Definitions and Perspectives
Anthropologists and social historians have approached the topics of witchcraft and sorcery in different ways. Before we discuss these, we need to take note of the definitional issues at stake. Do we conflate witchcraft and sorcery as forms of mystical power, or do we attempt to make a clear distinction between them In principle, as we note below, a distinction can be made between witchcraft as the expression of a malign power in a person's body and sorcery as the use of a magical craft or...
Witchcraft Sorcery Rumors and Gossip
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title www.cambridge.org 9780521808682 Cambridge University Press 2004 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may...
Conclusion
In this chapter we have given some extended illustrations of the kinds of themes outlined in our Foreword, for example, by discussing cases anthropologists have described from Africa and from Essex in England. Throughout these examples we have sought to bring out three things. The first is that witchcraft accusations have to be seen historically, that is, as products of wide-scale changes running through people's lives. The second is that they must be seen processually, that is, as sets of...
European Cases
Andrew Sanders, following work by the historian Keith Thomas Thomas 1973 , points out that on the European continent witch trials came to center on the idea of witchcraft as a heresy, involving a pact with the Devil. By contrast, he says, in England, where papal authority was more limited, specific acts of harm continued to be the focus, even though witches were also thought to obtain their power from the Devil. Even on the Continent itself, cases at the local level resembled the English...
Foreword
In this book we explore two intertwined themes the study of witchcraft and sorcery and the analysis of rumor and gossip. While there is a considerable amount written on both themes, generally they have not been brought together systematically. It is illuminating to do so for several reasons. One is that gossip and rumors play an important part in the processes leading to accusations of wrongdoing, which include witchcraft and sorcery accusations. Also, when witchcraft and sorcery ideas are not...