According to Russel, witchcraft is the employment of mysterious supernatural powers involving magic and sorcery to wreak evil on the people, the power is organic and hereditory.362Withchcraft is to belief that someone possesses some
360 J.O. Awolalu & P.A. Dopamu, West African Traditional Religion, 197-200
361 Dada and Jeje, Awon Asa ati Orisa ni Ile Yoruba, 224; N.A. Fadipe, The Sociology of the Yoruba, 144-145
362 B. Russell, ‘Withchcraft’ in A.C. Lehmann & J.E. Meyers (eds), Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion, An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural, (3rd ed.), California: Mayfield
supernatural powers by which harn can be effected.363 Witchcraft is also considered as the ‘practice of magic, especially the use of spells and the invocation of evil spirits’.364 A witch is otherwise seen ‘…as a wise person who is adjudged to have supernatural powers in consequence of him or her forming a league with the devil or evil spirits; and through such alliance and co-operation, the person is enabled of such diabolical power as to be able to perform supernatural acts which are mostly destructive’.365
In other words, witches are considered as the personification of evil and wicked people who work harm against others. They wreak harm against people through their possession of mysterious powers unknown and unavailable to ordinary people.
Idowu while describing their nefarious and diabolical deeds states:
Witches are human beings of very strong determined wills with diabolical bent
;…( they) are the veritably wicked ones who derive sadistic satisfaction from bringing misfortune upon other people…366
Witchcraft is viewed as ‘…a bad medicine directed destructively against other people, but its distinctive feature is that there is no palpable apparatus connected with it, no rites, ceremonies, incantations, or invocations that the witch has to perform…’367 Field observes that a witch is ‘…a person who is the abode of an evil
Publishimg (1993), 198, See also, E.E.Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, Oxford: Clarendon Press (1976),1-2; D. Forde, Ethnographic Survey of Africa, West Africa and the Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of South-Western Nigeria, London: International African Institute, 30-31; L. Frobenius, The Voice of Africa; Being an Account of the Travels of the German Inner African Exploration Expedition in the Years 1910-1912, 199-201.
363 T.N.O Quarcoopome, West African Traditional Religion, 150-151; J.S.Eades, Changing Culture:
The Yoruba Today, 124-125
364 S. Soanes and A. Stevenson (eds.), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 1656.
365 J.O. Awolalu, Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites, 78-79.
366E.B. Idowu, African Traditional Religion; A Definition, 184-185.
367 J.O. Awolalu, Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites, 80.
entity…’368 Witchcraft is an anti-social phenomenon which acts against the society.369
To some people, witchcraft is a way of providing an outlet for aggression caused by the conflicts, antagonisms, and frustrations of social living. It is considered as a convenient scapegoat for such aggressions. The dysfunctional aspect of this art is that it does real harm, causes real fears, and promotes dangerous problems. This is the exercise of evil through immanent power. Witchcraft, unlike sorcery, is derived from within, and cannot be learned. A witch’s power to do evil may lie dormant and not be used or it may be increased by practice, but it is nearly always inherited.
But, magic may either be malevolent or beneficent. Withchcraft frequently has an animal form such as a cat, a werewolf, or a bat. Witches can project evil over great distances without moving, or they may transport themselves at great speeds in order to do some needed mischief. The evil eye and evil tongue are variants of witchcraft and some people can cause terrible harm simply by looking or speaking, often without evil intent. Witchcraft, magic and divination are worldwide, and their antiquity is great.370
In his contribution, Mbiti admits largely the controversy surrounding the existence of witchcraft. Having given copious examples on the activities of these mysterious societies; he criticizes the large amount of ignorance, prejudice and falsifications
368 M.J. Field, Religion and the Medicine of the Ga People, Oxford: Oxford Press (1937), 12.
369Parrinder claims that women are the most prone to the suspicion of witchcraft. In most parts of Yoruba land and in any typical African society, witches are believed to be female, and the most dangerous ones. A female witch-doctor is very rare, it is believed these secret societies are mainly concerned with females, kinship stresses are other roots of witchcraft. For more, see, G. Parrinder, African Traditional Religion, 132.
