Forbidden Utterances: Naming the Dead

All societies know grief, though how they handle it can vary significantly. One notable manner in which some cultures deal with the death of a member of their community is through name taboos; where the name of the deceased is forbidden from being spoken.

As anthropologists Lyle Steadman and Craig Palmer wrote in The Supernatural and Natural Selection (2008), “prohibitions on saying the name of a dead person, especially in front of his or her relatives, are fairly widespread.” Anthropologist James Frazer wrote that across Australian aboriginal societies, “to name aloud one who has departed this life would be a gross violation of their most sacred prejudices, and they carefully abstain from it.” Frazer adds that, “A similar reluctance to mention the names of the dead is reported of peoples so widely separated from each other as the Samoyeds of Siberia and the Todas of Southern India; the Mongols of Tartary and the Tuaregs of the Sahara; the Ainos of Japan and the Akamba and Nandi of Eastern Africa; the Tinguianes of the Philippines and the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands, of Borneo, of Madagascar, and of Tasmania.”

Ethnographer Stephen Powers wrote of the Tolowa tribe of California that, “The Tolowa share in the superstitious reverence for the memory of the dead which is common to the Northern California tribes. When I asked the chief, Takhokolli, to tell me the Indian words for “father”, “mother”, and certain others similar, he shook his head mournfully and said, “All dead, all dead; no good”. They are forbidden to mention the names of the dead, as it is a deadly insult to the relatives; and this poor aboriginal could not distinguish between the proper names and the substantives which denote those relations [ed: Probably this is a case of miscommunication rather than an inability on the part of the chief to understand the difference between the name and the category].”

Among Australian aboriginal societies in the western district of Victoria, pieces of land were named after the family or individuals that were considered to own them, and the existence of the name taboo affected how the land was described after its owner died. James Dawson wrote that, “Should a family die out without leaving 'flesh relatives' of any degree, the chief divides the land among the contiguous families after the lapse of one year from the death of the last survivor. During that period the name of the property, being the same as the name of its last owner, is never mentioned...”

The name taboo can radically change communication after the death of an individual, particularly a prominent one, or one whose name is similar to everyday objects. Among the Apaches, anthropologist Morris Opler wrote that, “There is, first of all, a strong taboo against mentioning the name of the deceased. If it becomes necessary, for any reason, to mention his name, a phrase meaning “who used to be called” must be added.” Opler adds that, “In cases of the death of prominent men who have been named after some object or animal, that animal or object is given an alternative name or another.” And further that, “Ordinarily the names of all the children are changed when a death occurs in a family. The reason given is that the deceased called the children by these names and to repeat them now would be to evoke painful memories of the one who is gone.”

Violations of name taboos can be a significant source of conflict. Of the Apaches, Opler wrote that, “In fact, nothing is more insulting, provocative, and certain to precipitate conflict than to call out the name of a dead man in the presence of his relative. A surprising number of feuds between families have had such an origin or include such an episode in their histories.” Opler describes one such example,

In the case of one feud which I recorded, a drunken man went to undue lengths to stir up trouble. For some time he abused the man who had aroused his anger, but without causing a conflict. Then he hit upon the sure method of shouting out the name of a deceased relative of his opponent. The other man had been earnestly trying to avoid a fight to this point. Instantly his attitude changed. “You did not have to say that!” was his reply, and he reached for his weapons. In the battle which followed seven men lost their lives, and the hate that was generated then persists among the descendants of the combatants to this day.

Opler also tells an Apache story of another violation of the name taboo which is almost Shakespearian in its element of poetic revenge:

The tale recounts how some Chiricahuas, led by a certain man, raided a group of Mescalero camps. Among the prisoners taken were an old woman and a young boy, her grandson. The old woman was a robust spirit who possessed a ready tongue. She proceeded to give her captors a sound lashing with it and singled out the leader for a number of uncomplimentary remarks. She succeeded in infuriating him and brought a death sentence to herself. Her grandson escaped and made his way back to his people. He swore that some day he would meet the murderer of his grandmother face to face. When he grew to a warrior’s estate he started out on his mission of revenge. He penetrated into Chiricahua territory and wandered from camp group to camp group seeking his enemy. Finally he found the camps which this man controlled. That night he sat in the tent of this chief and listened while many men told stories of their past exploits. He stayed until this chief recounted the story of the raid he had led upon the camps of the Mescaleros. Then the young man left and procured a lance. He entered the dwelling again. By this time the other men were leaving. The Mescalero waited until all were gone and he was alone with the chief.

“Won’t you tell the story of the raid on the Mescalero camps once more?” he asked.

The chief politely began his recital again. When he paused the young man asked, “And were any killed?”

“Yes, an old woman.”

“Do you remember what she was called?”

“Yes, I believe they called her -.”

The name was the last word he ever uttered. The Mescalero youth had deliberately led the Chiricahua chief to commit this foulest of insults, and when he heard the name of his dead grandmother, in the cold fury that possessed him, he sent the lance through the older man’s heart.

