Je suis niet comprendez negitimus.
A revival ?
Elizabeth I: "It did so at our command and it is marvellous in our eyes".
Napolean: "Par ce que Josephine a voulu avoir le coq elle-meme "
Fresco, good to see that your thread has been revived after TWO years of limbo. Your reference to Azande theory of causation is worth revisiting. As I understand Evans-Pritchard's construal of Azande worldview, it reveals a strikingly different kind of causal explanation. Among the Azande, the issue, in explaining misfortune, is supernatural personal BLAME, not impersonal or natural causation. For example, when an individual suffers injury or death due to a fall from a tree or when a man dies of a snake bite, it is normally asked "Who caused the branch to break? and "Who caused the snake to be at the spot where the man stepped? Oracles manipulators (shamans) are employed to make an inquiry into the identity of the culprit, either a witch or a sorcerer (the witch has the personal power to bring about misfortunes; the sorcerer uses technical means to bring about the misfortune). Another culprit might be an individual who pays a sorcerer to bring about the misfortune.
The oracle manipulator has tecniques for identity the guilty. He does this by presenting the name of a suspect to the oracle, and provided by the (claimant) client. The oracle in one form is a small fowl that is force-fed a special poison, called benje, as I recall. If the chick dies the name presented to the oracle is considered the identity of the guilty person. If he does not, another chick is taken and force fed benje while another suspect's name is announced.
If an individual is identified, and if the shaman has a sufficiently postive reputation, the convicted individual is on his own, as far as defense against revenge is concerned. Noone one in his lineage is likely to protect him. This is also a political system of justice.
The examination of human entrails was a way of identifying witches, after their death. An endemic illness leaves a small percentage of the people with an intestinal illness detectable by autopsy examination. Usually the autopsy was requested by the offspring of a witch (usually a male son regarding his father) because witchcraft was seen to be a (what we would call today a genetic disposition) trait that is passed from men to sons and women to daughers. If the autopsy shows the corpse not to be that of a witch, the son is freed from the witch stigma.
