. cit . , p. 98). I have attended many seances and have never observed manifestations of fear and anxiety.

316 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD,-T~~ zande Corporation of Witchdoctors.

seance as a parade against witchcraft can only be grasped when this dancing is understood. An observer who recorded only questions put to the witchdoctors and the replies which they gave would leave out the whole mechanism by which the answers are obtained, and even the answers themselves. -4 witchdoctor " dances the questions."

Before the commencement of a seance the performers eat some of their mbiro medicine, which gives them power to see the unseen and also enables them to resist great physical fatigue which long and violent exercise entails. I have been told by witchdoctors that it would not be possible to stand so much exertion had they nob previously eaten medicine. Mbiro also primes them with force against the powers of witchcraft which are arrayed against them. It gives them courage. The medicine which they eat goes into their stomachs and dancing shakes i t up and sends i t all over their bodies, where i t becomes an active agent, enabling them to prophesy. In this active state i t tells them who are witches and even enables them to see spiritual emanations of witchcraft floating about as little lights. Against these evil powers they wage a tremendous fight. They rush backwards and forwards, stopping suddenly and listening intently for some sound or searching eagerly for some sight. Suddenly one of them sees witchcraft in a neighbouring garden, though it is invisible to the uninitiated, and rushes towards i t with expressive gestures of resolution and disgust, then quickly runs back to get some medicine from his horn and dashes away again to smear it on some plant or tree in garden or bush where he has seen witchcraft settle. They frequently make dashes into the bush in this way and pretend to search for mngu along a path in the grass, or from the top of an ant- hill.

Every movement in the dance is as full of meaning as speech. All this jumping and leaping embodies a world of innuendo and subtle nuance. A witchdoctor dances in front of one spectator or gazes intently a t another, and when people see this they think that he has spotted a witch, and the object of their attention feels uncomfortable. Spectators can never be quite certain about the meaning of a witchdoctor's behaviour, but they can interpret in a general way from his actions what he is feeling and seeing. Every movement, every gesture, every grimace expresses the fight they are waging against witchcraft, and i t is necessary for the meaning of a dance to be explained by witchdoctors as well as by laymen to appreciate its full wealth of innuendo.

There are sure to 6e witches among the audience, and these naturally hate the witch- doctors who are on their track. They try to make their feet heavy so that they become easily tired and cannot dance well. They try to spoil their song by preventing people from backing up their chorus so that the singing falls flat. They t ry to confuse the drummers so that they fail to correlate their beats with the rhythm of song and dance. Most of all, they attempt to bemuse the performers so that they will not give true oracular utterances. The practitio1:ers dance with all their might against these witches and utter spells against them, and if seriously annoyed may even shoot pieces of bone into their bodies and afterwards extract them in order to show everyone that they are alert. They also object to people who come and stand watching them in a superior and condescending manner instead of sitting down respectfully like the rest of the audience. They fix their eyes on these men in a ferocious stare, and unless they sit down

E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ Corporation of Witchdoctors. ~ a n d e 317

a t once will shoot pieces of bone into them so that when the recipient of a shaft returns home in the evening a slight illness will remind him of his misdemeanour. The boys who act as chorus to their songs will also be transfixed with pieces of bone, splinters of wood, and black beetles if they do not back up the choruses satisfactorily. When a witchdoctor has shot a t a boy he will walk up to him and theatrically remove his shaft, generally from the forehead when the missile is a black beetle.

When a witchdoctor shoots a missile a t anyone he does so by raising his leg and sharply kicking i t out in the direction of his objective. One will often see him aim a kick in this manner towards another witchdoctor, and his sally results in a lively duel between the two. They both advance forward into the dancing space, eyeing each other keenly, make a few preliminary hops, and then start a spirited duel of dancing opposite one another. Suddenly one of them will kick his foot out towards his fellow practitioner, who twists round with agility to allow the bone shaft to sail past him. The latter then retaliates by shooting in the same manner a t his companion, whose turn i t is to avoid the missile. Members of the audience prefer not to be in the direct line of fire during these bouts, lest a bone or splinter shoots past its objective and becomes embedded in their bodies. If one of the combatants believes that he has shot his opponent he walks up to him and removes his missile with evident triumph. Generally these fights are sham encounters staged in order that witchdoctors may show off their abilities before their audience, but when the protagonists are jealous of one another there is frequently an element of ill-nature in the display. If professional rivalry tends to embitter the sport, a third witchdoctor will sometimes dance in between the opponents, waving his hand up and down to placate them until they desist. I remember how Kamanga gained a triumph during our trek in the Belgian Congo, after a long and exhausting battle with another witchdoctor, who had resented his presence in the district as an act of professional poaching, by causing his hat and leglets to fall off during the engagement by means of his magic ammunition. People say that a witchdoctor who has been wounded in this manner will return home to experience slight sickness. Later, when I describe the internal structure of the corporation of witchdoctors, I will speak more fully of these rivalries (see Section XXI). When a combat is a friendly duel, engaged in solely for spectacular effect, the two practitioners will often walk up to each other a t its termination and shake hands.

XII.

Among primitive peoples dancing is almost invariably accompanied by song, and such is the case among the Azande.l The dance of these witchdoctors is an illustrative case. A witchdoctor, before commencing to dance, struts about singing his songs and keeping time with his hand-bells. Drums and gong. then join in. When he has sung a song two or three times the performers, the chorus of boys, and the adult audience have caught his words and tune, and the song is sung antiphonally, the witchdoctor sings a verse which is repeated by the other people present. The witchdoctor begins to sing the verse over again as his audience is finishing

I have given a preliminary account of Zande dance and song in my paper on "The Dance," Africa, Vol. I, 1928.

318 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-TheZalzde Corporation of Witchdoctors.

their response, so that the two slightly overlap, as is common in antiphonal singing in Africa. Normally a song has one short verse which is sung over and over again.

Owing to the fact that songs differ functionally fron: ordinary speech, i t is often extremely ciifficult to ascertain their meaning. This is particularly the case with a witchdoctor's song. A practitioner of standing has his own repertoire, to which he frequently adds, while a novice will generally content himself with popularizing the creations of his teacher. A man who is quite unable to compose songs of any merit will purloin those of his colleagues. In many songs the creator alone knows their full meaning, which is hidden from other persons by its cloak of imagery. It is obvious that every man speaks in a sense his own language, since to himself what he says has a different meaning, however slight, from the meaning it conveys to other persons. When imagery is used the difference becomes wider, since only those who know the peculiar circumstances in which a speech or song is created are able to interpret i t correctly. When euphemism is employed, not with the desire to maintain decorum, but with the object of hiding the meaning of a song from all but the singer himself and possibly a few others who can understand its allusions, i t acquires two different meanings, the manifest, known to everyone, and the latent, with a circumscribed range of intelligibility which is even sometimes restricted to the singer alone. Witchdoctors' songs contain all sorts of subtle reflections on persons who might do them an injury were they understood. As far as the audience is concerned, the words might be little more than sounds which fit into a rhythmic scheme if i t were not that, on account of various technical difficulties, such as the need for memorizing the sounds, a manifest meaning of some kind is psychologically necessary. As is usual in African songs various phonetic and grammatical changes take place, such as ellipsis and assimilation, but I need not further elaborate this theme in the present place, especially as I hope to do so elsewhere in so far as I am competent to cope with technical problems of this nature.

