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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The colonial State and witchcraft: moral crusade or ethnocentric phobia: the case of British colonialism in Tanganyika |
Author: | Mesaki, Simeon |
Year: | 1997 |
Periodical: | Tanzania Zamani: A Journal of Historical Research & Writing |
Volume: | 3 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 50-71 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Tanzania Great Britain |
Subjects: | colonialism witchcraft criminal law |
Abstract: | Traditionally, the practice and threat of witchcraft was one of the numerous moral artifacts of culture for sanctioning behaviour and imposing conformity. When the British took over control of Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania), they neither understood nor trusted the prevailing systems of social control. Believing that Africans were inferior and savage, they wanted to introduce their own ways of maintaining law and order. In the case of witchcraft, they denied its existence, and maintained that the 'barbarous and injurious' acts to be suppressed were witch-finding and the related activities of the witch doctor. Whereas 'natives' had concerned themselves with restoring equilibrium after intervals of witchcraft, the British replaced the system with alien concepts of rule of law and justice, undermining traditional judicial and political systems in the process. A glaring characteristic of colonial antiwitchcraft legislation was the absence of any indigenous contribution in its compilation. As a result, the drafters did not know exactly what they were seeking to eradicate. Moreover, the fact that the law had to undergo many amendments and revisions shows how difficult it was to enforce. Bibliogr., ref. |