The Azande Summary
the author has discussed the role of witchcraft in the Zande belief system. From the author’s depictions, the Azande often attribute their misfortunes to witchcraft. This raises the erroneous speculation that due to a lack of knowledge regarding the natural causes, the Azande are unable to distinguish the natural causes from the supernatural causes and that, as a result, the Azande are more primitive (and less advanced) than the Europeans (Evans-Pritchard 18; 30). This particular speculation stems from the Eurocentric theory of cultural evolution, which states that all cultures progress through the same path with a same set of scales and stages. Before the Enlightenment, the Europeans have attributed the Black Death to mostly supernatural causes
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The superiority of European culture over Zande culture is based on the assumption that, like the Europeans centuries ago, Zande could not distinguish natural and supernatural cause due to a lack of understanding in natural causes. However, the author points out that when the granary collapse at a particular time, the Azande know the natural cause (termites) perfectly well; they attribute the event to witchcraft only to explain something that we do not explain; that is, why the granary collapse at a particular time when people are resting in there (Evans-Pritchard 23). Azande clearly perceive the distinction between natural and supernatural causes by using the metaphor of first spear and second spear, with the first spear being natural causes and the second being supernatural causes (Evans-Pritchard 25; 26). Verbally, the Azande attribute misfortune to witchcraft simply because they have a different set of concepts that is incompatible to the European concepts of natural and supernatural: they know the difference between what we call natural and supernatural but they cannot express it in those Europeans terms (Evans-Pritchard 30; 31). Therefore, the previous notion of cultural evolution is problematic because the Azande are evidently not trailing the same path centuries behind the Europeans; in fact, the Azande and the Europeans are on distinctively different paths and their progress simply cannot be measured with the same set of scales and
The superiority of European culture over Zande culture is based on the assumption that, like the Europeans centuries ago, Zande could not distinguish natural and supernatural cause due to a lack of understanding in natural causes. However, the author points out that when the granary collapse at a particular time, the Azande know the natural cause (termites) perfectly well; they attribute the event to witchcraft only to explain something that we do not explain; that is, why the granary collapse at a particular time when people are resting in there (Evans-Pritchard 23). Azande clearly perceive the distinction between natural and supernatural causes by using the metaphor of first spear and second spear, with the first spear being natural causes and the second being supernatural causes (Evans-Pritchard 25; 26). Verbally, the Azande attribute misfortune to witchcraft simply because they have a different set of concepts that is incompatible to the European concepts of natural and supernatural: they know the difference between what we call natural and supernatural but they cannot express it in those Europeans terms (Evans-Pritchard 30; 31). Therefore, the previous notion of cultural evolution is problematic because the Azande are evidently not trailing the same path centuries behind the Europeans; in fact, the Azande and the Europeans are on distinctively different paths and their progress simply cannot be measured with the same set of scales and