Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors and Gossip

by Pamela J. Stewart , Andrew Strathern

• ISBN13: 9780521004732
• ISBN10: 052100473X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-11-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, and Gossip combines two classic topics in social anthropology in a new synthesis: the study of witchcraft and sorcery and the study of rumours and gossip. It shows how rumour and gossip are invariably important as catalysts for accusations of witchcraft and sorcery, and demonstrates the role of rumour and gossip in the genesis of social and political violence, as in the case of both peasant rebellions and witch-hunts. Examples supporting the argument are drawn from Africa, Europe, India, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. They include discussions of witchcraft trials in Essex, England in the seventeenth century, witch-hunts and vampire narratives in colonial and contemporary Africa, millenarian movements in New Guinea, the Indian Mutiny in nineteenth-century Uttar Pradesh, and rumours of construction sacrifice in Indonesia.

Author Biography

Andrew Strathern is in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Witchcraft and Sorcery: Modes of Analysis	1	(28)
Rumor and Gossip: An Overview	29	(30)
Africa	59	(37)
India	96	(17)
New Guinea	113	(27)
European and American Witchcraft	140	(28)
Rumors and Violence	168	(26)
Conclusions: Conflict and Cohesion	194	(11)
References	205	(12)
Index	217