Ee Evans Pritchard Quotes

Anyone can produce a new fact; the thing is to produce a new idea.

In fact, communism is the foundation of all human sociability. It is what makes society possible. There is always an assumption that anyone who is not an enemy can be expected to act on the principle of “from each according to their abilities,” at least to an extent: for example, if one needs to figure out how to get somewhere and the other knows the way. We so take this for granted, in fact, that the exceptions are themselves revealing. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, an anthropologist who in the 1920s carried out research among the Nuer, Nilotic pastoralists in southern Sudan, reports his discomfiture when he realized that someone had intentionally given him wrong directions: On one occasion I asked the way to a certain place and was deliberately deceived. I returned in chagrin to camp and asked the people why they had told me the wrong way. One of them replied, “You are a foreigner, why should we tell you the right way? Even if a Nuer who was a stranger asked us the way we would say to him, ‘You continue straight along that path,’ but we would not tell him that the path forked. Why should we tell him? But you are now a member of our camp and you are kind to our children, so we will tell you the right way in future.”12

we may ask why common sense does not triumph over superstition.

The web is not an external structure in which he is enclosed. It is the texture of his thought and he cannot think that his thought is wrong.

Someone suggested that the oracle was tired like a chiefwho has been sitting for hours listening to cases in his court and is weary.

In their questions to me they have sought to explain away Zande behaviour by rationalizing it, that is to say, by interpreting it in terms of our culture.

But Azande are dominated by an overwhelming faith which prevents them from making experiments

You cannot deceive one who practisesyour particular brand of deception.

Indeed, as a rule Azande do not ask questions to which answers are easily tested by experience and they ask only those questions which embrace contingencies. The answers either cannot be tested, or if proved by subsequent events to be erroneous permit an explanation of the error.

It will have been noted that Azande act experimentally within the framework of their mystical notions. They act aswe would have to act if we had no means ofmaking chemical and physiological analyses and we wanted to obtain the same results as they want to obtain.

we may ask whether they have any notion that approximates to what we mean when we speak of physical causes. .

Then Azande simply say that the termites refuse an answer and they try another mound.

Their "blindness is not due to stupidity: they reason excellently in the.idiom of their beliefs, but they cannot reason out'side, or against, their beliefs because they have no other idiom in which to express their thoughts.

The reader will naturally wonder what Azande say when subsequent events prove the prophecies of the poison oracle to be wrong. Here again Azande are not surprised at such an outcome, but it does not prove to them that the oracle is futile. It rather proves how well founded are their beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery and taboos. The contradiction between what the or.acle said would happen and what actually has happened is just as glaring to Zande eyes as it is to ours, but they never for a moment question the virtue of the oracle in general

The contradiction between experience and one mystical notion is explained by reference to other mystical notions.

toms, and our own doctors have told me that they seldom err in diagnosing early leprosy. They are naturally much less sure in diagnosing diseases affecting internal organs such as the-intestines, the liver, and the spleen.

Moreover, ' it must not be supposed that where part of a treatment is of real therapeutic value it is necessarily the part which Azande stress as vital to the cure.

magical and empirical treatments are employed at the same time when a boy who formed part of my household-was bitten by a snake which-was said to be very poisonous.

Witch-doctors are said to be very carefullest anyone should find out what plants they dig up for magical use. They remove their stalks and leaves and hide them in the bush some way from~here they have dug them up lest anyone should follow in their tracks and learn their medicines.

Unless the medicines are bought with adequate fees there is a danger that they will lose their potency for the recipient during the transference, since their owner is dissatisfied and bears the purchaser ill-will. Also,

All their beliefs hang together, and were a Zande to give up faith in witch-doctorhood he would have to surrender equally his belief in witchcraft and oracles.

Also, witch-doctors are part of the oracle-system.

I have heard even witch-doctors 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.

Hence it is not necessary for one Zande to explain to another his waywardness, for everybody understands the motives of his conduct.

It is important to note that scepticism about witch-doctors is not socially repressed.

To understand why it is that Azande do not draw from their observations the conclusions we would draw from the same evidence, we must realize that their attention is fixed on the mystical properties of the poison oracle and that its natural properties are of so little interest to them that they simply do not bother to consider them.

Azande observe the action of the poison oracle as we observe it, but their observations are always subordinated to their beliefs and are incorporated into their beliefs and made to explain them and justify them.

Azande have no theoryabout it; they do not know why it works, but only that it does work.

Since Azande do not understand the natural properties of the poison they cannot explain the contradiction scientifically;

But Azande think that they do not admit the only evidence which is really relevant to the cases which come before them,

Among Azande it is the only satisfactory way of life because it is the only way oflife they understand,

We who do not believe in the poison oracle

The main duty of the questioner is to see that the oracle fully understands the question put to it and is acquainted with all facts relevant to the problem it is asked to solve. They address it with all the care for detail that one observes in court cases before a prince. This means beginning a long way back and noting over a considerable period of time every detail which might elucidate the case, linking up facts into a consistent picture of events, and the marshalling of arguments

Witch doctors .are aware of one piece of reality which is unknown to the rest of their society

In restricting his questions to certain well-known types he is conforming to tradition.

