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Contemporary African Witchcraft
Witch hunting in europe
Contemporary African Witchcraft
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Witchcraft is an age-less and complex phenomenon. Existing in almost every human culture and targeting mostly women, witchcraft has been used to both empower and oppress women throughout history. The present is no different. In many African countries, such as Ghana, witchcraft is widely accepted and feared. This had led to many issues for Ghanaian women, who once accused of witchcraft are subject to numerous abuses and mistreatments. Scholars, having long debated solutions to this issue, suggest outlawing anti-witchcraft practices and eradicating belief in witchcraft. Both of these solutions are unsatisfactory. In this paper I will explore the Ghanaian belief in witchcraft and the resulting social condition for women. Through a close look at the feminization of Ghanaian witchcraft we will discover that despite wide-spread mistreatment of women in the name of Ghanaian witchcraft, the proposed solutions, namely to reintroduce accused witches into society and to eradicate witchcraft beliefs, are ineffective and fail to address the real issues.
In the West, people generally do not believe in the power of witches or witchcraft. This is not the case in many African countries, like Ghana. Belief in the power of witches is so wide-spread that is treated like “a reality without any doubt.” However, Ghana is also a very diverse country. With at least 11 different languages and many differing ethnic groups , witchcraft can mean very different things as you move around the country. The following descriptions of Ghanaian witchcraft discourse are generalized, and care must be taken to assure clarity in the fact that they cannot be said to characterize all Ghanaians.
Although Ghana is largely Christian and Muslim, witchcraft beliefs, a centr...
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...Movements in Colonial Ghana, 1908-1927.” Journal of Religion in Africa 35 (2005): 139-158.
Dovlo, Elom. “Witchcraft in Contemporary Ghana.” In Imagining Evil: Witchcraft Beliefs and Accusations in Contemporary Africa, edited by Gerrie ter Haar, 67-92. Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, Inc., 2007.
MacDougall, Claire. “Ghana Aims to Abolosh Witches’ Camps” The Christian Science Monitor. September 15, 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2011/0915/Ghana-aims-to-abolish-witches-camps.
World Factbook: Ghana. Washington D.C: Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gh.html
Haar, Gerrie ter. “Ghanaian Witchcraft Beliefs: A View from the Netherlands.” Imagining Evil: Witchcraft Beliefs and Accusations in Contemporary Africa, edited by Gerrie ter Haar, 93-112. Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, Inc., 2007.
The Devil in the Form of a woman by Carol Karlsen details the particular treacheries towards several women of all ages inside colonial The us. This particular thought ended up being created by the male driven culture of the Puritans.. Other than as an evident disciple to the activist institution connected with traditional imagined, the girl delicate factors the particular criticalness connected with witchcraft allegations for ladies inside New England. She contends for that relevance and criticalness connected with women's areas in the devouring madness connected with witchcraft inside seventeenth century United States. She unobtrusively states that many diversions were being used to mince away witchcraft practices along with the publication of material describing the matter. This describes that a certain type of woman gambled denunciation away from scope to help the woman group gain correct portrayal in the public forum.
The book begins with a brief history of the colonial witchcraft. Each Chapter is structured with an orientation, presentation of evidence, and her conclusion. A good example of her structure is in chapter two on the demographics of witchcraft; here she summarizes the importance of age and marital status in witchcraft accusations. Following this she provides a good transition into chapter three in the final sentence of chapter two, “A closer look of the material conditions and behavior of acc...
The early modern era in Western Europe was a dangerous place for women with the rise of so called “witches” populating towns and country sides. With the peak of these witch trials happening between 1560 and 1640 in England (the making of the west 499). This caused the people of Europe to live in fear of the devil and his counterparts on earth. Over 80 percent of victims of these witch trials were women and thousands upon thousands of trials taking place all across Europe and the North American Colonies at the time as well (motw 500). Seeing that women are mostly accused of witches, it raises the questions as to why that is. Upon examining 2 specific cases in this essay, those being of Walpurga Hausmannin from Dillingen, Germany and Francatte Camont from Lorraine, France; one can see that both these cases are very similar in many aspects despite the fact that both these women were trialed in different countries in Western Europe. In this essay, the reader will explore the motivations, visions and the targets of these witch trials with specific evidence and focus on the trials of both Walpurga and Francatte. The reader will also be able see connections between both trials throughout as well.
1: In the piece “Cannibals, Witches, and Slave Traders in the Atlantic World” by John Thornton, Thornton explains the mentality of the native Africans during the slave trade. The mentality of these people is something that Americans and British people have misconceived “The beliefs of slaves from the Kikongo- and Kimbundu-speaking regions of West Central Africa (see Figure I), discernable in a variety of documents from the African side”(Thornton 275). The African people had beliefs of cannibalism and witchcraft. These ideas were instilled into their culture by the way of their religions. The people that were “witches” were those who were very greedy people. Africa was a very community based area and because of this the people all attempted to contribute positively towards the
Witchcraft had always fascinated many people and been a very controversial topic in North America during (seventeenth) 17th century. Many People believe that witchcraft implies the ability to injure or using supernatural power to harm others. People believed that a witch represents dark side of female present and were more likely to embrace witchcraft than men. There are still real witches among us in the Utah whom believe that witchcraft is the oldest religion dealing with the occult. However the popular conception of a witch has not changed at least since the seventeenth century; they still caused panic, fear and variety of other emotions in people…………………….
