You say the Lienhardt is a good introduction to the subject of African religions and witchcraft?

Divinity and Experiences is a sensitive and very complex account of the cosmology of the Dinka people in Southern Sudan. It’s a wonderful book in itself and very delicately written. It deals with African religion as related to the reality and the life of a particular people. These religions are embedded in that particular way of life, such that you can’t induct other people into the religions, they are local in every sense. The Dinka are unusual in that their religion is less occupied with the source of misfortune and more occupied with generating good fortune. Godfrey Lienhardt writes it up as very mystical. He didn’t ask the direct question; ‘What do you believe?’ He watched and listened to what they were saying and discovered what they believed from what they said and the way they said things. The religion is all derived from the Dinka world and the symbolism is all very localised.

What kind of symbolism do they use?

Cattle is involved in all their rituals. You might generate good fortune by driving cattle through ritual fires. The cattle themselves participate in the ritual because they represent wealth and the good fortune will affect them and the human beings who depend on them. It is peculiar to the Dinka that they do believe there are witches, that witches exist, but they don’t try to identify or try to rid themselves of them.

Did Lienhardt spend a long time with the Dinka?

He did. In those days we did longer field work. There was more funding for that kind of thing. He went back more than once and he was a very gifted linguist. He learnt the language very well and he continued to speak it to Dinka friends back here in the UK. Not all of us maintained the languages we learnt for field work. I certainly haven’t. Mine has faded. But because he knew the language so well he was able to identify the various layers of meaning in particular Dinka concepts, adding a great deal of subtlety to his work.

You say that not being preoccupied with the source of misfortune is unusual for African religions?

Yes. The Nuer and the Dinka are very famous in anthropology for not being preoccupied with misfortune. The John Middleton book, Lugbara Religion, is about a people who actually live very close to the Dinka but have a very different religion. The focus for the Lugbara is on their ancestors and the power they might give to their living representatives. The preoccupation here is on the worship of the ancestors and on maintaining their goodwill. It is mostly senior men who by virtue oftheir closeness to the dead are invested with the power of their ancestors. With the ancestors behind them they can justifiably punish those who disobey them or disrespect the ancestors or their living representatives. When something bad happens in Lugbara, death or illness, it must either be a punishment for disrespect of the ancestors or it might be witchcraft perpetrated by some malicious neighbour, by someone who knows you. It is often older people who are thought to be witches. So, if someone is ill, there could be a long dispute as to why this has happened.

This book deals with a long-running dispute over whether a person was being punished for disrespecting the ancestors or for some bad deeds performed, or whether they were a victim of witchcraft by some elderly person who shouldn’t be doing this. Witchcraft is seen as evil and people may be seen as having the evil eye, a mystical power and an evil gift so that if they look at you things go wrong. These people are often those who fail to live up to the norms of society, are greedy or isolated. So, in some ways, the belief in witchcraft regulates society because people don’t want to be accused and so they behave in ways that are thought appropriate and proper.

I once whistled, in those days I could whistle, while I was doing fieldwork, and the children all cried out; ‘Whistling after dark! That’s what witches do!’

Did you persuade them it didn’t count if you weren’t one of them?

Yes, and that is interesting. It’s not a universalistic religion. If you are not one of them you are not bound by the rules in the same way. Another thing I used to do and soon stopped doing is complimenting people on their children. You don’t do that in Uganda or most of Africa because it’s what witches do and then the child will get ill or die. But I chose the Middleton book because of that long case history and the idea that good and evil are not clear cut in Lugbara. There is no sharp boundary as there is Christianity.

It sounds as though if you are old and unsociable you are in trouble though.

Well, if you’re old an unsociable with lots of relatives who will argue for you then it’s all right. They will just say; ‘Oh, it’s just because she’s old.’ But if you haven’t got a lot of family it is difficult, yes. We are seeing now that witch hunts have started happening in Africa and nobody is sure if this is a reversion to tradition, if the Pax Brittanica imposed rules to stop it and now things have reverted, or if this is a new thing. I suspect it’s a new thing. In the old days someone believed to be a witch could theoretically be killed, but you would always find someone to speak up for them, someone with another interpretation.

Like a lawyer?

Yes. Someone who would say; ‘Oh, rubbish. It’s not witchcraft! It’s punishment for something else.’ If you stick around long enough you hear these arguments. Which witch, so to speak.