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Azande usewitchcraft toexplain unex-plainable

witchcraft isin every as-pect of life

if anything bad happensto a person, it is witch-craft

misfortune is caused by witchcraft unless sorcery/evil agent at work, impompetence,break a taboo, or act immorally

Zande wouldbe surprised tonot come ac-

ross witchcraft

Azande menaren't scared ofw.c. but ratherare annoyed byit

S.O wanted tohurt the victim=> victim be-comes angry

anyone can bea witch; notremarkable

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why shouldthis one eventout of the manytimes indi hasdone it, fail/cause injury?

wc not onlycause of s/tbut reasonman is injured

Zande philoso-phy connectsthe vicitim to

the cause (el-liminates coin-cidence)

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Zande ppl under-stand the scienti-fic causes ofthings but usemagic to explainwhy it happens

haha

magic explainswhy things happenbut not how

Zande don'tignore the 2nd-ary causes ofdeath

wc is sociallyrelevent since itallows interven-tion

nat death andwc complimenteach other

wc gives deathmoral value

physical causeand wc com-bined kill person

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not every failure/misfortune explainedby magic since co-mmon sense canexplain

when a person isimmoral or breaksa taboo/law doeswc not apply

aspecial conditionsin which wc is notculpable for death(and to say sowould be treasonand punishable ofdeath)

wc used to explainmisfortune, sick-ness, & death butis irrelevent in lawand morals

- beaking a taboo => misfortune (but if die from misfortune, wc is cause)- 3 spear death (physical cause, breach of taboo, wc)

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failure of med towork may be b/cof broken taboo

potter may be inexpor had sex nightbefore (no wc in-volved)

not all deaths areattributed to wc orbreach of taboo(Supreme Being)

sorceror vs. witch

bad blood/old agenot wc or taboo

adultery + wc could= death (of individualor his/her partner)

incomcpetence, lazi-ness, and ignorancecan be causes forfailure/misfortune

individual may point to wc but others will disagree if it is the individual's own fault

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9/10

serious misfortune isnormally attributed todeath

serious injuries ordeath explained bywc (no matter howat fault vicitm was)

if carry out an acti-vity traditionally andstill fail, wc is to blame

no concept in supernatand nat world

Zande do distinguish between natural and supernatural

Azande do see adiff b/w nat andsupernat, theycannot describe itsince there is noformal concept ofnat law

Azande know thatwc exists but don'know how it works

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