It is necessary, however, that I should give a few examples of songs to show how their contents are often related to the ritual procedure of the whole s6ance. The meaning of a song is often just as much associated with these ritual purposes as the dancing which it accompanies. It expresses in the same manner subtle nuances, though, as I have explained above, it does not follow that i t is understood by the audience or even by other witchdoctors present, but its full meaning may be restricted to the composer-soloist alone. Thus Badobo used to sing :-

Kulu o, du mo na ngume, ngunze nabiliko YO.

Rat o, you are with sand, sand is dirtying you ( 2 ) .

I am not certain whether this verse, as i t stands, is phonetically and grammatically possible in ordinary Zande speech.l I t s latent meaning, according to Badobo, indicates, to him a t any rate, and possibly to other people also, that the man who is sitting next to the owner of the homestead (the man who has summoned t'he witchdoctors) is deceiving him. Probably i t only

I Kulu probably represents a vowel assimilation of kzili, the ordinary word for rat, or it may represent kulu, the bree rat. I was told that the second half of the sentence meant " sand is dirtying you " but I am not sure whether biliko can be used in a transitive sense. It may be a faulty transcription for nabilikn, "is deceiving," the a being assimilated to the succeeding Q . This is likely as it has a aense more in accordance with the meaning given in Badobo's commentary.

sometimes conveys this meaning and is generally sung simply as a song, the latent meaning of whic,h is not to be sought in the present situation, but in one particular situation in the past which gave rise to its creation. I do not understand the relation of the manifest meaning of the song (about rat,, sand, etc.) to the latent meaning (deception of householder). The relat,ion between manifest and latent meanings is cIea'r in the following song, which appears to have a wide range of intelligibilit,~ among the Azande :-

Saka a,u?ne oo eee, afii asungu na li ni ~ a k aaume. Weep oo eee, we will sit down and weep with her.

The " her " in this song is the dewili kangba, the sister of the corpse, i.e. the chief mourner, and the commentary which explains its meaning says, " When a man is sick unto death and i t is quite beyond the ability of witchdoctors to cure him, they commence to sing this song. It reveals t o everyone that that man will not recover,"l i.e. the man about whose health they are dancing. Sometimes a song has a general association with witchcraft or medicines without referring to any specific person or situation, though in the opinion of Azande a latent meaning generally exists in the mind of the performer. ,4 simple example is this song in which J3adol;o extols himself :-

Ee, Badobo o, ani amera rza ftgwa. Ee, Badobo o, we will wander with magic.

i.e., Radobo is a famous witchdoctor and will be called to distant districts for his professional services. Yet other songs are totally unrelated to magic or witchcraft, and their meaning is associated with a variety of social events, just like songs sung a t dances or a t beer parties. I will give two examples only :-

Nyemu de rzimrzgi re yulu oo wa nzanga, nyenw de nimarzgi re yulu oo wa nzangn. Desire for a woman took hold of me in the night oo like madness, desire for a

woman took hold of me in the night oo like madness. Gadia yo 00, dn ka 1tuno re ro gadia yo F 2 Manioc leaves 00, who would stuff me with manioc leaves ?

The suggestion in the seconii example is that the chief, instead of giving his subjects decent food when they go to court to see him, feeds them on despised manioc leaves, which are only eaten when there is no other food. The advantage of euphemism in a song of this nature is that if the creator is taken to task by his chief for insulting him, he can either deny that it has reference to the meanness of anyone or can pretend that i t has reference to someone whom t,he chief will be pleased to hear lampooned. In the old days, however, a man would avoid even the possibility that a chief might think that a song had reference to himself.

" 0 boro nambeda ni nu kpio, ka si adunga wa ka abinza batasi n i wa sa ya, i lei nirna ka bi gi biu re ; si k i yugu e f u aboro ya gu boro re ni datanga te." This commentary and these songs were written for me by my Zande clerk.

8 Lumo is not given in either Lagae and Plass or in Gore's Zande dictionaries. I t is used to express the action of a wife who hides part of a meal from her guests so that her husband can later stuff himself in his hut when his guests have departed.

320 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ .Zavl.de Cor]loration of Witchdoctors.

I will not bore the reader with any more examples of the song element in a seance. It is sufficient to have shown that these songs have a rhythmic function in accompanying-other kinds of muscular movement, and that Oheir latent meanings, and sometimes manifest meaning also, are often closely associated with the ritual procedure of a seance just as are latent meanings of the dance steps or of a witchdoctor's facial expression, i.e. they have a general function in common with all Zande songs and a special function in their particular ritual situation.

I have explained that there are several elements in a seance which tend to create faith ; a witchdoctor's truculent statements of fact which impress on his listeners his self-confidence and assured knowledge ; his dreamy disconnected utterances which arise from the medicines inside him, and which demonstrate to his hearers that he is in the grip of supernatural powers ; his weird dress, grotesque dance, exaggerated antics, and magic tricks ; the element of rhythmic compulsion ; the way in which he gives oracular answers to questions so that they are stimulated by, interpreted by, and satisfy, the emotional desires of his clients. It may well be asked, nevertheless, whether a Zande audience has con~plete faith in the utterances of its witchdoctors. Can they really believe in all this hocus-pocus ?

Ethnological literature almost entirely neglects queries of this kind. Therefore I was surprised to find a considerable body of sceptical opinion in many departments of Zande culture. I was especially impressed by Zande scepticism about the supernatural powers claimed by their witchdoctors. There is much variation of opinion among individuals about these powers. Savages do not all hold the same opinion any more than Europeans do. Quot homiws tot sententice is also true of primitive societies. Some men are more credulous than others and less critical in their acceptance of statements made by professional magicians. These differences of opinion depend largely upon modes of upbringing, range of social contacts, variations of individual experience, and possibly also on innate dispositions.

Many people say that the great majority of witchdoctors are a pack of liars whose sole cowern is to acquire wealth. I found that it was quite a normal belief among Azande that many of the practitioners are largely charlatans who make up any reply which they think will please their questioner, and whose sole inspiration is love of gain. It is indeed probable that Zande faith in their witchdoctors has declined since European conquest of their country twenty- five years ago, on account of the large increase in membership of the corporation. In the old days only one or two men in a district used to function as witchdoctors, whereas to-day they number scores. I have noticed again and again in other departments of Zande magic that faith tends to lessen as ownership spreads. To-day a witchdoctor has little scruple about teaching as many pupils as he can obtain and charging them ridiculously small fees in comparison with old-time standards. He cares only about increasing his wealth. Moreover, the same risk does not now attach to the profession as used to be the case, when an error of judgment might entail serious consequences. Doubtless also the new spacial density of government settlements has had some influence in wider diffusion of magic. Absence of warfare and feud also gives more frequent contacts and extends the social boundaries of an individual's life.

321 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~.?h.ilde CoTpoTatiolz of Witchdoctors.

General cultural disequilibrium due to the pathological condition of Zande society to-day, in which the doctrines of magic and witchcraft have ceased to function adequately, have tended to make of witchdoctorhood a pastime rather than a serious profession. Nevertheless, there are many evidences which shour decisively that scepticism in this sphere of Zande life is not a new phenomenon. There is, moreover, no question of direct Caucasian influence here, because such influence is very slight among those Azande with whom I was best acquainted. *4lso, old men who can be quite acquitted of "white" influence have expressed to me the same scepticism about witchdoctors. Thus my old friend Ongosi used to tell me that most of what the witchdoctors told their audiences was just bera, just " supposition," they think out what is the most likely cause of any trouble and put i t forward, in the guise of an inspired oracle, as a likely guess, but it is not sar~gbaNywa, the words of medicine, i.e. i t is not derived from the supernatural power of the medicines which they have eaten.