The name taboos can also cause significant difficulties for anthropologists attempting to collect genealogical data. Two extended examples are reproduced here. In 1934, Morris Opler wrote of his problems during field work among the Apache;

As a result of this taboo it proved extremely difficult for me to obtain reliable genealogical material. It was considerably easier to persuade Apaches to discuss and reveal rites and ceremonies than it was to bring them to the point of talking freely of the kinship ties which had existed between them and those now dead. After considerable effort I felt sure that I had obtained a very complete genealogy from one of my best informants. This was a man who went to some little trouble to provide me with ways and means of obtaining valuable ethnological material. Once when we were passing a certain locality my friend chanced to remark that he had formerly lived near-by. When I asked him why he had moved he became glum and silent. I learned later from other sources that a child of his had died there. No mention of that child appeared in the genealogy.

Another informant, so willing and precise that he would make me read back pages of notes to him if he suspected me of missing and omitting a detail, gave me what he assured me was his full genealogy. Later I had reason to believe that he had omitted mention of a maternal uncIe, a man who had been very close to him and could not easily have been forgotten. When I questioned my informant concerning this lapse he offered a perfect Apache explanation. The man was dead, he said. Moreover, he had died a horrible death. Under the circumstances how could one be expected to call his name?

Napoleon Chagnon also faced similar problems during his fieldwork among the Yanomami. Chagnon noted that the Yanomami “have very stringent name taboos and eschew mentioning the names of prominent living people was well as all deceased friends and relatives. They attempt to name people in such a way that when the person dies and they can no longer use his or her name, the loss of the word in their language is not inconvenient.”

Chagnon gives a fairly comical description of his attempt to collect genealogies of the Yanomami and how they responded to his attempts to get around their name taboos:

They reacted to this in a brilliant but devastating manner: They invented false names for everybody in the village and systematically learned them, freely revealing to me the “true” identities of everyone. I smugly thought I had cracked the system and enthusiastically constructed elaborate genealogies over a period of some five months. They enjoyed watching me learn their names and kinship relationships. I naively assumed that I would get the “truth” to each question and the best information by working in public. This set the stage for converting my serious project into an amusing hoax of the grandest proportions. Each “informant” would try to outdo his peers by inventing a name even more preposterous or ridiculous than what I had been given by someone earlier, the explanations for discrepancies being “Well, he has two names and this is the other one.” They even fabricated devilishly improbable genealogical relationships, such as someone being married to his grandmother, or worse yet, to his mother-in-law, a grotesque and horrifying prospect to the Yanomamö. I would collect the desired names and relationships by having my informant whisper the name of the person softly into my ear, noting that he or she was the parent of such and such or the child of such and such, and so on. Everyone who was observing my work would then insist that I repeat the name aloud, roaring in hysterical laughter as I clumsily pronounced the name, sometimes laughing until tears streamed down their faces. The “named” person would usually react with annoyance and hiss some untranslatable epithet at me, which served to reassure me that I had the “true” name. I conscientiously checked and rechecked the names and relationships with multiple informants, pleased to see the inconsistencies disappear as my genealogy sheets filled with those desirable little triangles and circles, thousands of them.

My anthropological bubble was burst when I visited a village about 10 hours’ walk to the southwest of Bisaasi-teri some five months after I had begun collecting genealogies on the Bisaasi-teri. I was chatting with the local headman of this village and happened to casually drop the name of the wife of the Bisaasi-teri headman. A stunned silence followed, and then a villagewide roar of uncontrollable laughter, choking, gasping, and howling followed. It seems that I thought the Bisaasi-teri headman was married to a woman named “hairy cunt.” It also seems that the Bisaasi-teri headman was called “long dong” and his brother “eagle shit.” The Bisaasi-teri headman had a son called “asshole” and a daughter called “fart breath.”

And so on. Blood welled up to my temples as I realized that I had nothing but nonsense to show for my five months of dedicated genealogical effort, and I had to throw away almost all the information I had collected on this the most basic set of data I had come there to get. I understood at that point why the Bisaasi-teri laughed so hard when they made me repeat the names of their covillagers, and why the “named” person would react with anger and annoyance as I pronounced his “name” aloud (Chagnon, 21).

To get around these issues, Chagnon ended up interviewing children, who could generally use names without being punished, and socially marginalized individuals, who may have been less wary of violating taboos, to get accurate genealogical information from them. Chagnon ended up receiving some criticism for this tactic.

A name is more than an arbitrary designation; over time its meaning becomes indelibly associated with the character of its owner.

Taking a wife

Marriage is nominally by capture. The word “to marry” means also “to fetch” and “to catch.” – D.F. Bleek, The Naron: A Bushman Tribe of the Central Kalahari, 1928.

One of the benefits of reading 19th and early 20th century ethnographic accounts is learning about cultural traditions that, in many cases, either no longer exist, or are not commonly discussed by present-day anthropologists. Headhunting, men’s cults, ritual mutilation, and infanticide are some topics that I have covered previously. Bride capture is another practice that is highly prevalent in early ethnography, but has not been the subject of much systematic investigation by anthropologists today, so I figure it warrants further attention.

Sociologist Nguyen Thi Van Hanh offers a useful definition of the practice, writing that, “Bride capture, or bride kidnapping (also known as marriage by capture or marriage by abduction), is a form of forced marriage in which the bride is kidnapped by the groom.”

One aspect of bride capture that may surprise many readers is how prevalent the practice was among hunter-gatherer societies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In The Bushmen of South West Africa (1920), ethnographer Louis Fourie described bride capture during intergroup conflict, writing that, “Women are never killed intentionally during the course of these feuds but it not infrequently happens that when one group overwhelms another the women are made captive and taken in marriage.” In 1930, anthropologist Isaac Schapera noted the regional pattern, writing that, “Among the North-Western Bushmen girls taken in war or found trespassing are also often held as wives by their captors.”