370 W.A. Lessa & E.Z. Vogt (eds.), Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach (4th ed.), New York: Harper & Row (1979), 332-333.
coming from modern authors and writers on this subject; most especially European and American writers, missionaries and colonial administrators. Besides, he asserts that every African man appears to know something about the mystical power which is often experienced, or manifested itself in form of magic, divination, witchcraft and other mysterious phenomena which defy immediate scientific explanation.371 Anthropologists and sociologists use the term witchcraft in a specialized way, they believe that witches are women who leave their bodies on their beds in order to attend ‘meetings’ or to ‘suck’ or ‘eat’ the life of their victims. So, witchcraft is seen as an infectious or hereditary art.
Mbiti asserts that African societies do not usually draw academic distinction between witchcraft, sorcery, evil magic, evil eye and other means of mystical power to wreak havoc on people.372 ‘Witchcraft’ according to him is a terminology that connotes ‘…harmful employment of mystical power in all its different manifestations…’ He claims that whatever the controversy, one thing is absolutely certain, that: ‘…African peoples believe that there are individuals who have access to mystical power which they employ for destructive purposes…’373 Russell, after his comprehensive analysis of witchcraft, claims that:
Witches are usually females and often elderly; they meet at night, leaving their bodies or changing their shapes. They suck the blood or devour the
internal organs of their victims; they kill children and eat them, and sometimes bring their flesh to the secret assemblies; they ride through the air naked on
371 J.S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy, 104.
372 Ibid., 202.
373 Mbiti concludes that ‘… the belief in witchcraft among the Yoruba cannot be free from its psychological contagiousness because the belief, fear, exaggeration, fiction and irrationality, affects everyone, because it has become an essential aspect of Yoruba religious beliefs’ Ibid, 203.
broomsticks or other objects; they have familiar spirits; they dance in circles;
they hold indiscriminate orgies and seduce sleeping people.374
He concludes that ‘…witchcraft is a diverse subject, which no single approach can completely fathom…examining it theologically, historically, mythologically, psychologically, anthropologically and sociologically.’375
Writing on witchcraft and the malevolent activities of witches and wizards, Reverend Evangelist J.O. Balogun of the God’s miracle Evangelical Ministry, who himself admitted to have belonged to fourteen secret cults of which he headed seven , testifies thus:
Witchcraft may be grouped into three sectional parts: the agude, agude, (in Yoruba accent) and the agudegude’. The agudegude are the most powerful ones called Oshoronga’. They are hermaphrodites. They possess both male and female organs. They are the wicked. They transform themselves into black cats and birds. They change into any form of animal of their choice.
They torment victims in dreams by becoming cows, snakes and lions pursuing them. They cook palatable dishes and give people to eat in dreams. They may have sex with a pregnant woman, show her a red piece of cloth, red palm-nuts or even kill a goat and allow the pregnant woman see the blood flowing at dawn, the pregnancy will be miscarried physically. If they are successful in burying a person in a dream and the victim fails to fight his way out to get free in this dream, he may not wake up alive physically.
Very strong and powerful wizards and witches do not have to harm a victim physically but by merely looking at him. By just rubbing body to body, havoc has been perpetrated. Blood has been sucked. When some possessed elders lay their palms on the heads of children pretending to bless or greet them, the result is always on the reverse.
Sometimes witches have their signs marked on the foreheads of their victims.
It is a black ring with a red dot in the centre. Wherever he or she goes she is
374 .B. Russell, ‘Witchcraft’ in A.C. Lehmann & J.E. Myers (eds.), Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion, An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural (3rd ed.), California: Mayfield Publishing (1993), 199.
375 Russel concludes that ‘… even taking all these subjects together, they do not seem to provide a full understanding of such a diverse subject.’ He also argues that its power may diminish from time to time, but it is unlikely to disappear. Ibid, 200
never free from their attacks. She or he becomes a prey to them. The sign is invisible to the ordinary eye.376
Scholars have distinguished witchcraft from sorcery; a sorcerer uses charms, incantations, spells and magic and with premeditation. But a witch performs no rite, utters no spell and possesses neither spell nor medicine and it is a psychic act. The sorcerer makes a magic to harm but the witch sometimes has inherent and intangible power for harming others. She also projects her evil thoughts from her mind, invisibly and without cursing and invoking; but a sorcerer manipulates tangible materials such as: nails, hair, spittle, sweat, urine, sleeping mats, dirty clothes, chewing sticks, footprints and a handkerchief (all connected with the body) in order to prepare offensive magic for his clients; to get rid of his enemies; and to carry out his devilish work.377
The sorcerer can also kill his enemies or those of his clients by the use of bad magic; by means of invocation and incantations; thus making an effigy of his victim spiritually; killing him through this means. He can equally send poisonous animals particularly snakes and scorpions to attack his victim.378 Sorcery also involves the use of ‘magun’ ‘do not mount’ (technically it means ‘do not have intercourse with’); a father or jealous husband secretly puts this bad magic on his wife and
376 J.O.Balogun, Freedom from Cluthces of Satan, Abakaliki, Nigeria: Holy Ghost Outreach Ministries International, 14. Although, this statement could be seen as ‘self praising’ in order to
‘purify’ himself that he has renounced the withcraft society and to sell his church as a centre of deliverance for any problem, so that many people will come to his church. Be that as it may, the statement still contains some facts about the activities of this society which we hear and read. In an Oral interview with Mrs. Salmat on 12-1-08. She told me that she did had a similar experience when she was pregnant and whenever she dreamt she would see a woman, who was her enemy and threatened her in real life, showing her a blood-stained cloth, and in the morning she would physically notice that she has been miscarried. Many other people have also made statements like this.
