In African countries like Ghana where people take delight in inscribing cryptic religious statements on their properties visitors find this signwriting culture very revealing. These writing are part of the popular religious culture. A lot of them insinuate the fact that enemies may either be working against people or plotting their downfall. Thus inscriptions like:…

“When you used to research witchcraft, we thought it was just something normal,” an old friend told me during a recent trip to Northwestern, Tanzania, we we lived for over a decade during our time in East Africa. “We didn’t think it was really important to research. But now all of the killing of albinos…

Suffering in all forms is pervasive and present in all humans regardless of age, race, religion, status, or sex. It is almost as if human beings are born to suffer.  From the beginning of the first humans, suffering has been part of human existence. It is natural for human beings to seek the cause(s) of…

Aru is the name of my small home town located in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in the Ituri District. It could have been called the “Salem of DRC.” In June 2001, several hundred people accused of witchcraft were brutally killed exclusively in Aru, one of the counties of the…

Before I moved with my family to Northwestern Tanzania 20 years ago, we were quite healthy. I had written research papers on demons and powers in the Bible, but I had no awareness of witches or witchcraft. Then, within the first year of our time in Africa, we were sick 40 times. I began having…

What is witchcraft? Various terms and interpretations have been offered in attempts to understand the phenomenon of witchcraft in Africa. E. Evans-Pritchard’s classic distinction between witchcraft and sorcery, which has been altered by other anthropologists, is relevant in many places in Africa. The assumption is that witchcraft is an inherent quality and a psychic act….

A Guest Post by Dr. Tim Stabell Hi Bob, I’ve done a couple of small-scale replication studies based on the information you sent me a couple of months ago, looking at how students in the two universities where I teach here in Congo respond to questions about their experience with accusations of witchcraft. I haven’t…