In 1928, anthropologist Dorothea Bleek made note of the practice of bride capture among the Naron hunter-gatherers of the Central Kalahari, writing that, “The women said, a man seizes a girl of another village, and takes her to his village, and thereby she is married, whether she likes it or not. He comes with an older man just to pay a visit and sits chatting without mentioning his purpose. They look out for a good opportunity and carry the girl off. The Bridegroom keeps watch on his bride at first, till she settles down.” Bleek described one failed attempt at bride capture:

One day, the Bushmen had collected in front of the house to give exhibitions of dancing for the purpose of photography. At mid-day we made a short interval. On coming out again, we found that all the men had gone; and were told that the huts were on fire and they had gone to put it out. We could see no sign of smoke or fire in the direction of the huts, and by and by some of the men began to trickle back, said it had been a bush fire, no huts were in danger. Later, when I was a lone with the natives, I was told what had occurred. One of the women had been at the huts with her young daughter and two Auen men from the north had turned up and tried to carry off the girl as wife for one of them. The mother lighted a fire to summon her men to her assistance. They arrived in time, and after a verbal quarrel, the would-be wife-stealer retired (Bleek, 33).

In The Uttermost Part of the Earth (1948), explorer E. Lucas Bridges wrote about the Ona hunter-gatherers of Tierra del Fuego, noting that, “Most of the marriages I knew amongst those primitive people were brought about either by conquest or by abduction.” Bridges describes one such case, where three brothers named Koh, Kaniko, and Tisico, were massacred by a neighboring band that they had previously been on good terms with, specifically because some of the men from that band wanted their wives. After they were killed and their wives were taken, Bridges writes that,

The numerous widows had cut their hair in mourning, but if the funeral and wedding bells were not intermixed, there had been hardly a pause between one and the other. The women of a party vanquished in a battue [hunt] would have been unwise to refuse to follow their new husbands when those victors had “blood in their eyes.” The fear would soon subside; women captives were wooed and made much of, to prevent them from running away. When badly treated, women took the first opportunity to give their captors the slip, though, if they were caught by their new husbands before they could get back to their own people, they ran the risk of being soundly beaten or arrowed through the legs with arrows from which the barbs had been removed—generally. A wife of long standing, if she obstinately refused to do her husband’s will, was just as likely to be thrashed or arrowed (Bridges, 223).

Bridges indicates that one of the wives may not have been entirely displeased with the outcome, however, having previously been a lower status wife to an apparently unattractive man:

Halimink, who had already had one wife, had gained a second from the massacre just described. She had been one of the wives of Koh—the third, I imagine—and her name was Akukeyohn (Afraid of Fallen Logs). I have noticed Halimink, with a mischievous grin on his face, lay unnecessary stress on the word koh [Koh, in addition to being a name, means “bone”] when speaking to Akukeyohn. She would put on a vexed, but coy, expression. Her anger was obviously only skin deep, for Halimink was a good husband to his favourite wife, and Koh had been by no means attractive (Bridges, 223).

In some circumstances, the practice of bride capture seems to be at least partially voluntary, with the potential bride herself choosing her putative captor. Though, this sort of voluntary elopement, ostensibly by capture, can cause much friction between different groups. In Life Amongst the Native Race (1884), John T. Hinkins described how one such conflict between two Australian tribes was dealt with:

A blackfellow of the Murray tribe had stolen a lubra (i.e., woman) from the Goulbourn tribe, though quite with the lubra's consent. This created a great commotion among the two tribes, and such a scene took place as I never before witnessed, nor am I likely to see again. The chief and friends of the captive girl, who was remarkably pretty, came to demand her from the hands of her captor. A meeting took place between the two tribes on a plain not far distant from my hut, and, owing to the influence my child had over them, I was permitted to attend this gathering, as they had especially invited her to be present, and I had positively refused to let her go unless I accompanied her. On arriving at the plain we found that upwards of a hundred of the two tribes had met. They placed us in a good spot for seeing all that was going on amongst them. As far as I could understand their "yabber" (talk) it was decided that the young lubra was to be given up to her friends, unless the captor, her intended husband, could stand an "ordeal " of six of her friends—her nearest relatives—endeavouring to wound or even kill him by throwing a certain number of each of their war instruments at him. He was to use no weapons to defend himself against these attacks but a shield. This ordeal seems to have been customary with them on such occasions. Six able young men were chosen, and each of them was supplied with a certain number of "spears," "nulla nullas," a kind of club, "boomerangs," and other implements of war. The captor was to stand, as far as I could judge about fifty yards distant from the warriors, and these instruments were hurled at him one at a time by the six men. If he was either killed or wounded the young lubra was to return with her friends to her own tribe, but if by his dexterity her would-be husband was able to evade all their weapons he would then rightly claim her as his bride, and she would be delivered up to him accordingly. Prior to the contest this young fellow had completely smeared himself with opossum fat till he shone like a mirror. This was no doubt, as he thought, to cause the weapons to glide off from him and also to give suppleness to his limbs. A greater sight of agility and cleverness on the part of this young aboriginal I never witnessed. Every weapon was hurled at him with unerring aim, but he cleverly disposed of them all by turning them off with his shield, stooping down or stepping aside, lifting an arm or a leg, showing how good and steady his sight must have been. One "nulla nulla" was thrown with such force that it broke his shield, which was made from the bark of a tree. He was immediately supplied with another, for they would have scorned to take advantage of his undefended state, and then with the same success he avoided all the rest of the weapons that were cast at him, not receiving a single wound. There was a great shout raised for the victor, and he was allowed to carry off his prize, who seemed greatly pleased, for she had evidently been watching the scene anxiously. Indeed, all parties appeared completely satisfied, and her friends returned home (Hinkins, 68).