Ongosi is a man who has spent his whole life in close association with the court, life of kings whom he has served and has largely acquired their detached attitude towards "Zande " (commoner) practices. My informant, Koagbiaro, had the same detached viewpoint a's a result of an even closer association with court life. He was never deeply moved by revelations of witchdoctors and even treated them with a measure of open contempt. A youth who had been captured as a child from the Baka tribe to the East of Gbudwe's kingdom, and had been brought up as a prince's confidential page, showed even greater scorn for witchdoctors, and I once heard him mock a party of them m;ho were partaking of a communal meal of medicines. He told them that their medicines were of litt,le use, since he, who had, a t the command of his master, beaten many a witchdoctor, had never suffered any consequences of his actions, whereas if their medicines were any use he would surely have died before now. His mockel-p was only half serious and was not entirely to the point, since the medicines of ~itchdoct~ors have only slight and secondary protective functions, but i t is nevertheless symptomatic of an under- current of scepticism. The witchdoctors laughed rather sheepishly a t this sally and lamely insisted on their powers. It was difficult for them to reply more adequately to the confidant of their prince, t o whom they were accustomed to extend the same pattern of sycophantic behaviour which they showed to his master. Another instance is that of my cook, Zingbondo,l whose remarks were often tinged with refreshing cynicism, a,nd who was accustomed to speak lightly of witchdoctors. He contrasts in a remarkable manner with Kamanga, who was a fervent believer in all kinds of magic, and especially in the magic powers of witchdoctors, a belief which months of mild effort on my part. failed to break down.

I particularly do not wish to give the impression that there is anyone who disbelieves in witchdoctorhood. The view of most of my acquaintances is that there are a few entirely reliable practitioners, but that most of them are mere quacks. Hence in the case of any particular witchdoctor they are never quite certain whether reliance can be placed on his statements or not. They know that some witchdoctors lie and that others tell the truth. There is no cert'ain means of immediately knowing from his behaviour into which category any witchdoctor falls.

He had been 2 years in military service and hsd travelled to Wan-Kamanga, had also travelled to a wider extent than most Azande.

VOL. LXII. X

322 *E.E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-TheZalde Corporation of Witchdoctors.

They reserve judgment and temper faith with scepticism. I t must be remembered that it is always possible eventually to check the statements of a witchdoctor once and for all by putting them before the benge oracle, which never lies. It is obvious that benge, which is not under human control, will not always support the oracular utterances of a witchdoctor, so that it is not surprising that the Zande has developed intellectual doubts. I have often heard even witchdoctors themselves admit that not all members of their corporation are reliable and honest, but only those who have received proper medicines from persons qualified to initiate them.

Moreover, the existence of scepticism does not depend on remarks made by individuals to me or overheard by me, but is shown culturally in a number of other ways. Thus young chiefs, and sometimes commoners of influence also, will test witchdoctors by playing a

joke upon them. An old chief would have too deep a sense of courtesy towards his subjects to put them to public shame in this manner. The following free translation of a text describes the test :-

" If you want to know whether a witchdoctor cheats you, cook some porridge and then you pour some water into a pot as though it were a flavouring to accompany the porridge. You then carefully bind leaves round the top of the pot and place it by the side of the bowl of porridge. You then say to the witchdoctor, ' Tell us the name of the flavouring in that pot.' If he does not tell you the name of the flavouring, then you will give him nothing, but after you have let him dance a little you will tell him that it is finished and that he may go. The chiefs often play this trick. Some of them use a hen's wing1 for the purpose. The chief takes the wing of a hen, with which they have previously consulted the oracle benge, and places it in front of him, and says to the witchdoctor, ' Tell us the name of the man to whose name this hen died.' If the witchdoctor is himself a witch he will give the name of the man to whom the hen died, because he knows it on account of his witchcraft. But he who is not a witch will in nowise give the man's name. Those witchdoctors who are themselves witches are few indeed. I t is they also who do wonderful things. They beat their stomachs and blood comes from their stomachs out of their mouths. They summon bees and hornets and wasps to come and scatter everyone. They open their mouths and millipedes and worms creep out. Those who do these things are witches in truth, there is no deception in their performances."z

Sometimes a young chief will put a piece of old iron, or, indeed, any object, in a pot in this manner and will tell the witchdoctors to divine what is inside it. An old commoner friend of mine once placed a knife in a closed pot and summoned witchdoctors to tell him what the pot contained. After three witchdoctors had danced the better part of the day and had made a number of wildly incorrect guesses about what was in the pot, the fourth still maintained silence and continued to dance. The master of the homestead called to him and told him in the presence of the audience that the sun was sinking and that people were desirous of returning to their homes for the evening, and suggested that he should say what was in the pot as soon as possible, so that the sitance might break up. A little while afterwards the master of the

1 After a hen has died from strychnine in the benge oracle they cut off its wing and spread it on a small atick which is carried about.

Text written by my Zande clerk.

323 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-TheZande Corporation of Witchdoctors.

homestead left the audience and went on private business into one of his huts. The witch- doctor followed him and secretly asked him there to tell him what was in the pot, so that he could save his reputation in the face of a large audience. My friend, however, refused his request, called him a knave, and told him that he would get nothing for his day's exertion.

I t is evident that only a people imbued with a measure of scepticism could treat magicians in this manner. Only a people who understood that much of the power claimed by magicians is nothing but shrewd guesswork, coupled with professional dogmatism, could thus mock them. Yet my friend who placed a knife in a pot and asked witchdoctors what tbe pot contained believed firmly in every kind of magic, was, in fact, himself a magician of standing, and believed, moreover, in the particular kind of magic which gives prophetic powers to witchdoctors. When he was in trouble he summoned practitioners to his homestead and listened with respect to their words. He was convinced that some witchdoctors were genuine and could tell you their names. These genuine practitioners might make mistakes, but they possessed excellent medicines which gave them real prophetic powers, and, above all, they possessed mangu (witchcraft). He believed that only those practitioners who are themselves witches can observe and control witchcraft. Only through Beelzebub can you cast out devils. This point of view. is shown clearly in the text which I have given above. Zande doctrine holds that one witch can see another witch and observe what he is doing in the world of witchcraft, whilst laymen have no cognizance of witch activity, which they can trace only through their oracles. Hence a witch- doctor who is also a witch may be relied upon to give correct information about his companions. Surely. say the Azande, they ought to know all about their own mother's sons. Witchdoctors naturally do not admit this interpretation of their powers, which they'attribute solely to their magic. They admit that members of their corporation have mangu in their stomachs, but i t is m a ~ y ugenera,ted by magic and of quite a different nature to mangu of witches, which is a biological inheritance (see Section XVIII). The layman is not entirely convinced by this subtle distinction and prefers to state plainly that it is ordinary mangu in their own stomachs which enables successful practitioners to see it in the stomachs of others. I t is said that there are two kinds of witchdoctors, those who have a certain amount of magic, but are not very talented, and those who possess both medicines and witchcraft. It is these latter who are the real experts. Mgr. Lagae also records this Zande opinion : " J'ai constatit toutefois que d'aucuns parmi les Azande ont B leur itgard plus de crainte que d'estime. Le fait que les devins de l'avule reconnaissent, sous l'influence de leurs drogues, les sorciers et les gens de mauvais ceil, les rend, philosophes qu'ils sont, un peu soupponneux. 11s savent que les gens de mauvais ceil, les aboro ma7qu, se reconnaissent entre eux. Et alors ? Oh ! ils sont prudents ; ils ne tirent paa de conclusion. 11s ne sont pas rassuds, voilB tout. A l'occasion ils consulteront ces devins, comme font tous les Azande."l The only point upon which I venture to differ from Mgr. Lagae's description is about the prudence of the Azande in not expressing their conclusions. I have many times heard people express quite openly their opinions that successful witchdoctors axe themselves witches. A man would not deliberately offend a practitioner by casting t h s opinion in his teeth, but I have several times heard Azande, especially chiefs, chaffing witchdoctors

324 &wui?eE. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ Corporatiora of Witchdoctors.

abmt their mangu. It is one of the traditional ideas associated with the corporation, and every- one knows it and can express i t openly if he chooses to do so.