377 J.O. Awolalu, Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites, 81.
378 J.O.Awolalu & P.A.Dopamu., West African Traditional Religion, 281; T.N.O. Quarcoopome, West African Traditional Religion, 151
anybody that has sexual intercourse with her will be caught in the trap and will die instantaneously and disgracefully. The husband can also fall victim if the woman remains faithful. It also involves the use of curses, imprecating the enemy with bad magic called ‘epe’ (curse). Through it, a person can become insane, or calling down lightning or incurable disease on their victim.379 Sorcery makes use of palpable magical apparatus, but witchcraft relies heavily on psychic powers.
In the psychology and sociology of the Yoruba, and in Africa generally, the existence of witchcraft and their diabolical activities have been ingrained in their minds. ‘Strange’, ‘terminal’, sudden diseases like accidents, ‘untimely’ death, demotion in jobs, failure in examinations, loss in business, disappointment in love, barrenness in women, impotence in men, and failure of crops to be harvested are attributed to witchcraft.380 The Yoruba do not believe that people that die young suffer infant mortality, poverty etc., they often believe that this type of misfortune is caused by witchcraft.381
Scholars have divergent opinions on the controversy as to whether there is objective reality in the existence of witchcraft. Pritchard and Meek denounce the real existence of witchcraft and their diabolical activities; Pritchard says ‘…witchcraft is an imaginary offence because it is impossible. A witch cannot do what he is supposed to do and has in fact no real existence’.382 Meek also debunks the existence of witchcraft when he says ‘Witches and witchcraft do not, of course,
379 Ibid., 284-286.
380 J.O. Awolalu & P.A. Dopamu., West African Traditional Religion, 81.
381 Owolabi, et al., Ijinle Ede ati Litireso Yoruba, Lagos: Evans Brothers Ltd (2000), 49-50. In other words, they do not critically assess their own faults in terms of good health care, training, good diet, good living to mention but a few.
382 E.E. Evans-Pritchard., Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, Oxford: Oxford University Press (1937). 11-13
exist; witchcraft is a purely imaginary crime’.383 They consider it as a figment of imagination. But Field in her extensive study acknowledged the fact that it is very difficult to make investigations and understand witchcraft, but there is objective reality in the existence of witchcraft to Africans.384 She refuted the Europeans’
claim that ‘…witches are people mentally afflicted with the obsession that they have the power to harm others by thinking them harm’.385 In other words, they view it as a fantasy or an illusion but Field was convinced that ‘…the African point of view is based on a solid reality and not on a superstitious and senselessly cruel fantasy’.386
Indeed, the belief in witchcraft among the Africans, Yoruba inclusive, is ubiquitous and one cannot make a categorical statement about it and their activities unless one belongs to that secret society. Nevertheless, the activities of withces are well known in African communities and all evils are attributed to them.387 Idowu claims that witchcraft is a reality in Africa.388 Most of the Yoruba also share the same view regardless of their educational background, economic, social and religious status.