In other cases, however, the practice is described as being wholly coercive and violent. In 1798, David Collins, Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of New South Wales, which was the first European settlement in Australia, described the practice of capturing wives among some native hunter-gatherer societies in the region, writing that, “[wives] are, I believe, always selected from the women of a tribe different from that of the males…and with whom they are at enmity.” Collins offers an extended description of the practice:

Secrecy is necessarily observed, and the poor wretch is stolen upon in the absence of her protectors; being first stupified with blows, inflicted with clubs or wooden swords, on the head, back, and shoulders, every one of which is followed by a stream of blood, she is dragged through the woods by one arm, with a perseverance and violence that one might suppose would displace it from its socket; the lover, or rather the ravisher, is regardless of the stones or broken pieces of trees which may lie in his route, being anxious only to convey his prize in safety to his own party, where a scene ensues too shocking to relate. This outrage is not resented by the relations of the female, who only retaliate by a similar outrage when they find it in their power. This is so constantly the practice among them, that even the children make it a game or exercise; and I have often, on hearing the cries of the girls with whom they were playing, ran out of my house, thinking some murder was committed, but have found the whole party laughing at my mistake.

Collins adds that, “The women thus ravished become their wives, are incorporated into the tribe to which the husband belongs, and but seldom quit him for another. “

In Our Primitive Contemporaries (1934), anthropologist George Murdock, who helped create many of the cross-cultural databases we still use today, such as the Human Relations Area Files, the Ethnographic Atlas, and the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, described many bride capture practices across societies all over the world. Murdock noted that:

Among Tasmanian hunter-gatherers, “When a man was of age to marry, he usually seized a women by stealth or force from another tribe. In other words, marriage was exogamous and by capture.” (pg. 9)

Among Aranda hunter-gatherers of Australia, “A man may take a wife -- from another man -- by capture, elopement, or magic. The capture of a woman from another group usually follows the murder of her husband in blood-revenge.” (pg. 38)

Of the Crow Native Americans, Murdock writes that, “The Crows often marry women captured from hostile tribes, and under certain circumstances the stealing of women is permitted even within the tribe. The approved mode of marriage, however, is by purchase." Murdock adds, however that, "Marriages are easily terminated.  A woman may desert a husband whom she dislikes, and a man may send away his wife for infidelity or incompatibility, or even for being “cranky.”” (pg. 274)

Among the Ganda farmers of Uganda, “Although wives may be obtained by inheritance, by gift from a superior or a subordinate, or by capture from the enemy in wartime, the most usual and honorable mode of marriage is by purchase.” (pg. 538)

Among Samoan horticulturalists, Murdock notes that during warfare, “Male prisoners are slain, unless held as hostages. Sometimes, as the acme of revenge, they are cooked and certain parts of their bodies eaten. Women, however, are usually spared and distributed among their captors.” (pg. 64)

Even where bride capture is no longer conducted, elements of the practice may continue in more symbolic or ritualized form. In describing the prevalence of bride capture in Indo-European history and literature, Ruth Katz Arabagian writes that, “Like the theme of cattle raiding, the theme of bride stealing in Indo-European heroic literature appears to reflect actual practice. It is noteworthy that this practice catches the imagination so powerfully that echoes of it persist in ritual even when the actual practice is no longer sanctioned by society.”

Richard Lee notes that among the Ju/’hoansi hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari, “The Ju/'hoansi marriage ceremony involves the mock forcible carrying of the girl from her parents' hut...In fact, the “normal” Ju marriage has many aspects of marriage-by-capture.” Even though they do not practice bride capture today, these ritualized elements may represent a holdover from a previously practiced tradition. This is speculative, but it would not be surprising considering how prevalent the practice was among other Bushmen societies in the Kalahari in the past.

In The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains (1952), anthropologist E. Adamson Hoebel writes that, among the Comanche, “It was a normal pattern for a man to take as wives the younger sister or sisters of his first wife and any women he might have captured or girls who grew up as captives in the tribe.” In addition, elements of the Comanche ritual Eagle Dance also show similarities with bride captures practices:

When the smoking was over, the leader arose and, followed closely by the dancers, sneaked silently to a near-by camp to “capture” a girl. Spectators remained some distance apart. In the old days the girl had to be a captive. The girl's family made a pretense of defending their camp against the attacking party, but the "victorious raiders" carried the "captured" girl to their own camp where preparations had been made for the remainder of the ceremony…During the dance, the warriors of the girl's people rushed up and made a sham attempt to recapture her. In actual practice they rushed in and recited some coups of their own…After the "failure" of the girl's relatives to recapture her, they brought in presents, which they deposited before her in a circle (Hoebel, 205).

