Witchcraft in Contemporary African Society Essays

One of the many old belief systems is witchcraft and sorcery. It is often believed that

In such a field, the lesser agents of misfortune, the witches could flourish” (Ashforth, p. 102). Furthermore, with high unemployment rates and pervasive poverty, jealousy was seen as the principle motivator for the practice of witchcraft. In the same interview, Madumo continues, “It’s also about jobs. It’s the lack of jobs that’s contributed to the high volume of witchcraft. Because if someone is having a job, then his neighbors become jealous and will witch him so as to make him lose that job” (Ashforth, p. 102). Madumo cites these societal circumstances as a sociological causation for the rise of purported witchcraft.

Witchcraft is a term which sprouts many different meanings. As stated above, it is attributed to witches. But what is a witch? Probably an evil haggish-like women who has signed a pact with the devil if we think of it in the English sense. So witchcraft must be evil doings; putting curses on people to make their life miserable, using wicked spells to transform humans to frogs etc. But does this hold true to everyone's idea of what witchcraft is.People's believes on the subject of witchcraft might differ between different cultures.

Bever clarifies why he believes historians often focus only on the rise of witchcraft rather than their decline. He believes the reason this occurs is because, historians assume “their defeat seemed self-evident” (Bever, 2009, p. 264). The author explains how the rise of witches occurred, “chain-reaction trials started with a few stereotyped suspects but gradually widened to include previously unsuspected commoners and eventually friends” (Bever, 2009, p. 272). Bever also gives discusses of how witchcraft came to affect the society and how it became “an integral part of late medieval culture and society” (Bever, 2009, p. 288). The work relates more specifically to the field of the first centuries of colonization because, although some ideas presented in this article can be inferred, most are not that of the general

Voodoo is an old religion that finds its roots in west Africa. Remnants of its physical history can be found throughout the West African Coast where major slave trading markets were located. An Example of this are locations contain trees of forgetting in which slaves were “Zombified” by administering herbs to make them more compliant. Today these historical sites draw tourist learning about the horrors of the slave trade Voodoo beliefs originated from African animist religions that predate Islam and Christian influences and were not understood by the European slave owners who forbid its practice. It created a fear in the Europeans and is misunderstood even today. Its travel to the Caribbean, Haiti and America had a lasting impact and is still practiced.

In all of human history, people have written about inhuman beings, many of which include gods, demons, wizards, sorcerers, sorceresses, and witches. Nowadays mystical beings are seen everywhere in media. Most of society stopped believing in these creatures years ago, but for 17th-century Salem, witchcraft became a living nightmare (Fremon, 1999).

Personal Statement - The delusion of witchcraft stemmed from fear. Fear of savages, fear of women gaining control and ultimately fear of the unknown.

The nature of evil was spread by Satan and the people that followed, which were witches. Acts of witchcraft was one of the greatest crimes a person could commit, that is punishable by death.

It is apparent witches needed the belief of the local community to reinforce confidence in their powers, just as much as the local community needed witches as means of a scapegoat. Scot claimed the witch would visit her neighbours when needing to procure goods, in which she would go door to door (Levack 2004:). During this visit, the attitude of the witch was often aggressive for she believed her reputation in the local community would secure submission from neighbours. However, more often than that not, her neighbour would echo such hostility, and after upsetting the witch, she would then leave.

The witchcraft phenomenon of the Renaissance period was shaped by a wide range of cultural factors; witchcraft was not necessarily subject to a single cohesive idea or concept, and it was often instead a conglomeration of many different societal concerns, concerns which spanned through all spheres of society. Textual evidence from this period provides insight into the way in which witches were conceived, and how witches were dealt with, while visual images present a companion visualisation of the tensions, which influenced created the witch, and the imagery, which came to be associated with witchcraft.

Black magic’s influence within African cultures is no surprise when taking a look at the culture itself. Known as Vodou in Haiti, which later evolved into the practice known as Voodoo in the United States, along with Conjuring, also known as the practice of Hoodoo which evolved from West African countries such as Ghana, the practice of black magic persistently played a role in African culture constantly following the dispersal of Africans worldwide throughout the past centuries. Throughout a multitude of societies in the world, specifically places with backgrounds connecting to African heritage, it is evident that forms of black magic have played a role in their past. While examining the history and trade of black magic through a multitude

Witchcraft is the practice of black magic that is imbedded into England’s history as far back as the 1300s

Even in ancient Biblical times, there have been people who follow the devil and oppose Believers. Witches are people who are under the influence of the devil or demonic spirits.

Prior to the fifteenth century, rural European women were highly revered and respected pillars of rural community life; not only considered mothers and wives, but seen as community leaders, physicians, and sources of strength and wisdom. Women had a special and imperative role in rural life, and even those that lived on the fringes of society were well respected as the village healers and wise women. These old women would possess the wisdom of the ages and pass it on to others. This respect for women quickly deteriorated, however, during the witch hunts. The belief spread that women were morally weaker than men and driven by carnal lust, therefore making them more susceptible to being tempted by the Devil, and thus practicing witchcraft. (Levack p. 126) As people took this belief to heart, it is apparent that society would be affected indefinitely by such intolerance.

I don’t know about you, but for me so far, all of our author’s attempts to get an explanation about what witchcraft is has failed. We know that witchcraft is the cause of misfortunes and personal injury sustained by the Azande people through what they believe to be no fault of their own, but I think we have yet to have any understanding of what causes witchcraft itself. Where does it come from, who causes it, and is it in any way like a sort of karma believed to be punishment for bad deeds like in eastern philosophies? I think we need to take a deeper look into witchcraft and what the Azande people are actually talking about, because from what I’ve gathered so far, the Azande believe that witchcraft is an unexplained phenomena of independent events that in no way should have had any reason to take place simultaneously