But the fact that they address both shows that no general and independent intelligence is attributed to either the termites or to the trees but only a specific intelligence in the operation of the oracle,

It is by using mapingo that children gain their first experience in oracular consultations.

Misfortune and witchcraft are much the same to a Zande, for it is only in situations of misfortune or.ofanticipation of it that the notion of witchcraft is evoked.

being the socially prescribed channel of response to misfortune, and notions of ~itchcraft-activitygiving the requisite ideological background to make the response logical and coherent.

A man who threatens others with misfortune is certain to be suspected of witchcraft should the misfortunes befall them.

They are averse from consulting oracles about influential persons

A witch attacks a man when motivated by hatred, envy, jealousy, and greed. Usually if he has no enmity towards a man he will not attack him.

To Azande the question of guilt does not present itself as it would to us.

Their interest in witchcraft is aroused only in specific cases of misfortune and persists only while the misfortune lasts.

Witchcraft is something they react to and against in misfortune, this being the main meaning it has for them.

Hence a Zande accused of witchcraft is astonished. He has not conceived of witchcraft from this angle. To him it has always been a reaction against others in his own misfortunes, so that it is difficult for him to apprehend the notion when he himself is its objective in the misfortunes of other people.

The whole point of the procedure is to put the witch in a good temper by being polite to him.

By this maxim they refer to the action of a witch when he blows from his mouth a spray ofwater on the fowl's wing which has been placed at his feet by the messenger ofa deputy. When the witch blows water on the wing he 'cools' his witchcraft. By performing this simple rite he ensures that the sick man will recover and also that he will himself escape vengeance.

Nevertheless, Azande hold very decidedly that the mere action of blowingwater is valueless in itself if the witch does not sincerely hope for the recovery of the sick man.

I, too, used to react to misfortunes in the idiom of witchcraft, and it was often an effort to check this lapse into unreason.

We saw earlier how witchcraft is a participant in all misfortunes.

Not everyone who displays these unpleasant traits is necessarily regarded as a witch, but it is these sentiments and modes of behaviour which make people suspicious of witchcraft, so that Azande know that those who display them have the desire to bewitch, even ifthey do not possess the power to do so.

Since accusations of witchcraft arise from personal enmities it will at once be seen why certain people are left outofconsideration

.People are most likely to quarrel with those with whom, they come into closest contact when the contact is not softened by sentiments of kinship or is not buffered by distinctions of age, sex, and class.

the notion is a function of situations of misfortune, and, secondly, that it is a function of personal relations.

The notion of witchcraft is not only a function of misfortune and of personal relations but also comprises moral judgement.

There is no fixed attitude towards witches

To a Zande this appears an entirely theoretical question and one about which he has not informed himself.

I T may have occurred to many readers that there is an analogy between the Zande concept of witchcraft and our own concept I,of luck.

But when a misfortune is in process of failing upon a man, as in sickness, or is anticipated, our responses are .different to theirs. We make every effort to rid ourselves of, or elude, a misfortune by our knowledge of the objective conditions which cause it.

The Zande acts in a like manner, but since in his beliefs the chief cause of any misfortune is witchcraft, he concentrates his attention upon this factor of supreme importance. They and we use rational means for controlling the conditions that produce misfortune, but we conceive of these conditions differently from them.

Since-Azande believe that witches may at any time bring sickness and.death upon them they are anxious to establish and maintain contact with these evil powers and by counteracting them control their own destiny.

It is not only laid down by custom that he must blow out water, but the phrases in which he is expected to express his regret are more or less stereotyped, and even the earnest and apologetic tone of voice in which he utters them is determined by tradition ..

We must remember that they must avoid an open quarrel with the witch, since this will only aggravate him and perhaps cause him to kill his victim outright,

We shall give a false account of Zande philosophy if we say that they believe witchcraft to be the sole cause of phenomena.

But he knows besides why these two events occurred at a precisely similar moment in time and space.

Witchcraft explains the coincidence of these two happenings.

I hope I am not expected to point out that the Zande cannot analyse his doctrines as I have done for him.

But it is possible to extract the principles oftheir thought from dozens of situations in which witchcraft is called upon to explain happeningsand from dozens ofother situations in which failure is attributed to some other cause.

The facts do not explain themselves or only partly explain themselves. They can only be explained fully ifone takes witchcraft into consideration.

Zande belief in witchcraft in no way contradicts empirical knowledge of cause and effect.

They are foreshortening the chain of events, and in a particular social situation are selecting the cause that is socially relevant and neglecting the rest.

Since Azande recognize plurality ofcauses, and it is the social situation that indicates the relevant one, we can understand why the doctrine of witchcraft is not used to explain every failure and misfortune. It sometimes happens that the social situation demands a common-sense, and not a mystical, judgement of cause.