Of course, the abduction of wives is not exclusive to small-scale societies of the past. Sociologist Nguyen Thi Van Hanh notes its existence in larger, historical and contemporary nations as well, writing that bride capture,

is practiced in the Caucasus region (e.g., Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia), in Central and Southeast Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, China, among the Hmong community in Vietnam, Laos, etc.), in some nations in Africa (e.g., Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya), in South America (Chile, Mexico),and among the Roma community in Europe. In all of these areas, bride capture may be practiced throughout the country but is most common in the rural areas and in ethnic minority communities. Normally, young girls (often under 25, even as young as 8–12-years-old in some cases) are victims of bride capture. Bride capture was widely practiced throughout history and continues to be in some parts of the world today.

The Kidnapping of the Sabine Women (1574–82) by Giambologna.

In Albion’s Seed (1991), historian David Hackett Fischer mentions the practice of bride abductions among the border counties of Scotland, Ireland, and England, and how this practice continued when many ‘borderlanders’ came to America,

Marriage customs among the people of the backcountry also derived from border roots. An ancient practice on the British borders was the abduction of brides. In Scotland, Ireland and the English border counties, the old custom had been elaborately regulated through many centuries by ancient folk laws which required payment of "body price" and "honor price." Two types of abduction were recognized: voluntary abduction in which the bride went willingly but without her family's prior consent; and involuntary abduction in which she was taken by force. Both types of abduction were practiced as late as the eighteenth century. It was observed of the borderlands and Ulster during this period that “abductions, both 'under the impulse of passion and from motives of cupidity,' were frequent.”

The border custom of bridal abduction was introduced to the American backcountry. In North and South Carolina during the eighteenth century, petitioners complained to authorities that "their wives and daughters were carried captives" by rival clans (Fischer, 367).

Fischer also writes that, “Even future President of the United States Andrew Jackson took his wife by an act of voluntary abduction,” providing an extended description:

Rachel Donelson Robards was unhappily married to another man at the time. A series of complex quarrels followed, in which Rachel Robards made her own preferences clear, and Andrew Jackson threatened her husband Lewis Robards that he would “cut his ears out of his head.” Jackson was promptly arrested. But before the case came to trial the suitor turned on the husband, butcher knife in hand and chased him into the canebreak. Afterward, the complaint was dismissed because of the absence of the plaintiff--who was in fact running for his life from the defendant. Andrew Jackson thereupon took Rachel Robards for his own, claiming that she had been abandoned. She went with Jackson willingly enough; this was a clear case of voluntary abduction. But her departure caused a feud that continued for years (Fischer, 367).

To conclude, if you have read some of my previous articles: in particular, The Behavioral Ecology of Male Violence, On secret cults and male dominance, and my post on Yanomami warfare, the prevalence of bride capture practices across cultures is probably unsurprising to you. Further, the decline of these sort of practices in small-scale societies – why you don’t see them as often today – may be unsurprising if you’ve read my piece on The sad and violent history of ‘peaceful’ societies, and my post on The Complicated Legacy of Colonial Contact. If not, I’d recommend you check those pieces out, as I think they help flesh out the historical, evolutionary, and ecological logic behind the ebb and flow of bride capture practices, and other similar institutions.

The Cause of Illness

Nowhere is the duality of natural and supernatural causes divided by a line so thin and intricate, yet, if carefully followed up, so well marked, decisive, and instructive, as in the two most fateful forces of human destiny: health and death…by far the most cases of illness and death are ascribed to [sorcery] - Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science, and Religion, 1925.

In The Afterlife is Where We Come From (2004), anthropologist Alma Gottlieb describes her fieldwork among the Beng farmers of West Africa. In this book, Gottlieb recounts her failure to persuade Beng villagers to boil their drinking water;

During our stays in Beng villages, Philip and I have always either boiled or filtered our own drinking water. To our dismay, our neighbors often derided our laborious efforts. One day we thought to explain our mysterious actions. The village had been experiencing an especially crippling outbreak of Guinea worm. After reading about the disease, Philip and I were convinced that polluted drinking water was the cause of our neighbors’ misery. We urged our friends to boil their water as protection against future infestation. But even our closest and most open-minded friends dismissed our suggestion with casual laughter.

“Can you see the worms in our water?” our friend Yacouba challenged us. We admitted we couldn’t.

“There’s nothing wrong with the water,” he insisted. “Anyway, even if the Guinea worms come to us through the water, they’re put there by witches.” Yacouba added emphatically, “Boiling the water wouldn’t stop the witches.” (Gottlieb, 189).

There are a few interesting elements to this passage.

First, there is the belief, common across cultures, that illness is due to witchcraft or sorcery. I discussed this in my last blog post, where I wrote that,

Sorcery beliefs can be used to understand the world, seeking out causes of uncertain events, and may [also] be embraced by self-interested parties to scapegoat enemies and promote collective violence. Functioning as a legal system, a practical tool of manipulation and control, a social philosophy, and a conceptual framework for understanding the world, sorcery beliefs have been a fundamental component of human societies the world over.

Second, while Yocouba’s position may seem absurd to many educated Westerners, his logic seems to me no less sound than that of Gottlieb. Gottlieb posits invisible worms causing disease in the water, while Yocouba posits invisible magic causing the sickness. In both cases, each of them are working from the body of knowledge they have inherited from their society. Further, in his objection to Gottlieb’s assertion that worms are causing the disease outbreak, Yocouba is making a distinction between levels of causation that, in many cases, is quite an important one. Namely that, even if it’s true that worms are causing the disease outbreak, that would only be the proximate cause, in contrast to what he asserts is the ultimate cause: withcraft.

