Sorcery

Sorcery in Anthropology

E. E. Evans-Pritchard in his famous work, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (1937), is credited for having clarified the distinction between sorcery and witchcraft that most anthropologists recognize: sorcery is a learned magical practice requiring words, objects, and rituals, whereas witchcraft is an innate power that develops within some adults and operates mystically and sometimes without its bearer's knowledge. The same distinction had been noted earlier in Melanesia by Reo Fortune in his Sorcerers of Dobu(1932), with the difference that on Dobu, mystical witchcraft is women's unique capacity; sorcery is men's. But Fortune's report was not given credence until three decades later, and his pioneering place in the anthropology of sorcery and witchcraft was overshadowed by Evans-Pritchard.

Presumably the evil magician can demonstrate his techniques, and there are some ethnographic descriptions of how harmful magic is performed, but most descriptions of how sorcerers work are anecdotal, based in popular belief. One reason for the ethnographic difficulty in obtaining firsthand data is that sorcery is almost always covert. Sorcery manipulates the supernatural, which is always dangerous, and it is antisocial, so it is everywhere forbidden, even illegal; hence, it is clandestine, deeply feared, and discussed reluctantly and furtively, and it is more suspected than demonstrated in society. And some of the sorcerer's alleged techniques involve invocation and command of spirits, or fantastic animal familiars, or mystical powers, and are impossible to verify. Worldwide, sorcerers are far more often men than [Page 2118]women. The most likely sorcerers are people who have legitimately learned how to exploit natural and supernatural powers without harm to themselves, so it is assumed that they can use those same powers for antisocial purposes, for their own purposes, or for hire to others such as priests or shamans and skilled herbalists or other types of healers. Or, it is assumed that ordinary people can learn the techniques of sorcery under the tutelage of a skilled sorcerer.

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