Another way in which we can measure popular belief in witchdoctors is by ranging them alongside of other oracular agencies. Nobody would suggest that revelations of witchdoctors were as reliable as those of the oracle-magic benge (giving strychnine to fowls). The highest compliment which you can pay a really able practitioner is to tell him that he is prophesying wu kina benge, " just like benge," i.e. with complete accuracy. Nor can the witchdoctor be considered on the same level as the dukpwu oracle (placing of pieces of wood in termite mounds). Rather the dzande compare them with the iwu, a rubbing oracle which is manipulated by man and which is known to make many errors. Hence it is regarded as a mistake to make any of the customary moves against witchcraft on the statement of either a rubbing oracle or of a witchdoctor, until i t has first of all been corroborated by a verdict of the benge oracle. Thus we again find scepticism about witchdoctors expressed in this cultural gradation of oracles. The Zande shows his suspicions of the human element in oracles by placing greater reliance on benge and dukpwa, which work through natural agencies, than on iwu or the witchdoctors, the one manipulated by human direction, the other in itself a human agency.

Many people are also cynical about such tricks as those mentioned in the text given above. Witchdoctors sometimes place caterpillars in a horn and insert the horn beneath their bark- cloth waist covering. As they dance large hairy caterpillars emerge from these horns and crawl over their bodies, and they are supposed to come from inside their abdomens. I have witnessed this trick and was able to discuss it on the spot with several of the audience and later to elicit fuller private cdmments. Many people genuinely believed that a miracle had been performed. I think that most were uncertain how to account for the appearance of a host of caterpillars. They knew that caterpillars can be hidden, but they had no direct evidence to convince them that they were being tricked. They knew also that in the past witchdoctors had performed greater miracles and that even to-day there are wonderful things to be seen by those who can visit distant parts where practitioners have more powerful medicines than those in their own neighbourhood. No one puts limits to magical endeavour, and witchcraft is thought to be omnipotent, ubiquitous, and protean. Such men reserved judgment. Whatever they thought they kept i t to themselves, and if questioned would reply : " Oh, chief, what can a man say to a thing like this ? It is a wonderful thing and witchdoctors have great magic. Who can be sure of understanding what they do ? Perhaps it is fraud, perhaps it is genuine, who can say ? " On the other hand, a few people were frankly and openly sceptical about the whole performance, which they regarded as a trick and which they laughed a t publicly, saying that if witchcraft really put caterpillars into a man, he would not be dancing about happily, but would be lying seriously ill a t home. One of these Nature's scientists told me with a smirk that he had seen a witchdoctor collecting caterpillars off bush grasses on the day preceding the ceremony, and commented with cynical composure : " Perhaps i t was those caterpillars he produced to-day-or perhaps these were different ones which came from his stomach."

In another trick which I witnessed a witchdoctor lies down on his back a t full length and a heavy grinding stone is placed on his chest and pounded with a pestle by a fellow-practitioner.

E. E. EV,INS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ Witchdoctors.Zande Corporation of

AS the other witchdoctors crowd round him, singing and ringing their hand-bells, jumping into the air and shrieking, i t is difficult for laymen to see exactly what is happening, and they are much impressed that the witchdoctor shows no signs of collapse under this ordeal, a fortitude which they attribute to his magic. In virtue of my social position I was better placed to observe this wonder, being allowed to squat down beside the performers and was thus able to see the exact manner in which the stone was placed on the chest of the recumbent man. This trick, if it merits a title which suggests a greater degree of skill, was transparent. Just before the stone was placed on his body the witchdoctor asked for his hand-bells, and in taking them he flexed his arms so that the weight of the stone fell on his elbows, and it was his arms and not

his chest which bore the greater force of pounding by the pestle. He suffered no injury owing to the elasticity of his flexed arms. This fact, I discovered afterwards, is known to some laymen.

The commonest piece of by-play which witchdoctors perform a t sBances is the production of blood from their mouths. Blood is believed by laymen to be produced in two ways. -A witchdoctor may cut his tongue quite openly and allow the blood to stream from his lips for all to see. The miracle here consists in the fact that the cuts are alleged to heal in a remarkably short space of time owing to the mbiro medicine which is eaten after their incision. Witch-doctors will tell you that if you look a t their tongues on the morning following a sBance a t which they have lacerated them with a knife, you will not observe any wounds. I have made a rough examination and have observed no sores. I can well understand that the tongue is an excellent part of the body for such a display, since i t is invisible, and if exposed for examination would probably show cuts less than would an exterior cutaneous surface. Blood is also said to be produced by repeated thumps on the abdomen, and I have often seen a witchdoctor labouring blows on his abdomen and then vomiting blood. This always impresses an audience, many of whom think that it is a wonderful thing to be able to do. Others suspect a trick-I make no effort to estimate their proportion to the faithful-and some undoubtedly know how the blood is really produced, since a Zande once told me how, a t a sBance, a t which we had both been present during the afternoon, he had observed one of the performers go behind a hut in the vicinity, there cut his tongue with a knife, and later emerge, thump his abdomen a few times, and as a result vomit mysterious blood. Even this man believed, however, that there were witchdoctors who could produce blood in this way without fraud, and he instanced one or.

two particular persons. There are a variety of other tricks which witchdoctors perform in order to produce

faith among laymen. I shall describe later in this essay the manner in which they perform the trick, common throughout -4frica, of extracting material objects from the bodies of their patients. This treatment does not take place a t a sbance, except in a minor form, when a witchdoctor has himself shot such an object into a spectator as a jeu d'esprit, but i t takes place when a witchdoctor, called a binza in this r61e, is summoned privately to attend a sick person, not as a prophet, but as a physician. In treating his patient the binza generally makes a poultice from the bast of the kpoyo tree or from twisted bingba grass and places this on the affected part, where he has previously made one or two slight incisions with his knife. He then

326 &nde Witchdoctors.E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Corporation of

massages the part with his hands and eventually withdraws the poultice and searches in it- with invariable success-for a bone or piece of charcoal or some such object, which he exposes to the wonder and satisfaction of the sick man's family. Sometimes he does not use a poultice. but simply sucks the affected part with his mouth, from which he produces the offending object, the hu ma.ngu, the thing of witchcraft, as i t is called.