Now, obviously we know that Gottlieb’s explanation comes from centuries of empirical work demonstrating the existence of disease causing parasites, but the point is, no less than Yocouba’s sorcery beliefs, Gottlieb (and us) have inherited this knowledge, not generated it independently.

In other words, it is not that Gottlieb’s logic here is superior to that of Yocouba’s, it’s that the body of knowledge she has inherited was generated through the rigors of the scientific method. It is information that we are fortunate indeed to have inherited, and that none of us could have come up with on our own. As anthropologists Robert Boyd, Joseph Henrich, and Peter Richerson write in ‘The cultural evolution of technology’ (2013);

Isaac Newton remarked that if he saw farther it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. For most innovations in most places at most times in human history, innovators are really midgets standing on the shoulders of a vast pyramid of other midgets. Historians of technology believe that even in the modern world the evolution of artifacts is typically gradual, with many small changes, often in the wrong direction. Nonetheless, highly complex adaptations arise by cultural evolution even though no single innovator contributes more than a small portion of the total.

The third and final element of Gottlieb’s anecdote that I find interesting is the dilemma anthropologists face in trying to ‘change’ the culture they study. There are obvious and sad public health implications to the refusal of Yocouba and other Beng villagers to boil their water, and the difficulties of persuasion in this kind of context can come at a severe cost to the population in question. I think a comparable issue in the United States would be opposition to vaccines.

Persuasion is more than simply being right; you have to understand the attitudes and social contexts people’s beliefs come from (and even when you do have such knowledge, it may not be enough, as we can see with Dr. Gottlieb's difficulties among the Beng). As psychologists Michele J. Gelfand and Joshua Conrad Jackson write, “many studies have shown that people often rely on intersubjective consensus to a greater extent than objective information.” One of main virtues of the scientific method is the manner of subjecting the intersubjective consensus to falsification, with ideas continuously tested and retested, which has led to a more accurate understanding of the causes of death and disease. As I wrote in my last article at Quillette, you can see this reflected in the substantial decline in infant and child mortality throughout the world over the last few decades, due in no small part to the expansion of vaccinations and effective sanitation practices.

The knowledge passed down that provides us with a more accurate picture of the causes of sickness came about through a cultural evolutionary process that we are the fortunate beneficiaries of.

The Social Dynamics of Sorcery

The difference between sacrificial and nonsacrificial violence is anything but exact; it is even arbitrary. At times the difference threatens to disappear entirely - René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 1972.

Strategically deployed, the rumor represents one of the most powerful weapons that can be utilized in interpersonal conflict. The strength of an accusation lies primarily in the persuasiveness of the speaker, the repugnance of the charge attributed to the accused, and the willingness to believe on the part of the listeners. Malicious gossip is a cudgel wielded collectively, and in societies where sorcery beliefs are deeply ingrained, it can function as an instrument that stimulates communal punishment.  

Pirai, a kanaimà’san, also known as a “dark shaman” or killer shaman. From Dark Shamans: Kanaimà and the Poetics of Violent Death (2002) by Neil Whitehead.

The sorcerer is a contradictory figure. He may be a dreaded and feared warrior, or a scapegoated loner, marginalized and despised. Among the Ilahita Arapesh horticulturalists of New Guinea, a man named Asao reveled in his status as a magician of great power. In the book The Cassowary’s Revenge (1997), anthropologist Donald Tuzin writes,

During my first fieldwork, Asao was the scariest man in the village – a sagguma, and proud of it. People would have openly despised him, only it was too dangerous to do so. It was safer to fear him, and that they certainly did…Sangguma [sorcerers] are said to acquire ghostly powers by mastering magical skills, submitting to harsh bodily disciplines, and drinking the fluids of a rotting corpse. Asao did not simply admit to all of this, he boasted of it. Animal familiars (mostly night birds) spied for him and brought him news of distant places. Asao claimed the ability to fly and to make himself invisible. With ostentatious glee, he told of participating in attacks (sangguma usually work in teams of two or three) on selected victims…Occasionally, he would be mysteriously absent for days or weeks at a time, presumably in retreat to purify his magical powers or on commission to stalk and attack someone in another, possibly distant, place (Tuzin, 57).

Tuzin adds that, “It was apparent that Asao liked being feared, liked being outrageous, liked being thought of as a scoundrel and a ghoul.” Sorcery for Asao was a practice he oriented his entire identity around, and it represented an integral part of the high degree of social status he received. Yet this public recognition came at a price;

Asao's baleful reputation carried social costs. With his three wives and two children, he lived in a bleak, unshaded camp thirty minutes' walk from the village...no community in the village would have him. Asao was a pariah. Even his own kinsmen did not like to have this golem around, living and lurking nearby...his complicity as a sorcerer was suspected in nearly every adult death… reviled and respected at the same time, Asao was viewed as a kind of public executioner (Tuzin, 58).

Anthropologist Adolphus Peter Elkin writes that across a number of Australian aboriginal societies, “to have a reputation for successful sorcery is to be a marked man. Such a man knows that sooner or later he will be designated the "murderer" of some person or other, and that either magical retaliation will be taken or else a revenge expedition will be sent to kill him.”