Throughout the late 17th century and into the early 18th century witchcraft prosecutions had been declining. This trend was the result of a multitude of social developments which altered the mentality of society. One of the predominant factors in this decline was the Scientific Revolution, the most important effect of these advances was making society question concepts of witchcraft. Along with this new mental outlook, we see that the Reformation had a similar effect on social opinion concerning witchcraft and magic. These two developments changed societies view on the occult and this led to a wider scepticism concerning witchcraft, this favoured those who had been accused and therefore caused a decline in prosecutions. Beyond the two trends mentioned however, it is important to consider judicial reforms and an improved socio-economic situation which reduced tensions within society. These two changes were certainly not as influential as the Scientific Revolution and the Reformation but heavily altered the circumstances in which accusations were normally made. With the altered social attitudes and mental outlook these changes in living situations all contributed to bring about the decline in witchcraft prosecutions.
Witchcraft is a belief in Satan who is known for tempting human beings and destroying their lives by creating desperation in mankind and leading them into the dark side. Humans are vulnerable and can easily be manipulated and used for one’s own gain. Witchcraft is considered evil, impure, a nightmare from hell, and a rebellion against religion since it associates itself with the Devil. The Devil is known to manipulate and attack an individual’s mind and gain control of them for wrongdoings. An individual can be blinded by evil and can be taken away from God to glorify the Devil. In the book Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts by Richard Weisman, the writer focuses on the origins of witchcraft in the village Salem in the 17th century. Weisman’s goal is to portray the people accused during the Salem trials as ordinary human beings and not witches; therefore, innocent lives had been killed due to merely popular allegations and an injustice court system.
The term witchcraft is defines as the practice of magic intended to influence nature. It is believed that only people associated with the devil can perform such acts. The Salem Witch Trials was much more than just America’s history, it’s also part of the history of women. The story of witchcraft is first and foremost the story of women. Especially in its western life, Karlsen (1989) noted that “witchcraft challenges us with ideas about women, with fears about women, with the place of women in society and with women themselves”. Witchcraft also confronts us too with violence against women. Even through some men were executed as witches during the witch hunts, the numbers were far less then women. Witches were generally thought to be women and most of those who were accused and executed for being witches were women. Why were women there so many women accused of witchcraft compared to men? Were woman accused of witchcraft because men thought it was a way to control these women? It all happened in 1692, in an era where women were expected to behave a certain way, and women were punished if they threatened what was considered the right way of life. The emphasis of this paper is the explanation of Salem proceedings in view of the role and the position of women in Colonial America.
1 Nachman Ben-Yehuda The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th Centuries: A Sociologist’s Perspective. The University of Chicago, 1980. 15. 2 Levack! 123.3 Levack 164.
Witchcraft is said to be the most widespread cultural phenomenon in existence today and throughout history. Even those who shun the ideas of witchcraft cannot discount the similarities in stories from all corners of the globe. Witchcraft and its ideas have spread across racial, religious, and language barriers from Asia to Africa to America. Primitive people from different areas in the world have shockingly similar accounts of witchcraft occurrences. In most cases the strange parallels cannot be explained and one is only left to assume that the tales hold some truth. Anthropologists say that many common elements about witchcraft are shared by different cultures in the world. Among these common elements are the physical characteristics and the activities of supposed witches. I will go on to highlight some of the witch characteristic parallels found in printed accounts from different parts of the world and their comparisons to some famous fairytales.
Sidky, H. Witchcraft, lycanthropy, drugs, and disease: an anthropological study of the European witch-hunts. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1997.
Witchcraft is the use of these forces for negative ends, to extort evil, and magic asks for positive ends. Witchcraft has been found to exist in all corners of the globe at some point. It is no coincidence that during the Enlightenment, witch hunts in Europe and North America became common. The aim was to rid society of these people regarded as unreasonable and dangerous. By contrast self-proclaimed witches still have a function in some societies today, mainly in the developing world. Magic however is often a word used to describe certai...
Witchcraft persecution peaked in intensity between 1560 and 1630 however the large scale witch hysteria began in the 14th century, at the end of the Middle Ages and were most intense during the Renaissance and continued until the 18th century, an era often referred to as the Enlightenment or Age of Reason. Representation of witches, nay, representation in general is a political issue. Without the power ot define the female voice and participate in decisions that affect women -similar to other marginalised groups in society- will be subject to the definitions and decisions of those in power. In this context, the power base lay with men. It can be said that the oppression of women may not have been deliberate, it is merely a common sense approach to the natural order of things: women have babies, women are weak, women are dispensable. However the natural order of things, the social constructs reflect the enduring success of patriarchal ideology. As such, ideology is a powerful source of inequality as well as a rationalisation of it. This essay will examine the nature of witchcraft and why it was threatening to Christianity.
In the late 17th century, religious leaders began to believe that the everyday person is not focusing on religion. More people are worrying about commerce or how they look, instead of wearing a plain black coat wearing a scarlet or gold jacket, even wearing wigs over “god given hair”. This infuriated religious leaders and when troubles erupted in the community they attempted to blame these issues on the common person focusing on worldly possessions. But these claims never settled but religious leaders turned to a new explanation that Satan was at work in the colonies in the form of witchcraft. These claims of witch craft fell on mainly unruly, eccentric, poor women. There was a rise of in claims of witch craft due to social, economic, and political
I. INTRODUCTION The Enlightenment and the emerging of modern rationalism have paved the way to a worldview where the suspicion of witchcraft is not needed to explain the mysterious phenomena of this world. This is not the case in Africa. The belief in the existence of witches, evil persons who are able to harm others by using mystical powers, is part of the common cultural knowledge. Samuel Waje Kunhiyop states, “Almost all African societies believe in witchcraft in one form or another.