Now i t is well known that many abinza cheat in this performance by concealing the objects in a number of ways ; when a poultice is used, in the poultice ; when the mouth is alone employed, in the mouth. Most Azande can explain how this trickery is performed and can advise you to insist upon the use of a poultice made from kpoyo instead of from bingba, because it is less easy to cheat with kpoyo. They can also advise you to make sure that the witchdoctor holds out his hands for inspection and to see that he washes his mouth out with water. Like those who go to spiritualist "sittings" in our own country, they exercise some controls, but not the requisite ones, and I have always found that if I insisted upon scientific control the Zande witch- doctor objected in the same way as the European medium objects. But Azande, although they realize that deception is possible and is indeed often practised, are neverthless convinced that many practitioners are honest and produce genuine manifestations just as, once again, spiritual- ists are aware that many psychic phenomena can be, and are, produced by fraud, but nevertheless believe wholeheartedly that the same phenomena can be produced by genuine supernormal means through bow Jide mediums. Some witchdoctors fake their psychic objects (the uhzc mangu), while others have power to discover and reveal these supernatural things. Here again we find wide differences of mental approach among different laymen. Kamanga, for instance, always showed sublime faith in abinza, and the weeks which I spent in trying to convince him that their treatment was fraud, pure and simple, were wasted. No argument made any lasting impression upon him, since i t could be countered by answering that there was nothing new in the suggestion of fraud, but that it covered only part of the phenomena and not all of them. It was only when Kamanga was learning the art of witchdoctorhood himself that he became convinced that the method of extracting objects from their patients, employed by the witchdoctors of our locality, were fraudulent. I felt deeply for him at the time as I have never seen a man more shaken a t the tumbling of the beliefs of his childhood and youth. Yet I do not think that even this experience convinced him thoroughly that all abinzu are frauds. He now knew that those with whom he came into contact cheated their patients, but he still thought it probable that witchdoctors exist who have strong enough magic genuinely to discover and extract these objects of witchcraft.

It must be remembered also that these differences of emotional attitude are not merely differences between one individual and another, but are also differences between the same

individual in different situations. In my paper on Zande witchcraft I pointed out that a man will react, and will express his reaction in behaviour and belief, in quite different ways in different situations, as when he is sick, when he is himself accused of witchcraft, or when he is merely

retailing Zande doctrine to a European. In the same manner I have noticed on more than one occasion that a man who frequently used to speak with a measure of contempt about witch-

dootors has, nevertheless, made speed to visit them when he was in pain. Also a man who

E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-?'~~ Witchcloctors. 327,%ride Corporation of

readily accuses witchdoctors of deception when they expose him as a witch will as readily applaud their skill when they expose someone else, particularly if it is his enemy.

In spite of the difficulties of making a clear analysis of belief, i t is nevertheless certain that

all Zande have full understanding of the possibilities of fraud. The following text was spoken by a man of unusual brilliance, but at the same time represents popular opinion :-

" When a man becomes sick they send for a witchdoctor. Before the witchdoctor comes to the sick man he scrapes down an animal's bone and hammers it till it is quite small and then drops it into the rnbiro medicine in his horn. He later arrives at the home- stead of the sick man and then takes a mouthful of water and swills his mouth round with it and opens his mouth so that people can look into it. He also spreads out his hands to them so that everyone can see them, and speaks thus to them : ' Observe me well, I am not a cheat, since I have no desire to take anything from anyone fraudulently.'

" He gets up and takes his medicine in its horn and puts i t down beside him, shoves a little stick into it and then licks the stick, at the same time taking a little bone into his mouth. He applies his mouth to the affected part of the sick man's body, sucks it for a long time, and then takes his mouth away and spits out the little bone into the palm of his hand and shows it to everyone, saying : ' This is the thing which is causing his sickness.' He goes on doing this in the same manner until all the bones which he has taken into his mouth are used up.

" But those witchdoctors who are themselves witches know who is injuring the sick man. Before he goes to see the sick man such a witchdoctor first of all visits the witch and pleads with him, saying : ' Will you do me the favour of leaving that man alone so that he will get well from his sickness, and everyone will speak well of me and say that truly I am a trustworthy witchdoctor.'

" The witch says to him : ' All right, I will be generous on your account. If it was any other witchdoctor I would certainly refuse the request. But when you go to the sick man, remember that you must bring back all the presents you receive so that we can share them.' The witchdoctor replies : ' I will bring all the presents here to you and we will share them. I only want to increase my reputation among the people, and that is why I have come to ask you to do me a favour, so that when I have treated the sick man he will get completely well.'

" The witch consents to the witchdoctor's proposal and goes off with his faked objects to the sick man, deceives him, and goes home. The sick man a t once recovers, because the witch has already released his hold of him. The witchdoctor hears that the sick man has got quite well, and sends a messenger for his present, since he cured him. The relatives of the sick man will certainly not refuse to give him a present, because they think that it is he who has saved their relative. They give him his present as he desires, even if it is two spears they will give them to him. Witchdoctors always cheat with witches in order to get presents from people. But a witchdoctor who is not himself a witch knows nothing, arid people will always call him a cheat."l

Text taken down from my informant Kisanga by my clerk Reuben (nee Zingbalimboli).

328 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Wztchdoctors.Znrzde Corporatzorz of

Two points emerge clearly from this account. The first point is that people know not only that the abirzza can produce objects from the bodies of their patients by fraud, but also that they are aware of the kind of fraud he employs. The second point is that this knowledge does not conflict with great faith in witchdoctors, because it is believed that a considerable number of them do actually produce remarkable cures through their traffic with the powers of evil. Once more we notice the common belief that the only successful fighters against witchcraft are those endowed with witchcraft themselves.

I will mention a final instance to illustrate Zande scepticism in this department of their culture. A friend of mine once gave me a circumstantial account of how he had found out a witchdoctor's trickery. He had seen a man produce a red substance from his patient's body, and it struck him that this red substance was very like a common flower. As it had been raining heavily earlier in the day, he was able to trace the witchdoctor's footsteps to the edge of his patient's garden, where he found a plant with several of its red flowers plucked 0ff.l

XIV.

I have laid special emphasis upon the fact that Azande are fully aware of deception practised by their witchdoctors in the r6le of surgeons, and of their inefficiency in the r61e of prophets. As in many other of their custom3, we find a mingling of common sense with superstition. A clear rational outlook does not clash with faith in the supernatural. Nevertheless, it is always possible to observe that man's powers of empirical observation are never altogether quenched by socially determined ignorance. His scepticism remains compatible with his beliefs through further social mechanism, which directs it into channels where it cannot destroy faith. Thus while Azande are certain that many witchdoctors cheat, they are equally certain that a number of them are inspired prophets and healers. Society compels them in situations of stress to react by consulting witchdoctors and to believe in them. Their faith is maintained by myth- making.

I have already pointed out that there is a tendency to-day for witchdoctors to multiply ouc of proportion to the whole population. The older men are especially severe in their judgment of them as paltry money-makers without any real qualifications to practise at all. They tell you with pride about the old days, when there would be only one or two experts in each district, and contrast the competence of these experts with the incompetence of the present crowd.2 A man who speaks thus may be regarded as a lnudator temporis acti-in other words, as a myth- maker. Stereotyped myth and current tradition provide strong backing for the corporation of witchdoctors, giving the uninitiated precedent for their beliefs and a basis for their faith.

I may add that many Azande know that the blackbeetles which witchdoctors produce so mysteriously from people's bodies are in point of fact concealed in their mouths the whole time.

2 Old men tell me that in t,he past the ritual was less elaborate than to-day. The performances were less varied and involved. I n the old days also no one thought of using waterbuck horns as receptacles for their medicines butused the smaller bushbuck horns. It was also usual in old times for a witchdoctor to give the drummers some medicine t o eat before the seance began. There are probably a number of other small variations.

329 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ Zande Cor~oration of Witchdoctors.

I t is true that Zande culture is singularly unproductive in mythology and the fields of magic are especially barren in this respect, myth being found almost alone in association with wit,ch- doctors, and even here i t is seldom either well developed or well formulated.

