Witchcraft Among the Azande, With Audio Description.

Format:

Video

Series:

Disappearing World

Language:

English

Genre:

Films for people with visual disabilities.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (53 minutes)

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : Royal Anthropological Institute, 1981.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

video file

Summary:

This documentary analyzes the role of witchcraft among the Azande people of central Africa, who considered it to be a major danger. They believe that witchcraft can be inherited and that a person can be a witch without realizing her or his bad influence. The film shows that, because of this danger, effective means of diagnosing witchcraft are vital. Several methods of diagnosis are explored in the film, the most important being benge, a poison which is fed to baby chickens. The chick's death or survival provides a judgment of the person in question. Anthropologists have long argued about the nature and significance of belief in witchcraft and sorcery and, more generally, about the similarities and differences between such thought and Western science. This film treads this path delicately, exploring an explanation of reality incomprehensible to a majority of Westerners and, at the same time, portraying the Azande as a clear-thinking and familiar group of people.

Notes:

Title from resource description page (viewed September 14, 2026).