Spellbound Review
Jan. 24th, 2011 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
So if you're looking for some depressing reading, might I suggest Spellbound: Inside West Africa's Witch Camps by Karen Palmer.
Ms. Palmer takes a tour of Ghana, a small West African country on the Gold Coast. Oil, minerals and chocolate have provided a fairly steady economic footing, but most of the benefits fall on the southern part of the nation. In the sub-Saharan north of the country life is much poorer and much harder. The country as a whole, like much of Africa, has a strong animist tradition that lurks beneath Christian or Muslim beliefs. All of this adds up to a place where witchcraft is taken seriously and used as a level against women too old or infertile or too wealthy or too outspoken for comfort.
A fever dream might reveal that a woman is a witch. The woman is hauled before the chief who ritually kills a chicken. If the chicken dies on it's back, the woman is innocent. If it dies beak-down, the woman is a witch. If you're a witch (and really, the odds are very good that you are), then you can seek out sanctuary in the local witch-camp where the chief will protect you, hire you out as menial labor and attempt to "cure" you of witchcraft OR you can take your chances and hope you won't get lynched.
It's really a much better system than the bad old days where they skipped right to the lynching.
Ms. Palmer talks to accused witches, some of whom seem to be innocent victims and some who seem to be suffering from mental problems. She talks to the chief who's supposed to be curing them, aid workers trying to help them, friends and family of the accused and the local villagers. It's a series of nested vicious cycles that resist correction short of massive economic development. Once branded a witch, a woman loses what little voice she has and trying to directly help them breed jealousy and resentment.
The book does a pretty good job of illustrating a cross-section of a society and culture that could produce this system. I only have two minor complaints: 1.) The book sorely needs a map of Ghana. The villages Ms. Palmer visits probably wouldn't show up, but just a general sense of Ghana's location in Africa and major regions would be a big help. 2.) Ms. Palmer relied on translators and I worry about how much was misunderstood or deliberately obfuscated. Yes, yes, I'm hardly a cunning linguist and Ms. Palmer points out that there's half a dozen languages and dialects spoken in the region and few people can speak more than one or two, but you're left wondering how much was left out or presented in a format the translator hoped she wanted to hear. It's just the chance you have to take when you want to shine a light on the intersection of poverty and superstition.
The book is certainly available from the Library of Tom if you're interested.
later
Tom
So if you're looking for some depressing reading, might I suggest Spellbound: Inside West Africa's Witch Camps by Karen Palmer.
Ms. Palmer takes a tour of Ghana, a small West African country on the Gold Coast. Oil, minerals and chocolate have provided a fairly steady economic footing, but most of the benefits fall on the southern part of the nation. In the sub-Saharan north of the country life is much poorer and much harder. The country as a whole, like much of Africa, has a strong animist tradition that lurks beneath Christian or Muslim beliefs. All of this adds up to a place where witchcraft is taken seriously and used as a level against women too old or infertile or too wealthy or too outspoken for comfort.
A fever dream might reveal that a woman is a witch. The woman is hauled before the chief who ritually kills a chicken. If the chicken dies on it's back, the woman is innocent. If it dies beak-down, the woman is a witch. If you're a witch (and really, the odds are very good that you are), then you can seek out sanctuary in the local witch-camp where the chief will protect you, hire you out as menial labor and attempt to "cure" you of witchcraft OR you can take your chances and hope you won't get lynched.
It's really a much better system than the bad old days where they skipped right to the lynching.
Ms. Palmer talks to accused witches, some of whom seem to be innocent victims and some who seem to be suffering from mental problems. She talks to the chief who's supposed to be curing them, aid workers trying to help them, friends and family of the accused and the local villagers. It's a series of nested vicious cycles that resist correction short of massive economic development. Once branded a witch, a woman loses what little voice she has and trying to directly help them breed jealousy and resentment.
The book does a pretty good job of illustrating a cross-section of a society and culture that could produce this system. I only have two minor complaints: 1.) The book sorely needs a map of Ghana. The villages Ms. Palmer visits probably wouldn't show up, but just a general sense of Ghana's location in Africa and major regions would be a big help. 2.) Ms. Palmer relied on translators and I worry about how much was misunderstood or deliberately obfuscated. Yes, yes, I'm hardly a cunning linguist and Ms. Palmer points out that there's half a dozen languages and dialects spoken in the region and few people can speak more than one or two, but you're left wondering how much was left out or presented in a format the translator hoped she wanted to hear. It's just the chance you have to take when you want to shine a light on the intersection of poverty and superstition.
The book is certainly available from the Library of Tom if you're interested.
later
Tom