There are many Muslim Clerics or Imām as witch doctors, who give people charms and amulets to counter or protect against the diabolical influence of witchcraft.389
Many Scholars of African Traditional Religion explain that the main source of information concerning witchcraft is obtained from confessions made by witches
383 C.K. Meek, Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria, (NP): Kegan Paul (1931), 44.
384 M.J. Field, Religion and the Medicine of the Ga People, 80-82.
385 Ibid., 83.
386 Ibid., 86.
387 Ibid., 84.
388 I.E. Bolaji, ‘The Challenge of Witchcraft’, Orita, Vol. iv, No.1, June, 1970, 16.
389A.R.I. Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 246-247.
themselves.390 It is these confessions that make people believe that witches actually exist; although modern scientists and psychologists have debunked this claim saying that these so called confessions are made under pressure, duress and threat, or when they are delirious and not conscious of what they are saying. But such confessions according to a pre-scientific and naturalistic approach may be upheld;
and the Yoruba anti-wickedness divinities (i.e. Ayelala) single out wicked witches for punishment.391
Some scholars of African Traditional Religion have come up with distinctive features of witches which include: ‘Witchcraft is intangible; it cannot be touched or handled, it is psychic; you cannot see it physically when it performs its action, it is shrouded in secrecy; a witch enjoys secrecy; whenever she goes about her ‘service’
or ‘trade’ she disguises herself using bird or familiar animal which she works constantly with, or flying to their assembly’392
It is also claimed that they organise nocturnal meetings which is Ajo, and they meet at midnight spiritually or in a dream; the meetings are held at different levels. It is said that important diabolical decisions are taken at these meetings, and the contributions and elevations or promotions at these meetings depend upon a donation of a human victim. In other words, the chief purpose of their meetings is spiritual cannibalism (anthropophagy), they devour ‘the soul of the flesh’ the dearer
390 See for instance, J.O. Awolalu, Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites, 83; G. Parrinder; African Traditional Religion, 125; J.S .Mbiti, African Religion and Philosophy, 195; G, Parrinder, West African Religion. 165-166; G.E. Simpson, Yoruba Religion and Medicine in Ibadan, 75-76
391 J.O. Awolalu, Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites, 83. A.B. Elias, The Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa their Religion, Manners, Customs, Laws, Language. Etc, 116
392 It is claimed that they usually mount on the backs of owls, antelopes, leopards, black cats, snakes, night birds like night-jars, owls, bats, fireflies or by transforming herself’. And they are mostly women. For details, see G. Parrinder, African Traditional Religion, 126.
to the contributor, the more elevation she earns.393 For instance, she can kill her own daughter, husband, etc.394
Scholars have maintained that witchcraft can be acquired through different ways:
some people are born witches; some people also inherit powers from their mothers i.e. heredity; some people also pay for it in order to procure it while some unknowingly acquire it through food given by witches in which witchcraft would have been ‘stuffed’, it can also be an infection that can be taken with food, and the recipient now gets a craving for human flesh. It is also believed that the most stubborn of them are those born witches.395
Moreover, other methods used by witchcraft to infect or attack their victim may be in the form of incantations, words or rituals. She may also use nails, hair and clothes which she burns or pricks. The belief is that once she inflicts harm on his belongings, the injury will automatically wound his victim. Another method is that of planting a magic object into the ground across the path where the victim will likely pass or at his gate or sending flies, bees, or animals so that when they touch him or he sees them he will automatically fall sick or meet the intended misfortune.
They also cause harm by ordinarily looking at the person, wishing him harm or speaking to him words intended to inflict harm on him.396
393 J.O. Awolalu, Yoruba Beliefs and Sacrificial Rites, 85; Oral information from Alhaji.Isa,Yoruba traditional medicine man and a witch doctor, based in Epe on 10/10/08.
394 Interview with Alhaji. Imota Balogun, Imām Zumratul Islamiyyah, Epe branch 18/10/08. Imota explains to me that they normally have women at their headship i.e. head of council. Men are known as ‘knife holders’ in charge of executing their victims and whoever is killed or punished, it is believed, that they assume a collective or corporate responsibility. And in case their victim will be pardoned, it is one of the members that will be given the medicine to cure the victim or an expert in this way can order that a substitute sacrifice should be done.
395 G.Parrinder, African Traditional Religion, 124; J.O. Awolalu, African Religion and Philosophy, 85. 396 J.S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religion, 166.
Witches may also carry another person’s soul to be shared at their nocturnal meetings, the victim will wake up weak and sick and he will die instantly.397 They also inflict serious injuries on their victims like blindness or barrenness. The Yoruba also believe in ‘voodoo death’, death caused by witchcraft, sorcery or due
Witches may also carry another person’s soul to be shared at their nocturnal meetings, the victim will wake up weak and sick and he will die instantly.397 They also inflict serious injuries on their victims like blindness or barrenness. The Yoruba also believe in ‘voodoo death’, death caused by witchcraft, sorcery or due