WorldCat Linked Data Explorer

Turtle N-Triple JSON-LD RDF/XML HTML Contact Us Home

http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/427664650

Witchcraft among the Azande

Presents the role of witchcraft among the Azande in spite of their acceptance of Christianity. Focuses on its usage in adjudicating disputes, curing illness, assuring success in the hunt, and purification of the newborn.

Open All Close All

type

about

http://schema.org/about

alternateName

http://schema.org/alternateName

  • "Disappearing world (Television program)"@en

contributor

creator

description

http://schema.org/description

  • "To the Azande of Africa, there is no such thing as bad luck. All misfortune results from witchcraft. The tribe depends on oracles to explain events and predict the future. Here is a Christian tribe where the priest must share his influence with the witchdoctor -- Container."
  • ""There was a time when the Azande kings ruled from the tropical rain forests of the Congo to the pastures of southern Sudan. In 1980s Sudan, they live a life of obscurity, dominated by oracles and spells-though practicing Christians, they still believe in the power of magic. To an Azande, nothing happens by chance. A wife's illness, the failure of the hunt, or a spoiled crop are all believed to be the work of witches-a witch may not even be conscious of his or her powers, like the woman accused of causing her co-wife sickness merely through unfriendly thoughts. A couple stands accused of adultery; both deny the charge and agree to the chief's suggestion they be tried by Benge, a ritual poison fed to a chicken-whether the chicken lives or dies determines their guilt. When the Benge trial shows that adultery was committed, the pair confesses."--Source inconnue."
  • "Presents the role of witchcraft among the Azande in spite of their acceptance of Christianity. Focuses on its usage in adjudicating disputes, curing illness, assuring success in the hunt, and purification of the newborn."
  • "Presents the role of witchcraft among the Azande in spite of their acceptance of Christianity. Focuses on its usage in adjudicating disputes, curing illness, assuring success in the hunt, and purification of the newborn."@en
  • "Portrays how Christianity is a new faith among the Azande, and local priests believe that its influence is growing; however, for the Azande, the real power still lies with the witch doctor."@en
  • "Présentation, explication et démonstration des pratiques de sorcellerie, de consultation d'oracles et de magie chez les Azande du Soudan pour qui rien n'est dû au hasard. Observation de consultations d'oracles benge (empoisonnement de poussins), des plaques frottées et des termites, pour confirmer un cas d'adultère (qui sera ensuite admis), déterminer le responsable de la maladie de la première épouse d'un individu, découvrir la cause d'une chasse infructueuse - autant d'oeuvres d'un sorcier qui peut même être inconscient de ses pouvoirs. Avec l'introduction du christianisme, la pratique des rituels magiques diminue."
  • "Focuses on the human side of the Azande tribe of the African Sudan and their belief that all misfortune results from witchcraft. Follows a farmer as he seeks magical relief for an ill wife by consulting oracles, etc."@en
  • "`Witchcraft among the Azande' is suitable for showing in undergraduate and graduate classes on topics of religion, philosophy, and African ethnography. It could also be stimulating to discussions of psychology and medicine. The success of the Granada series on public television in England indicates its appeal to a much wider audience as well. P. Leis Evans-Pritchard's book Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande has become a classic of both ethnography and theories of witchcraft. Now, anthropologist John Ryle and film-maker André Singer, who was himself one of Evans-Pritchard's students and has published on the Azande, have teamed together to produce the film Witchcraft among the Azande for Granada Television's Disappearing World series. Singer wanted to learn for himself the accuracy of Evans-Pritchard's analysis and to note the changes since the original fieldwork carried out between 1926 and 1930. Among the Azande, witchcraft is considered to be a major danger. They believe that witchcraft can be inherited and that a person can be a witch, causing others harm, without realising her or his influence. Because of this danger, effective means of diagnosing witchcraft are, for them, vital. One method is through the use of an oracle. Several kinds of oracles are explored in the film, the most important being benge, a poison which is fed to baby chickens. The chick's death or survival provides the oracle's answer. Azande also use benge to judge other evidence in a court before a chief. Anthropologists have long argued about the nature and significance of beliefs in witchcraft and sorcery and, more generally, about the similarities and differences between `traditional' thought and Western science. This film treads a delicate path, exploring an explanation of reality incomprehensible to a majority of Westerners and, at the same time, trying to portray the Azande as a clear-thinking, and almost familiar group of people. In this aim the film succeeds by creating a tension whereby the oracle's answers are important to the viewers because they have become involved and are forming their own opinions about the guilt or innocence of the defendants. Zande is not a static society and much has changed since Evans-Pritchard's original fieldwork. The area filmed is influenced by Catholicism; people are Christian, but the church cannot give answers to many of the questions of the Azande people. The older people see their children abandoning traditional moral and other values. For this schism, the older people seem to blame the government more than the church as the church teaches a value system consonant with the traditional one. Yet, alongside the Christian influence and changes among the younger generation, the power of beliefs in witchcraft and oracles remains. If Singer wanted to give support to Evans-Pritchard's ethnography, he has done so with Witchcraft among the Azande."
  • "Focuses on the human side of the Azande tribe of the African Sudan, and the deep conviction that all misfortunes result from witchcraft. Follows a farmer as he seeks magical relief for an ill wife by consulting oracles and by the ritual poisoning of a chicken."
  • "Focuses on the human side of the Azande tribe of the African Sudan, and the deep conviction that all misfortunes result from witchcraft. Follows a farmer as he seeks magical relief for an ill wife by consulting oracles and by the ritual poisoning of a chicken."@en
  • "Presents the role of witchcraft among the Azande in spite of their acceptance of Christianity, focusing on its usage in adjudicating disputes, curing illness, assuring success in the hunt, and purification of the newborn."@en

director

genre

http://schema.org/genre

  • "Émissions télévisées autres que de fiction"
  • "Television series"@en
  • "Documentaires télévisés"
  • "Courts métrages"
  • "Documentary television programs"@en
  • "Nonfiction television programs"@en
  • "Documentary films"
  • "Ethnographic television programs"@en

name

http://schema.org/name

  • "Witchcraft among the Azande"@en
  • "Witchcraft among the Azande"

producer

workExample