So, what is a sorcerer? A sorcerer is a – real or perceived – violator of norms of conduct. Such atypical behaviors often entail great risk. One who transgresses taboos that are not particularly esteemed, or that indicate one’s impressive abilities, can gain greater status and prestige, while those who infringe on regulations widely considered legitimate earn the enmity of kith and kin. This is the paradox at the heart of sorcery – the sorcerer seizes power or inadvertently orchestrates his own demise, on occasion performing each concurrently.

In Marcel Mauss’s work A General Theory of Magic (1902), he expands on the relationship between having high status and utilizing magic or sorcery, writing that,

Among the Australian Arunta, the chief of the local totemic group, its master of ceremonies, is at the same time a sorcerer. In New Guinea, most influential members of society are magicians; there are grounds for believing that throughout Melanesia, the chief – an individual who possess mana, that is, spiritual force – is endowed with magical as well as religious powers. It is no doubt for the same reasons that the mythical princes in the epic poetry of the Hindus and Celts were said to possess magical attributes (Mauss, 47).

In ‘The cultural evolution of shamanism’ (2017), anthropologist Manvir Singh notes how becoming a shaman can affect an individual’s social status, writing that, “Becoming a shaman provided a way for low-status individuals to attain prestige, such as in some hierarchical societies of the Pacific Northwest, while in other instances, shamans were regarded as attractive sexual partners.”

When it comes to distinguishing between practices that have been variously referred to as ‘sorcery’, ‘witchcraft’, ‘magic’, or ‘shamanism’, there is no widely agreed upon typology among anthropologists. In Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors and Gossip (2003), anthropologists Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern write that, “In principle…a distinction can be made between witchcraft as the expression of a malign power in a person’s body and sorcery as the use of a magical craft or knowledge to harm or benefit others. Especially, what is labeled witchcraft is often seen as a consuming force. The witch eats the life power of the victim.” Yet these differences are often not so clear. They add that, “in fact, people’s ways of putting ideas and practices together outrun any neat distinctions we may wish to make. Often what one writer translates as “sorcery” may look like “witchcraft” to another observer, depending on what features are emphasized.”

In the volume In Darkness and Sorcery: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia (2004), anthropologist Carlos Fausto notes that, “We know that one of the shaman’s functions is to favor hunting and warfare expeditions. We also know that shamans are held capable of magically killing their adversaries and that many Amazonian people do not clearly differentiate the shaman from the witch.” Singh adds that, in many societies, shaman represent a professional class that may be somewhat distinct from the more informal recognition of a witch or sorcerer. However, shaman tap into some of the same belief systems, and may fulfill similar social roles as that of the sorcerer. In this sense, all shaman may be said to practice sorcery, but not all sorcerers are professionals in the shamanic sense.

As each of these terms were originally developed in the early days of anthropology, and were largely subject to the vagaries of individual ethnographers, I consider them all together as related phenomena here, focusing on the facets they tend have in common in the relevant ethnographic material.

There are, however, differences between types of sorcery, across and within societies, that are worth addressing. For example, anthropologist Bruce Knauft writes that the Gebusi forager-horticulturalists of New Guinea distinguished between two types of sorcery: “Bogay constitutes what ethnographers call “parcel sorcery”—sickness sent by manipulating a parcel of the victim’s leavings. By contrast, ogowili qualifies as “assault sorcery,” a cannibal attack by magical warriors.” These sort of societal distinctions are not uncommon. Sorcery in warfare tends to be the undertaking of men, while the more subtle shades of magical torment can be deployed by either sex.

While sorcery can be wielded by persons of high status in some societies or circumstances, accusations of sorcery can also be used to impose punishments on marginalized individuals. Among the Mundurucu horticulturalists of the Amazon, anthropologists Yolanda and Robert F. Murphey write that, “For a person to shirk group work bespeaks of alienation from others, a dangerous pose in a society that identifies sorcerers by their estrangement from their fellowman – and kills them for the crime of witchcraft.” Knauft says that, “Gebusi sorcery is a form of scapegoating. The identity of sorcerers is “confirmed” by elaborate spirit inquests and divinations. Male spirit mediums play a key role in Gebusi sorcery accusations.”

Sorcery beliefs can exist as a key component of interpersonal or intergroup conflict. Of the Azande farmers of north central Africa, anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard notes that, “Death is due to witchcraft and must be avenged. All other practices connected with witchcraft are epitomized in the action of vengeance.” For the Yanomami forager-horticulturalists of the Amazon, Napoleon Chagnon says that, “New wars usually develop when charges of sorcery are leveled against the members of a different group.”

Accusations of sorcery can be both a cause of, and response to, conflict. Stewart and Strathern note that, in many cases, “While the witch or sorcerer is seen as the source of evil or wrong doing, it is the accusers who can be seen as playing the aggressive role.” They add that, “Rumor and gossip form the substratum from which accusations of sorcery or witchcraft may be made.” While the sorcerer is ostensibly a figure of great power, the accusation itself can contain far more hostile magic, as it may impel the group to engage in violent sanctioning of the putative magician. In The Scapegoat (1986), anthropologist René Girard writes that, “Magical thought seeks “a significant cause on the level of social relations,” in other words a human being, a victim, a scapegoat.” Girard adds that, “Those who are suffering are not interested in natural causes. Only magic makes “corrective intervention" possible, and everyone eagerly seeks a magician who can put things right.”

