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Another Modern Anti-Witchcraft Movement in East Central Africa1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

M. G. Marwick
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Extract

As the title of this paper suggests, the movement described in it is not the first of its kind to have been recorded in Central Africa. About fourteen years ago Dr. Audrey I. Richards reported on a witchfinding movement associated with the Nyanja word mcape. (Local variations include mcapi, mucapi, &c.—referring to the medicine—and the Bemba called the medicine-vendors the Bamucapi.)

Résumé

UN AUTRE MOUVEMENT MODERNE CONTRE LA SORCELLERIE DANS L'AFRIQUE CENTRALE ORIENTALE

Cet article décrit un mouvement qui a débuté au Nyasaland en 1947 et qui était associé avec deux hommes — Bwanali et Mpulumutse, qui prétendaient avoir mission divine d'extirper la sorcellerie. On leur attribuait la guérison de ceux qui souffraient de maladies ou d'afflictions causées par la sorcellerie et d'occasionner la mort de sorciers impénitents. M. Marwick discute les conséquences sociales de ce mouvement dont I'influence fut considérable au début, malgré qu'un certain scepticisme, quant à son authenticité, se faisait sentir plus tard; il le compare aussi à un mouvement assez similaire, signalé en 1935, et il suggère que le mouvement ultérieur avait plutôt la nature d'un renouveau religieux puisqu'il était accompagné de prédication et de lectures de la Bible et n'apportait aucun bénéfice financier aux dirigeants.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 1950 , pp. 100 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1950

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References

page 100 note 2 Richards, A. I., ‘A Modern Movement of Witchfinders’, Africa, viii (1935), pp. 448–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 101 note 1 Ibid., p. 451.

page 103 note 1 Since there is no evidence that either of these men has at any time accused anyone of witchcraft, one cannot properly refer to them as witchfinders.

page 104 note 1 Ce is the Yao equivalent of ‘Mr.’; Bwana is Nyanja for ‘master’.

page 104 note 2 The most adequate translation of the much-used Nyanja expression, cabwino.

page 104 note 3 These latter two relationships are not commonly regarded as ones in which witchcraft operates. Possibly this is quoted as a wonderful incident.

page 106 note 1 mfumba ya cimanga, a practice by which other people's maize is enticed into the sorcerer's garden.

page 107 note 1 This is presumably a reference to the Zomba flood of December, 1946, when one European lost his life. There is no record of Bwanali's having been in jail at this time—or at any other. (I am grateful to Mr. T. D. Thomson for this information.)

page 108 note 1 Cewa (or even Nyanja in general) seem to have a very strongly developed sense of shame or shyness (manyanzi). The ‘you’ in this statement is a translation of the Cewa u- which, strictly speaking, is in this context equivalent to the English ‘one’.

page 108 note 2 People are believed to commit incest with the object of increasing the potency of their medicines. This is regarded as reprehensible and is usually classed as ufiti (witchcraft or sorcery—between which Cewa makes no distinction).