There is the story of Madina, a woman who was found living in a hole in the rocks, and who founded the corporation of witchdoctors ; the story of her son Nzoropoi, who caused birds to fall about him like rain when he sang and danced ; the story of the woman Semeni whose stomach was cut open after death and disclosed several of the most important medicines of the witchdoctors ; and there are a number of references to the powers of witchdoctors in the rich cycle of stories about Tule. The most important traditions, however, are those which tell of famous witchdoctors of four or five generations ago in the days of Yakpati and Mabenge. The account which I give here tells of miracles performed by witchdoctors of those times, and Azande certainly believe in the events recorded in these traditions :-

" There was a man living at the court of Mabenge whose name was Dengbagine.l No one knew who were his father and his mot,her. He be,gat Rakpo and Rakpo begat Bakuparanga.

"An army came to make war on Mabenge and encamped a t the edge of that broad river, the Uelle, on the opposite bank. Mabenge began to gather his subjects together and went and camped on the ba,nks of the Uelle, but he found it impossible to cross over to the other side owing to the size of the river. There was present Mabenge's witchdoctor, whose name was Dengbagine, a man who used to perform many wonderful things. Deng-bagine took up his hand-bells and struck the waters with them, and the waters divided and left a path to the other side. Everyone crossed over to the other bank, and he struck the water again and the waters closed upon each other t o their places.

" They went to battle and fought for a long while, and Mabenge overcame the enemy. They began to return and came again to the banks of the Uelle and were unable to cross over to this side. But Dengbagine came again and did what he had done before, and the waters divided and all the people crossed over to this side, together with all those things they had taken in the battle and with many capt,ives.

"When they had arrived on t,his side of the Uelle the old men began to conspire against Dengbagine, saying to Mabenge that if he continued to live he would use deceit to kill Mabenge, and that it would be well if they were to destroy him a t once, lest he should do some evil to Mabenge. Mabenge gave assent to what the old men said to him, because he also had been struck with wonder on account of the miracle which Dengbagine had per- formed.

" SO they went and seized Dengbagine, intending to bind him a,nd slay him, but he besought them, saying : ' Bring a stone and bind i t to my breast and throw me with it into the water, but on no account pierce me with a spear.' So they bound a stone to hie chest. Then he besought them again about his hand-bells, and they gave them to him and

I have recorded this story briefly in my paper in the American Anthropologist. There Dengbagine is called Repa. This version was written by my Zande clerk. There are several versions which differ slightly from one anot,her. One version is given by Hutereau, op. cit., pp. 161-162.

E. E. EVAR'S-PRITCHARD.-T~~ Z a l ~ d e Coryoratiolz of Witchdoctors.

he held them in his hands. Then they lifted him up and threw hinl into the water with the stone bound to his breast. He remained for a little while beneath the water and then he rose to the surface with his hand-bells in his hands. Everyone saw him above the water a s he walked upon the waters even on his feet. Beating of drum and gong suddenly began in the waters and the chorus of a song from the mouths of many men. He began to dance his witchdoctors' dance and rose on high and continued to dance in the air to a very great height, while the drum still sounded in the waters, though no one knew who was beating it for him. After he had danced for a long time he went suddenly into the sky, but his hand-bells fell t o earth a t the feet of Mabenge and entered into the earth. Then he suddenly disappeared, so that no man saw him.

" Then Mabenge went back to his homestead, but as soon as he had arrived a t his homestead he began to die on account of those hand-bells which had fallen a t his feet and entered into the ground. He became sick and died a t once.

"Yakpati,, son of RIabenge, began to plot against Bakuparanga, the son of Deng- bagine,l because\ his father had killed Ma,benge. One day a t dusk Yakpati entered into his hut and thus spake to his wife : ' That man Bakuparanga, I want to kill him to-morrow--: because his father has incurred a debt which must be settled.' His wife, whose name was Nawote, said to him : ' Oh, chief, if you kill him, will not the children sicken 1 2 Because he is a good witchdoctor who knows not fraud.' Yakpati replied : 'That is not so, he will surely die.'

"Bakuparanga was a powerful witchdoctor, and as they spoke about him thus he heard their words because he was a witch.

" In the early morning Yakpati sent a messenger to him to tell him to come to dance the dance of the witchdoctors. Bakuparanga came to court and Yakpati appeared in his court and said to him : ' I have sent for you to come and dance the dance of the witch- doctors for me.' But he said this to deceive him, because he desired to kill him. Baku-paranga rose and said to the drummers : 'Mind you beat the drums for me bravely, because I intend to dance well to-day.' He started off on his dance and to sing his song, which was : Yakpati has spoken thus oo, Let them kill Bakuparanga, Nawote spake, Tl7ill not the children sicken ? '

"After he had danced thus for a long while he said to the drummers : ' Cease beating the drums,' and there was silence. He strutted about all over the dancing place, and then told the drummers to beat the drums again. They leapt to it and beat them bravely. He danced for a little while, then sprang from the earth and danced in mid-air without any support. While everyone was wondering a t this he went up further and further until he was completely out of sight. Only his hand-bells came from on high and fell to earth and entered right into the ground. Bakuparanga remained for ever in the sky.

At the beginning of this text he was given as Dengbagine's grandson but in the versions I have heard he is, as in thii passage, always his son. This is probably a slip.

''Will not the children sicken " is, I believe, the general sense of a difficult phrase " nu wokote gudi."

331 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-The Z a d e Corporation of Witchdoctors.

"Yakpati and his subjects were struck with wonder, because they had intended to kill him on that day. But he had been aware of these intentions because he was a witch, so the Azande say, since he had heard the words which Yakpati had spoken to' his wife Sawote and had heard the reply of his wife which she had made to her husband Yakpati : 'As he is a good witchdoctor who cures the people of this country, what is the point of the chief killing him, and as he cures children, for he does not practice deception like those witchdoctors who are always cheating.' He had heard all these matters through his witch- craft."

Present-day witchdoctors say that there is no one who is capable of performing similar feats to-day and that the medicines of their predecessors were far stronger than their own. This was the Golden Age of magic and no such deeds were performed at the Court of Gbudwe.

There are other stories which tell of the supernatural abilities of witchdoctors of the old days. The Asibale, one of the peoples absorbed in the Zande amalgam, are said to have had peculiar rites of initiation into the craft. ,4n initiate was told to run towards a tree and kick it with his foot, and when he did so his foot went clean through the tree, so that he was unable to withdraw it. The witchdoctors then demanded presents from his relatives before they would consent to release him. When the presents were considered sufficient a witchdoctor scraped out a little tnbiro medicine and rubbed some of it across the initiate's lips and some of it on the trunk of the tree, and then told him to remove his foot, which he withdrew easily without leaving any mark on the tree. If the initiate's relatives did not bring substantial enough presents for his teacher the witchdoctors used to leave him with his foot through the tree trunk until they were more generous.

Another wonder which witchdoctors used to perform was to bury one of their number in a hole, which they then filled up, beating the earth over his body level with the ground. They then placed gong and drum on top of the earth and proceeded to beat them. While they were doing this they would suddenly see the buried witchdoctor approaching them from another direction, dancing and shaking his hand-bells. Nobody knew where he had come from, and when they looked into the hole they found nothing there.

Curious stories are also told of the Abagwa people, and these stories probably refer to their witchdoctors. They are said to be able to change themselves into flies, rats, and all sorts of other things. They are said to be able to take off the head of a bush-buck and to put it on to the body of a dog, while at the same time placing the dog's head on-to the neck of the bush-buck. An old man would find a sleeping youth and would exchange heads with him, so that when the young man woke up in the morning with the old man's head on his shoulders none of his friends knew him. It is said that the Abagwa learnt these tricks from the Asibale.

