Evans Pritchard V

66 Witch-Doctors By magic they can guard themselves against witchcraft and desttoy it. The Zande witch-doctor is both diviner and magician. As diviner he exposes witches; as magician he thwarts them. But chiefly he is a diviner. In this capacity he is often nown as ira avure, possessor of avure, the word avure being contained also in the expression do avure, !to dance avure’, which describes the dance of witch-doctors and in a more general sense the whole seance at which they perform. "hen he acts as a leech he is nown as a binza, but this word and ira avure are interchangeable in reference to his divinatory functions# though binza is alone used in reference to his leechcraft. In both roles his tas is the same$to counteract witchcraft. As a diviner he discovers the location of witchcraft# and as a leech he repairs its ravages. A%ande regard witch-doctors as one of their many oracles though they do not normally spea of them as oracles. They consider their prophecies and revelations to have e&ual value with t he disclosures of the rubbing-board oracles but to be l ess reliable than the poison oracle and the termites oracle. I have already described how a sic man# or insmen acting on his behalf# consults various oracles# ending with the poison oracle# to determine who among his enemies is bewitching him. But instead of commencing therapeutic operations with the rubbing-board oracle they may summon one or several witch- doctors to divine on behalf of a sic man# or about economic failure. Though great attention is paid to the declarations of witch-doctors their revelations have no legal value# and it is even considered inadvisable to approach a witch by the customary procedure on the strength of a witch-doctor's statement unsupported by a corroborative verdict of the poison oracle. II The Zande corporation of witch-doctors is a speciali%ed profession with vested interests in nowledge of medicines# so that many of their activities are not easily observed. Therefore I preface my description of witch-doctors with a short statement of the way in which I collected my information. In studying the Zande corporation of witch-doctors it was necessary to divide the field of in&uiry into two sections and to employ different methods in the investigation of each. (ne Witch_Doctors 67 ton comprised their activities in relation to the rest of Zande r, the part they play in communal life# their place in )* tradition# their contacts with the princes# and the beliefs and stories associated with them in the public [ , nd. It was easy to record this part of their life# for there was difficulty about witnessing public performances which are +ntoall corners. It was li ewise easy to obtain a commentary ‘i what is abstruse in the ritual from regular informants and ,ual bystanders alie. In this section it was# in fact# possible ert*ploy the usual methods of fieldwor investigati(flT**t repeated observation of behaviour# cross&uesti(fling of tives# both in the si tuation of ritual when their attention is irected to the performance about which information is sought in more leisurely conversations in tent# or hut# collection f texts# and even mild participation in native activities by the thnograher himself. i (n the other hand# the corporation has an esoteric life from which the uninitiated are excluded# and this forms the second etion of our study. ot only are nowledge of medicines and * trics of the trade hidden from outsi ders# but much of the inner social life of the corporation and many of its beliefs are unnown : wthem. The usual methods of in&uiry were here largely ineffecave and the ordinary system of controls inoperative. I could have observed directly only by becoming m yself a witch-doctor# and while this would have been possible among the A%ande# l/ I doubt whether i t would have proved advantageous. revious experience of participation in activities of this ind had led me to the conclusion that an anthropologist gains little by obtrud! ing himself into ceremonies as an actor# for a 0uropean is never seriously regarded as a member of an esoteric group and has little opportunity of checing to what extent a performance is

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Evans Pritchard V