The Power of the Occult in Modern Africa: Continuity and Innovation in the Renewal of African CosmologiesJames Kiernan The occult is a framework of ideas and related practices that is drawn upon as a common resource to provide an understanding of how an apparently random world 'really' works. Based mainly on experiential research in a range of African societies, the essays in this volume examine the relevance of the occult to a variety of social concepts and contexts. These studies stress three features of the occult in modern Africa: 1) as an explanatory and tactical device, it is resilient; 2) it is malleable, with a capacity to absorb and assimilate new elements; 3) it is flexible and adaptable to emerging situations and novel circumstances. Of interest to specialists in the fields of religion, social science and African studies, this book will benefit the general reader interested in the occult and its relevance to modernity and globalisation. |
Contents
XXXVII | 143 |
XXXVIII | 147 |
XXXIX | 153 |
XLI | 154 |
XLII | 155 |
XLIII | 156 |
XLIV | 157 |
XLV | 160 |
XVI | 77 |
XVII | 81 |
XVIII | 85 |
XIX | 103 |
XX | 112 |
XXII | 113 |
XXIII | 115 |
XXIV | 117 |
XXV | 119 |
XXVI | 121 |
XXVII | 126 |
XXVIII | 128 |
XXIX | 131 |
XXX | 132 |
XXXI | 133 |
XXXII | 134 |
XXXIII | 135 |
XXXIV | 137 |
XXXV | 139 |
XXXVI | 141 |
XLVI | 164 |
XLVII | 169 |
XLVIII | 171 |
XLIX | 182 |
LI | 186 |
LII | 187 |
LIII | 191 |
LIV | 197 |
LV | 201 |
LVI | 206 |
LVII | 208 |
LVIII | 211 |
LIX | 212 |
LX | 218 |
LXI | 220 |
LXII | 223 |
LXIII | 226 |
LXIV | 232 |
LXV | 241 |
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abortions accused of witchcraft administrative ancestral spirits Anthropology argued Azande Bakossi Bamileke belief body Boyd Cameroon chief Christian Church Ciekawy cleansing coastal colonial Comaroff concern contemporary critical events cultural District Commissioner diviner domination Douala dynamic E.E. Evans-Pritchard economic ekong Evans-Pritchard evil experiences famla fieldwork focus Geschiere Ghana Ghanaian harmful magic healers healing historical human husbands Impalahoek informants Johannesburg John Comaroff Jonker Kajiwe Kajiwe's KANU Kenya Kilifi District kinship Kupe lowveld male Malinowski mamlambo manifestations Mauss medicines Mijikenda modernity moral Msomi murders narratives Ngala ngoma Niehaus Nigerian notion occult occult forces Pentecostal person police political politicians popular Postcolonial practices processes Province referred religion religious ritual Satanism sexual social society sorcery South Africa structure term Themba tokolotši traditional Traditionalist ubumnyama uganga wa kuvoyera University Press utsai video-films village violence wealth Witchcraft Act witchcraft discourse witches wives women Zambia Zande Zande magic Zionist Zulu
Popular passages
Page 31 - ... an end. Such also we have found it when we tried to disentangle it from knowledge and from practical arts, in which it is so strongly enmeshed, superficially so alike that it requires some effort to distinguish the essentially different mental attitude and the specifically ritual nature of its acts. Primitive magic — every field anthropologist knows it to his cost — is extremely monotonous and unexciting, strictly limited in its means of action, circumscribed in its beliefs, stunted in its...
Page 29 - Both magic and religion arise and function in situations of emotional stress : crises of life, lacunae in important pursuits, death and initiation into tribal mysteries, unhappy love and unsatisfied hate. Both magic and religion open up escapes from such situations and such impasses as offer no empirical way out except by ritual and belief into the domain of the supernatural.
Page 29 - It is almost impossible for a person who knows what he is looking for, and how to look for it, to be mistaken about the facts if he spends two years among a small and culturally homogeneous people doing nothing else but studying their way of life.
Page 42 - EP's approach to ethnographic exposition and the main source of his persuasive power is his enormous capacity to construct visualizable representations of cultural phenomena — anthropological transparencies. What he does: The main effect, and the main intent, of this magic lantern ethnography is to demonstrate that the established frames of social perception, those upon which we ourselves instinctively rely, are fully adequate to whatever oddities the transparencies may turn out to picture.
Page 21 - Witchcraft, oracles and magic form an intellectually coherent system. Each explains and proves the others. Death is a proof of witchcraft. It is avenged by magic. The achievement of vengeance-magic is proved by the poison-oracle.
Page 36 - If a personal note be allowed, I would, though with serious reservations, identify myself with the Annee school if a choice had to be made and an intellectual allegiance to be declared.
Page 39 - Missionaries all over Africa are teaching a religion which casts out fear, but economic and social changes have so shattered tribal institutions and moral codes that the result of white contact is in many cases an actual increase in the dread of witchcraft, and therefore in the whole incidence of magic throughout the group.