Wonder-working powers are even attributed to present-day witchdoctors, though I have never witnessed them myself, and do not remember having met anyone who could claim to have seen them with his own eyes. Such stories are founded upon hearsay. It is said that there are still witchdoctors who mill allow themselves to be shut up in a hut with the door closed and with people standing the entire way round the hut, and yet when they are next seen they

332 E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-l'he Zande Corporation of Witchdoctors.

will be dancing towards the hut from a long distance away, to everybody's amazement. Others are believed to be able to produce by their magic violent winds or swarms of bees. I have little doubt that such natural happenings sometimes occur at sBances and that a witchdoctor takes full credit for them. One witchdoctor in the time of Gbudwe became famous owing to his ability of locating and digging up bones in the eyes of everyone in the undisturbed and hard- beaten earth of a chief's court.

The real importance of these stories lies in understanding them as part of an individual's reaction to the awkward situations of his life. Going to witchdoctors and believing in them are part of the same complex reaction. Faith is always expressed in myth, and myth is always the twin of ritual. They are born in the same womb and grow up together to maturity.

Before I ask the reader to turn his attention to the private behaviour of Zande witch- doctors in order to observe how they behave when they are no longer engaged in public display, I beg leave to summarize briefly the ground already covered. From a short introduction about the value of a study of witchdoctors no less to the arts of government and education than to the disciplines of comparative sociology and ethnology, I made a slight sketch of Zande social structure, which will be quite inadequate were i t not for the published researches of other students of Zande culture. I drew attention to the enormous range of magic in their society, and this led me of necessity to define the terms with which I designate its manifold sections. I then explained the methods which I employed to elicit the information recorded in this paper from the people whose behaviour i t describes. At this point it was no longer possible to defer a brief account of what witchcraft means to a Zande, even though I have fully dealt elsewhere with this subject, and from there to pass in rapid review the mode of leadership in the corporation of witchdoctors, the bar to participation of chiefs in their activities and the position of women members. I described the material aspect of a sBance, dancing place, ornamentation, musical instruments, medicines, and so on, and also the different types of persons who attended, the male and female spectators, the host and his family, the drummers, and the chorus. Two descriptive sections followed, in which attention was paid to the manner in which practitioners danced, their erratic displays, and the kind of questions which are put to them, and from this account I isolated three problen~s of special interest, from which emerged an explanatory analysis of their prophecies, an interpretation of the meaning of their dances and songs, and a consideration of the kind of intellectual approach made to them by laymen. In discussing these three points it was necessary to touch on a number of difficult psychological problems, such as a tendency towards dissociation among the performers and heightening of emotional feeling among their audience, and, in the last few paragraphs, the question of belief and its cultural deposit in mythology.

I will now turn to the more esoteric, though also more prosaic, part of a witchdoctor's life.

XV.

I have spoken of the witchdoctors as a corporation, but it must not be supposed that they possess any solid organization. On the contrary, they.lack strong structural organization and group cohesion. I have mentioned in the earlier part of this paper that leadership among witch-

doctors is never institutional, and that there is an entire absence of closed grades based on seniority. Each witchdoctor acts on his own account, has his own practice, collects his own fees, and, generally speaking, is responsible to no one but himself in matters pertaining to pro- fessional conduct. His diploma consists in his knowledge of certain medicines which he has learnt from another witchdoctor. These medicines are handed over from teacher to pupil in exchange for a number of presents, but while the pupil enters into a permanent social relationship with his teacher, as is usually the case where there is a transference of magic, he does not enter a guild in which all the members have socially important privileges and obligations to one another. I t is well to remember that the basis of membership lies in knowledge of medicines, and that a man who possesses these medicines can sell them to anyone he pleases without having to consult his colleagues.

In the old days, when there were very few witchdoctors, they must have been on a par with ordinary specialists in magic, differing from the others only in the degree and mode of their specialization. A great increase in their numbers in late years and a greater spacial density created by government settlements have resulted in a larger measure of joint activity. Some kind of initiation of a new member into the corporation has-always taken place, but it can hardly have been a ceremony attended by such a strong body of practitioners who assist a t it as to-day. Communal meals, a t which a number of witchdoctors gather round a fire and eat medicines together, are now a regular feature of their professional life. To-day sQances are usually conducted jointly by a number of witchdoctors, and it is only chiefs and wealthy commoners, the conservative element in society, who still sunlmon a single practitioner to dance for them, though they always act singly in their capacity of physicians. Acting together in these ways tends to produce group sentiment and group machinery, but it must not be forgotten that this tendency towards greater cohesion is essentially local. I t is never national or even tribal, and does not extend beyond the small district, the boundaries of which form the limits of a man's social contacts. Thus in each district witchdoctors largely act together, but normally they do not act in conjunction with witchdoctors of other districts. I t is not the structure of the cor- poration which gives cohesion to all its members, but a number of separate magicians living in one small area, possessing common magic, and acting together in a number of their magical functions, who tend in consequence to create the elements of an organization.

Joint local functioning tends in the same manner to produce leadership, though not per- manent or institutional leadership. This happens in two ways. In the first place, when a number of persons act together in any manner requiring co-ordination of behaviour, some kind of leadership is bound to emerge. What I have already written about the conduct of a seance is sufficient to show that some degree, in point of fact quite a high degree, of co-ordination of behaviour is essential. The spacial arrangements of the dancing place and the mode of dancing by themselves necessitate some kind of organization and leadership. But the full functions of leadership will be clearer when I have described also the esoteric side of a witchdoctor's life. In the second place, the Zande has an unusually well developed political sense, which doubtless arifes from long political training. The larger units of his social life rest on political and not on kinship structures. A Syrian official at Tonj, where members of a number of tribes gather

334 -The Zalzde Corporation of E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD. Witchdoctors.

together to seek work from the government and from traders, told me how struck he had been by the fact that, whenever a working party consisted of Azande, they immediately organized themselves under leaders, whereas other peoples, such as the Dinka, always seemed to act in concert without the emergence of status. This is true of every department of Zande life. Any joint activity takes on the pattern of their political structure. There is always a gbia, chief, of any undertaking. When a member of the aristocracy enters into an activity he is almost invariably the gbia, or stands largely outside the organization of the activity. When the undertaking is manned by commoners, one of them will act as the gbiu on the pattern of the aristocrat-commoner relationship, though without its full normal content. I have explained earlier that aristocrats do not become witchdoctors, so that it is always a commoner who acts as leader on the ground of age, experience, personality, achievement, and knowledge of magic. Wealth and social position also qualify a man to some extent to play a leading r61e even when his experience and knowledge of magic are smaller than those possessed by other members of the corporation. Thus the headman of the settlement in which I lived generally took a leading part in the joint activity of a skance, since he carried his political status with him into a sphere of life where he was not acting as a political agent. But our real leader was Badobo. Badobo, a

man of middle age, had possessed doctor's magic for a longer time than anyone else in our neighbourhood. He was also a man who exercised more than usual tact. Nevertheless, he did not appear to me to show any of the striking char'acters which everywhere designate a leader, and his central position among the local practitioners was derived mainly from his personal relations with each individual, since he had taught most of them their knowledge of medicines and had sponsored them a t initiation. There were two or three other practitioners

who were thought to equal Badobo in professional skill, but they lacked the same personal following derived from dependence of pupil on teacher.

I may draw attention to another point. Since the witchdoctors who act together pro-

fessionally all live in the same neighbourhood and have the same range of social contacts, they are bound together by a large number of general social bonds outside their professional ties. Thus all are members of the same political groups, some are related by blood, others by marriage, others by blood brotherhood, others by membership of the same secret society, and so on. Of

chief importance is their common membership of the same local group, where spacial density necessitates daily contacts and a common range of experience. Outside their professional life they all possess the same social sentiments. Both the cohesion and the leadership which we

find among witchdoctors of any locality depend largely on general social conditions which have no specific relationship to their corporation.