The Zande sees no difficulty in explaining what appears to us to be most illogical behaviour.

Hence we see that witchcraft has its own logic, its own rules of thought, and that these do not exclude natural causation.

We ought rather to ask whether primitive peoples perceive any difference between the happenings which we, the observers of their culture, class as natural and the happenings which we class as mystical.

The Zande notion of witchcraft is incompatible with our ways of thought.

In truth Azande experience feelings about witchcraft rather than ideas, for their intellectual concepts of it are weak and they know better what to do when attacked by it than how to explain it. Their response is action and not analysis

There is no elaborate and consistent representation of witchcraft that will account in detail for its workings,

The Zande actualizes these beliefs rather than intellectualizes them, and their tenets are expressed in socially

The Zande actualizes these beliefs rather than intellectualizes them, and their tenets are expressed in socially 32 Witchcraft controlled behaviour rather than in doctrines. Hence the difficulty of discussing the subject of witchcraft with Azande, for their ideas are imprisoned in action and cannot be cited to explain and justify action.

Nine times out of ten he does nothing. He is a philosopher and knows that in life the ill must be taken with the good.

A witch-doctor divines successfully because he says what his listener wishes him to say,

The witch-doctor also gets his listeners into a suitable frame ofmind for receiving his revelations by lavish use ofprofessional dogmatism.

The witch doctor and his client consciously select between them a number of persons likely to have caused sickness or loss.

At the beginning he selects to some extent the names of those persons about whom the witchdoctor is to dance, and at the end he supplies in part an interpretation of the witch-doctor's utterances from his own peculiar social circumstances and mental content. I think also that as a witch-doctor brings out his revelations bit by bit, at first, almost as suggestions, even inquiries, he watches carefully his interlocutor to observewhether his answer is in accordance with the questioner'S own suspicions. He becomes more definite when he is assured on this point.

A witch-doctor very seldom accuses a member of the aristocracy of witchcraft, just as a commoner does not consult oracles about them.

Princes, however jealous of each other they may be, always maintain class solidarity in opposition to their subjects and do not allow commoners to bring contempt upon any of their relatives.

We must now view witchcraft in a more objective manner, for it is a mode of behaviour as well as a mode of thought.

In such circumstances a Zande laments his misfortune and blames witchcraft in general, but is unlikely to take steps to identify any particular witch since the man will either deny his responsibility or will say that he is not conscious of having caused anyone an injury, and that ifhehas done so unwittingly he is. sorry, and in either case the sufferer will be no better off.

The fact that this belief contradicts his usual ideas does not trouble him.

So far as he knows he has never visited the home of the. sick man whom he is said to have injured, and he is forced to conclude that either there must have been an error or that he has acted unconsciously. But he believes his own case to be exceptional and that others are responsible for their actions.

In fact, communism is the foundation of all human sociability. It is what makes society possible. There is always an assumption that anyone who is not an enemy can be expected to act on the principle of “from each according to their abilities,” at least to an extent: for example, if one needs to figure out how to get somewhere and the other knows the way. We so take this for granted, in fact, that the exceptions are themselves revealing. E.E. Evans-Pritchard, an anthropologist who in the 1920s carried out research among the Nuer, Nilotic pastoralists in southern Sudan, reports his discomfiture when he realized that someone had intentionally given him wrong directions: On one occasion I asked the way to a certain place and was deliberately deceived. I returned in chagrin to camp and asked the people why they had told me the wrong way. One of them replied, “You are a foreigner, why should we tell you the right way? Even if a Nuer who was a stranger asked us the way we would say to him, ‘You continue straight along that path,’ but we would not tell him that the path forked. Why should we tell him? But you are now a member of our camp and you are kind to our children, so we will tell you the right way in future.”12 The Nuer are constantly engaged in feuds; any stranger might well turn out to be an enemy there to scout out a good place for an ambush, and it would be unwise to give such a person useful information.

Nevertheless, it did no harm to blow water. He said that it was not only polite to do so when requested but also showed an absence of ill-feeling which ought to characterize all good citizens. It is better for an innocent man to comply with good grace.

While Kamanga was slowly being initiated by one ·practitioner,

On the other hand, the corporation has an esoteric life from which the uninitiated are excluded,

The other practitioners understand his motives, but witch-doctors never contradict one another at a public seance; they present a united front to the uninitiated.)

We have to remember, moreover, that the audience is not observing simply a rhythmic performance, but also a ritual enactment of magic.

That every Nuer considers himself as good as his neighbor is evident in their every movement. They strut about like lords of the earth, which, indeed, they consider themselves to be. There is no master and no servant in their society, but only equals who regard themselves as Gods noblest creation...even the suspicion of an order riles a man and he either does not carry it out or he carries it out in a casual and dilatory manner that is more insulting than a refusal.

Oracles and magic are two different ways of combating witchcraft.