Essay On The Azande

The Azande are a people who lived in a large area in the center of Africa. They have been moved or trance planted many times in the last 70 or so years. British rule impacted their way of living severely, by moving them and by trying to turn them in to production growers of cotton. The production of cotton idea fail mainly because the British did not consider the cultural aspects of the Azande. The Azande have a very structured social system in each community. They were organized into chiefdoms that were independent of each other. The chief belong to the Avongara or nobility. The chief have the power to appoint emissaries to manage sections of their territories. In these communities common people could be deputized to help in the management of the community. The Azande had a unique marriage custom were the suitor pays part of the agreed on bride price and then he commits to helping the bride’s family whenever needed. If he fails in this area he would be required to pay more or the family could
take back his bride. So it is important to keep in good relations with the wife family. Often the suiter will marry sisters so that he can continue working and helping the same family and not have to help several different familys, making his job a little easier. Civil war has spread the Azande people far apart. Some have fled to surrounding nearby countries and others have left and came to place like the United States as refugees. Agreements have been signed to give back the home lands of the Azande. But there are concerns that their cultural ways and practices have forever been changed. People who were raised there want to go back to a land the way it was, but their children have never known anything but how they were raised in and around different cultures. This will forever change the culture of the Azande even in their own country. The Azande believe in witchcraft and believe that some people have mangu.
Mangu is the power of magic, is passed down from fathers and mothers to their children. If a person with mangu has negative thoughts toward someone they can inadvertently harm them. So most Azande try not to be happy and not have negative thoughts. Another part of this is the consultation of oracles. Everyone uses oracles to make important decisions in their lives. The book talks about three type of oracles used by the Azande. These are the poison oracle, termite oracle, and the least reliable rubbing-board oracle. It seems as though the idea of witchcraft and the use of oracles work similar to laws and religion in that people don’t want to be accused of witchcraft so everyone tries to be good people and live a positive life so that they won’t be accused of wrongs. This makes the Azande people behave in a specific way much like laws and religion in our own
society. The Azande have a logic about why they believe an adverse event was caused by magic. I have been around people that have had something happen to them either bad or good, and since they couldn’t explain why it happened they said it was because the stars or planets were in alignment. I don’t think that those people are at the same level of belief that the Azande have, but it is a way of explaining something that isn’t understood. Maybe not explaining, but more giving it a reason that makes it okay to not know why it happened. I do not have this kind of logic when it comes to bad things happening. I have come to the understanding that bad thing happen to good people all of the time, and so do good thing.