Between the Private and the Public Sphere
Pentecostals Dealing with Witchcraft in Ibadan, Nigeria
Keywords:
Pentecostalism, Islam, witchcraft, Yoruba, African traditional religion, ChristianityAbstract
Since the 1980s, Pentecostalism has grown immensely in Nigeria. At the same time, witchcraft fears have intensified and stories about flying women, ritual murders and secret cults have been spread through the Nigerian media. Books allegedly written by former initiates of witchcraft are read by Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals alike. Witchcraft beliefs are cultivated in Pentecostal churches, and researchers credit much of their appeal to the fact that they take such beliefs seriously and address them publicly. This paper gives an example from the field by comparing two Pentecostal churches in urban southwestern Nigeria to discuss how and under which circumstances Pentecostals deal with witchcraft in a public or private manner. It concludes that Pentecostals appropriate global discourses when dealing with witchcraft and oscillate between the private and the public sphere in doing so.
References
Anderson, A. African Reformation: African Initiated Christianity in the 20th Century. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2001.
— “Exorcism and Conversion to African Pentecostalism”. Exchange 35.1 (2006): 116–33. https://doi.org/10.1163/157254306776066960
Bastian, M. L. “‘Bloodhounds Who Have No Friends’: Witchcraft and Locality in the Nigerian Press.” In J. Comaroff and J. Comaroff (eds), Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Post-colonial Africa. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993: 129–66.
— “Vulture Men, Campus Cultists and Teenaged Witches: Modern Magics in Nigerian Popular Media”. In Henrietta L. Moore and Todd Sanders (eds), Magical Interpretations, Material Realities. Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa. London: Routledge, 2001: 71–96.
Comaroff, J. and J. Comaroff. “Introduction”. In Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff (eds), Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993: xi–xxxvii.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937.
Fourchard, L. “Ibadan, Nigeria”. In UN-Habitat (ed.), The Challenge of Slums: Global Reports on Human Settlements. London: Earthscan, 2003: 211.
Geschiere, P. and Roitman, J. The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in postcolonial Africa. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1997.
Gifford, P. Ghana’s New Christianity. Pentecostalism in a Globalizing African Economy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Hackett, R. I. J. “Discourses of Demonization in Africa and Beyond”. Diogenes 50.3 (2003): 61–75. https://doi.org/10.1177/03921921030503005
Idowu, E. B. “The Challenge of Witchcraft”. Orita 4.1 (1970): 3–16.
Jegede, O. Incantations and Herbal Cures in Ifa Divination: Emerging Issues in Indigenous Knowledge. Ibadan: African Association for the Study of Religion, 2010.
Marshall, R. Political Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226507149.001.0001
Marwick, M. G. “Another Modern Anti-Witchcraft Movement in East Central Africa”. Africa 20.2 (1950): 100–112. https://doi.org/10.2307/3180568
Meyer, B. “‘If You Are a Devil, You Are a Witch, and If You Are a Witch, You Are a Devil’: The Integration of ‘Pagan’ Ideas into the Conceptual Universe of Ewe Christians in Southeastern Ghana”. Journal of Religion in Africa 22.2 (1992): 98–132.
Morton-Williams, P. “The Atinga Cult among the South Western Yoruba: A Sociological Analysis of a Witch-Finding Movement”. Bulletin d l’Institut Francais d’Afrique Noire 18.3–4 (1956): 315–34.
Ojo, M. “Pentecostalism, Public Accountability and Governance in Nigeria”. In A. Harneit- Sievers and N. Obiorah (eds), Pentecostalism and Public Life in Nigeria: Perspectives and Dialogue. Lagos: Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2007: 19–34.
Ola, O. “The Study of West African Local Government”. The Journal of Modern African Studies 6.2 (1968): 233–48. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X00017183
Onyinah, O. “Deliverance as a Way of Confronting Witchcraft in Modern Africa: Ghana as a Case History”. Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 5.1 (2002): 107–34.
— Pentecostal Exorcism: Witchcraft and Demonology in Ghana. Blandford Forum: Deo Publishing, 2012.
Willis, R. G. “Kamcape: An Anti-sorcery Movement in South-West Tanzania” Africa 38.1 (1968): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.2307/1157335