I have already mentioned that women are never admitted to full professional life of witch- doctors. They do not take part in their communal meals ; they seldom dance with them, and on these rare occasions act differently to the otlier performers ; and they are not ritually initiated into the craft in the usual manner. Nevertheless, a fair number of women practice as nbinza. They usually attend cases of their own sex, but T have known several women, who have a wide reputation as practitioners, to whom men will often go to be treated for their ail- ments. An old woman who knows the correct medicines and has been shown the manner in

E. E. EVANS-PRITCHARD.-T~~ W ~ t c h d o c t o ~ s . 33.5Zande Corporat ion of

which to deceive laymen by producirlg objects from their bodies, can practice as well as a man.1 These female practitioners are always past middle age and often widows. I have never heard of a girl or young married woman learning the art, and this would be quite incompatible with Zande morality and conventional thought. Women witchdoctors will sell their knowledge to other women, but I have also known young men learn from them as well.

As far as I have been able to observe, it is usual for a youth to express his desire to become a witchdoctor by approaching a senior member of the corporation in his district and by asking him to act as his sponsor. Therefore, in speaking of the manner in which novices are taught, I shall have in mind this usual transference of magic from a witchdoctor to his youthful appren- tice. I have, however, sometimes seen boys of under sixteen years of age and even quite small children of four or five years old being given medicines to eat. In these cases it is generally a father or maternal uncle who wishes his son or nephew to enter the profession and commences to train him from his earliest years in its technique, and to make his spirit strong with medicines. Thus I have seen small children dancing the witchdoctors' dance and eating their medicines, in which actions they copy the movements which they have seen their elders make at seances and communal magic meals. Their elders will encourage them in a jovial way and the children regard the whole affair as a piece of fun. Such children become gradually accustomed to per- forming in this manner, and when they are about fifteen years of age their father will occasionally take them with him when he visits a household to dance there, and will let them take part in the proceedings, though they will not wear any of the ordinary ceremonial decorations of a x-itchdoctor. Knowledge of magic and ritual behaviour is handed over in this way from father to son, bit by bit, over a long period of years.

When a youth applies to a witchdoctor for tuition the transference is much shorter and is complicated by payment^,^ and by the formation of personal attitudes, which have to be built up outside family and household. The young man is asked by his future teacher whether he is really quite certain that he wishes to be initiated and is exhorted to consider the dangers which map beset his relations and himself if he attempts to acquire this magic half-heartedly. He will also be reminded that the magic is rare and expensive, and that his teacher will require frequent and substantial gifts. If he persists in his desire to become a practitioner the older man will consent to teach him the art. First of all, the novice will begin to eat medicines with the other witchdoctors in order to strengthen his spirit and give him power to prophesy ; then he will be initiated into the corporation by public burial ; then he will be given witchdoctors' mayu to swallow ; and finally he will be taken to the head of a stream and shown the various herbs and shrubs and trees from which the medicines are d e r i ~ e d . ~

I must here make short reference to the manner in which information about the training of a novice was collected and to the manner in which it is presented.

1 Female physicians are required to attend the wives of princes into whose hareems no man would be admitted.

2 It is likely that some payments will be made by son to father as the payments form part of the ritual of initiation, but I am not sure about thls point.

There is no invariable chronological sequence in these rites of initiation.

336 E. E. E V A N S - ~ R I T C H A R D . - ~ ~ ~ ~ Witchdoctors.Zande Corporation of

In the early part of this paper my methods of research have, I hope, been abundantly clear from my descriptions. I attended a large number of seances and I used to jot down what I had seen and heard at them in my hut on the same evening. I discussed these observations privately with my regular informants as systematically as possible, and in the course of many months I had ample opportunity to check and amplify their opinions in many casual conversa- tions with witchdoctors and laymen alike. I have tried to give a straightforward description of the way in which witchdoctors act and talk and what people think about them. When I have made use of a commentary of a single practitioner or layman I have endeavoured to emphasize the fact, as when explaining the feelings of a witchdoctor in a state of semi-dissociation. At times I have wandered from straightforward descriptions and have attempted sociological abstractions, as when summarizing political organization and the terminology of ritual, and interpretations of behaviour, as when drawing attention to sensory stimuli and volition as elements in the creation of meaning in linguistic interchange between client and practitioner, but I do not think there is any obscurity in the text which might lead a reader to suppose that the abstractions and interpretations advanced by me are native explanations. In this second part of my paper greater caution is necessary, because a large part of the material which I shall utilize to build up my account was collected through a single medium, Kamanga, though it m-as often possible to check a great deal of the information supplied by him even if in less thorough a manner than is usually expected in investigations into native custom. I do not, however, consider this to be a serious objection, since a single informant whom one knows intimately is often a more reliable source of information than are three or four persons with whom one is but casually acquainted, though in the former case the information derived will be regarded as unchecked, while in the latter case it will be spoken of as checked. What is important is to make i t quite clear when I am relying on my own observations and when I am trusting to second- hand information.

Frequently I shall cite magical addresses, and I have translated these texts freely, as other- wise they would have to be annotated with innumerable footnotes. Occasionally these texts

were written down by me in English soon after they were spoken, but I only did this when I had previously heard them on a number of occasions and was quite familiar with the phraseology employed. Usually they were given me in my hut by an informant on the same day as they were spoken, though in the case of some of Kamanga's descriptions of his initiation several clays elapsed between his experiences and the record of them which I took down in Zande from his lips. On some occasions in the earlier part of my paper I have made use of an account written for me by a boy trained at a Mission School, and in these instances I have noted the fact. I t

would have been impossible to have taken down Ramanga's experiences as fully as I have done if he had not had such an excellent delivery for this purpose and if he had not taken a keen personal interest in recounting his adventures. I have nevertheless only given those adventures of exceptional interest in his own words, and I have paraphrased and shortened most of his descriptions. I hope that this course will seem permissible, since it is the only means of develop- ing material of the kind into a readable chapter of events. It is my intention at a later date to publish many of the texts upon which my account is founded.

(To be continued.)

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. L X I I , 1932, Plate X X I X .

FIG. 1.-GROUP OF WITCHDOCTORS. IN THE FOREGROUND ARE MEDICINE-HORNS FROM SEVERAL OF WHICH HANG MAGIC WHISTLES. ON THE RIGHT ARE WITOHDOCTORS' GRASS-PLAITED BAG AND HAT.

FIG. 2.-GROUP OF WITCHDOCTORS. I N THE FOREGROUND I S A MEDICINE-POT CONTAINING WATER INTO WHICH THEY GAZE BEFORE GIVING REVELATIONS.

THE ZANDE CORPORATION OF WITCHDOCTORS.

Journal of the Royal A7athropological Institute, Vol. L X I I , 1932, Plate X X X .

FIG. 1.-WITCHDOCTORS DANCING ROUND A HOLE IN WHICH A NOVICE IS TO BE PARTIALLY BURIED AT INITIATION. ON THE LEFT ARE GONG AND DRUMS.

FIG. 2.-RITUAL DRESS OF WITCHDOCTOR. NOTE HAND-BELLS, RATTLES ROUND WAIST AND LEGS, ANIMAL SKTNS (COLOBUS) AND GRASS-PLAITED HAT DECKED WITH PLUMES.

THE ZANDE CORPORATION OF WITCHDOCTORS.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. L X I Z , 1932, Plate X X X Z .

THE ZANDE CORPORATION OF WITCHDOCTORS.