Accusations of improper sorcery can be used tactically by individuals to punish those they’re in conflict with, or to benefit themselves. Knauft notes that, “The opinion of spirits during all-night séances has been especially influential for finding and interpreting “evidence” of sorcery. Though spirit mediums should be neutral parties, the outcome of the sorcery inquest may benefit the spirit medium who conducts them.” Knauft tells the story of a spirit medium named Swamin, who redirected sorcery suspicions away from an accused woman named Sialim, and months later took her as his wife. Swamin had previously identified Sialim’s own mother, Mokoyl, as the alleged sorcerer responsible for killing his first wife, and he executed Mokoyl himself.

Among the Gebusi, individuals from families who fail to follow socially prescribed marriage exchanges were often accused of sorcery. Knauft writes that, “In this sense sorcery homicide is ultimately about male control of marriageable women. However, these statistically significant factors are neither publicly nor privately recognized by Gebusi as a cause of homicide against sorcery suspects, even by the closest kin of those killed.” Anthropologists Neil Whitehead and Robin Wright also note the strategic element of sorcery allegations in the Amazon, writing that, “sorcery accusations may represent forms of discourse about tensions in intervillage and interethnic relations, and may be structured by the idiom of kinship (consanguinity and affinity) and village hierarchy.”

In their study of 800 households in rural southwestern China, anthropologist Ruth Mace and her colleagues found that households accused of practicing witchcraft were often excluded from mainstream social networks, and instead preferentially associated amongst themselves. Mace and her colleagues argue that this “stigmatization originally arose as a mechanism to harm female competitors.” Stewart and Strathern sum up many of the patterns identified here, writing that,

Claims and counterclaims about the activities of witches and sorcerers tend to exist in the background of community affairs in the societies where such ideas are held. They flourish in the shadows, fed by gossip and rumor, and emerge into public debate or accusations only in times of specific tension, most often following the actual sickness or death of someone in a prominent family. Notably, rumors follow the patterns of imputed jealousies, hostilities, and resentments that also keep mostly to the shadows or lurk in the background of social life, ready to reveal themselves in times of crisis. Or they swing into play at times of unusual or epidemic deaths that themselves cause panic and fear (Stewart & Strathern, 7).

Beyond self-interested social conflict, or misattributed suspicions against marginal figures, sorcery accusations can function as a component of a legal system used to punish criminals and known killers. In his work on Ifugao law, anthropologist Roy Franklin Barton describes one such case;

Atiwan of Longa acquired a reputation as a sorcerer. He killed several of his kinsmen in Baay. Even his relatives in Longa admitted that he was a sorcerer, and said that he ought to be killed. Ginnid of Baay and several companions went to Longa one night, and called to Atiwan that they had come to see him. He opened the house and put down the ladder. The party ascended, and set upon Atiwan with their war knives and killed him. In trying to protect him, his wife, Dinaon, was wounded. The killing was universally approved.

The concept of sorcery hits at core notions of power and punishment, community and ostracism, causation and chance; it offers a framework both for understanding the world and mediating social relationships. In his book on The Australian Aborigines (1964), Elkin writes that sorcery across Australian societies “arises from a belief that illness and death and even accidents are caused by magical or animistic actions.” Across the world, in South America, anthropologist Esther Jean Langdon concurs in the volume In Darkness and Sorcery: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia (2004), writing that,

one is struck by the shared images throughout these ethnographies associated with death and illness. Both are generally caused by aggressive activities and forces in the occult side of reality, whether they be instigated by humans or not. “Being eaten from the inside” is an extremely widespread image of illnesses that are attributed to invisible attacks. Putrid smells and other rotten qualities, particularly the stench of tobacco and blood, represent the decay of death as well as secret uncontrolled aggression (Whitehead, 308).

Fausto argues that Amazon shamanism is best understood as “predatory animism: subjectivity is attributed to human and nonhuman entities, with whom some people are capable of interacting verbally and establishing relationships of adoption or alliance, which permit them to act upon the world in order to cure, to fertilize, and to kill.”

“When outcomes of uncertainty are controlled by invisible forces, cultural selection will favor individuals who claim special abilities of interacting with those forces.” Figure from ‘The cultural evolution of shamanism’ (2017) by Manvir Singh, published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

The sorcerer is a paradox. At times both respected for their talent, and despised for their impropriety, they may be elevated by the community or punished and killed. Sorcery beliefs can be used to understand the world, seeking out causes of uncertain events, and may be embraced by self-interested parties to scapegoat enemies and promote collective violence. Functioning as a legal system, a practical tool of manipulation and control, a social philosophy, and a conceptual framework for understanding the world, sorcery beliefs have been a fundamental component of human societies the world over.

Sorcerers and their accusers are still among us, yet rather than fetishes and incantations, their weapons are often social networks and mass media. Take a recent case from the New York Times: An ornithologist collects a “ghost” bird seeking to learn its secrets, is accused of murdering a totemic animal, and is hit with counter-witchcraft advocating his elimination from society. In the aftermath, his fellow ornithologists vow to continue their activities with greater secrecy. This is modern sorcery, framed in terms more ostensibly moral than magical, but containing many of the elements of traditional sorcery—scapegoating, gossip, fear-mongering, rumors, ostracism, manipulation of information, reputational management, collective punishment. As Stewart and Strathern write, “even when particular notions of witchcraft or sorcery are not involved, rumor and gossip themselves may act as a kind of witchcraft, projecting guilt on others in ways that may cause them harm: for example, to lose their jobs, to be physically attacked, or to be socially shamed.”