Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T05:25:42.658Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Witchcraft accusations and economic tension in pre-colonial Old Calabar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

A. J. H. Latham
A. J. H. Latham
Affiliation:
University College, Swansea
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

M. G. Marwick has suggested that witchcraft accusations show where the tensions lie in the societies in which they occur. He also intimates that in Africa witchcraft accusations only occur between persons in close social contact. These ideas are borne out by an analysis of the cases of Efik witchcraft for which there is evidence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There witchcraft accusations for the most part involved relations by blood or marriage. But although G. I. Jones has suggested that the underlying tensions which provoke witchcraft accusations in the eastern areas of Nigeria today arise from a contracting economic situation, this was not true of Old Calabar in those days; its economy was in fact expanding under the stimulus of overseas trade. It was expansion which caused the tension, as successful business men acquired wealth and slaves, and therefore status, which contradicted their position in the traditional status system, based on age and place in lineage rather than wealth. At the highest political level these tensions manifested themselves in election disputes, where witchcraft accusations were made against candidates, in order that they take the poison ordeal and be eliminated from the election. Yet in the neighbouring states of Bonny and New Calabar, witchcraft accusations were rare. This may have been because the old descent groups had broken up, to be replaced by canoe houses, warring and trading organizations which owed their origin to the enterprise of their founders who were often slaves. Because the tensions in these societies were between competing unrelated individuals, aggression did not need to be covert. Instead rivalries could be fought in the open, as they were, Bonny and New Calabar being racked by violence and warfare.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 249 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Marwick, M. G., Witchcraft and Sorcery (Penguin 1970), 17.Google Scholar

2 ibid 280, cit. Marwick, M. G., ‘Witchcraft as a Social Strain Gauge’, Australian Journal of Science, 26 (1964), 263–8.Google Scholar

3 Marwick, M. G., Sorcery in its Social Setting (Manchester University Press, 1965), 81.Google Scholar

4 Camps, F. E., Gradwood's Legal Medicine, 2nd ed (Williams and Wilkins, London, 1968), 686.Google Scholar

5 Waddell, H. M., Twenty-Nine Years in the West Indies and Central Africa (London, 1863), 480.Google Scholar

6 ibid 279, 547–8. Rev. Hugh, Goldie, Calabar and its Mission (Edinburgh and London, 1890), 34–5.Google Scholar

7 Simmons, D., ‘An Ethnographic Sketch of the Efik People’, in Forde, D. (ed.), Efik Traders of Old Calabar (Oxford University Press, 1956), 21–2.Google ScholarAye, E. U., Old Calabar Through the Centuries (Hope Waddell Press, Calabar, 1967), 78–83.Google Scholar

8 Jones, G. I., ‘A Boundary to Accusations’, in Douglas, M. (Ed.), Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations (Tavistock, London, 1970), 325–6.Google Scholar

9 Goldie, , Calabar, 209–13.Google Scholar

10 ibid 233–5.

11 Latham, A. J. H., ‘Old Calabar 1600–1891: The Impact of the West upon a Traditional Society’, Ph.D. thesis, 1970 (University of Birmingham), 50–1, 61, 63.Google Scholar

12 ibid 53, 55–6, 61–3.

13 ibid 47–8, 63–6.

14 Antera, , Duke, , ‘Extracts from the Original Text of the Diary of Antera Duke’, in Forde, Efik Traders, III, 22 10 1787.Google Scholar

15 Waddell, , Twenty-Nine Years, 279, 497.Google ScholarGoldie, , Calabar, 159.Google Scholar

16 Waddcll, , Twenty-Nine Years, 336–7.Google ScholarMarwick, W., William and Louisa Anderson (Edinburgh, 1897), 212–13.Google Scholar

17 Marwick, , Andersons, 257–63.Google Scholar

18 Waddell, , Twenty-Nine Years, 337.Google Scholar

19 Marwick, , Andersons, 486–92, cit. Anderson's Journal, 29 05 1871–15 06 1871.Google Scholar

20 ibid 505, cit. Anderson, , 28 08 1872, 507.Google Scholar

21 Agreement in Hopkins to Foreign Secretary, 6 Sept. 1878, No. 33, FO 84/1508.

22 Latham, , ‘Old Calabar’, 177, 184–6.Google Scholar

23 Marwick, , Andersons, 577, cit. Anderson to Chisholin, 25 03 1881.Google Scholar

24 ibid 567, cit. Anderson, , 8 05 1879.Google Scholar

25 Latham, , ‘Old Calabar’, 182–90.Google Scholar

26 Goody, , Esther, , ‘Legitimate and Illegitimate Aggression in a West African State’, in Douglas, M. (Ed.) Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations (Tavistock, London, 1970), 222–4.Google Scholar

27 Waddell, , Twenty-Nine Years, 459.Google ScholarGoldie, , Calabar, 37.Google Scholar

28 Jones, , ‘Boundary to Accusations’, 325.Google Scholar

29 Ibid. 329–31.

30 Latham, , ‘Old Calabar’, 23–37, 78–114.Google Scholar

31 Latham, , ‘Old Calabar’, 47–8, 59, 63–76.Google Scholar

32 Marwick, , Sorcery in its Social Setting, 289.Google Scholar

33 Jones, 1, Trading States, 55–7.Google ScholarHorton, R., ‘From Fishing Village to City State: A Social History of New Calabar’, in Douglas, M. and Kaberry, P. M., Man in Africa (Tavistock, London, 1969), 46–50.Google Scholar

34 Jones, , Trading States, 55.Google Scholar

35 Horton, , ‘Fishing Village’, 50–2, 55–7.Google Scholar