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This fascinating story of the role of witchcraft in South Africa with the end of apartheid is told by Adam Ashforth in ethnographic form. The story is about friendship and the bonds it creates, and the lengths a friend will go to be there for another.
The overall tale is warm and happy, a delightful blend of memoir narrative, journalism and sociology. Now a professor in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Ashforth lived for over a decade in Soweto until the elections of 1994. Each year, he travels back to the township to reside for three months and to catch up with his friends. Ashforth takes an empirical approach to his study of ethnology and so presents a document that is less personalized compared to other anthropology field reports (Ashforth 1).
The setting of the story is set is Soweto. Ashforth, an Australian anthropologist lived in the town for many years, and the story is about his friend Madumo who is accused by a prophet of his family of his families church (the Zion Christian Church) of using witchcraft to kill his mum. Such an anti-social act falls under the local police’s ‘Occult-related Crimes Unit’ responsibility. Madumo soon finds himself expelled from his home, so Madumo seeks help from the healers and prophets who live in Soweto.
Ashforth is his companion as Madumo begins his journey of redemption that is physically demanding – almost killing him. Ashforth and Madumo become embroiled in counter-witchcraft practices, such as drawing on the wisdom of the medicine man Mr Zondi. The medicine man contends that Madumo should, “…approach the elders of [his] family and do this in the proper way” (199). Especially with regard to witchcraft, the elders of the community are still responsible for the judging of the lives of youths.
Examples of Madumo’s foray into the occult includes ingestion of herbs and earth gathered from the grave of his mother; ritual cutting of his legs and hands that are then rubbed with the poisonous mercury; slaughtering of a white hen to appease his ancestors of his good intentions and clear conscious; and purgative vomiting with the use of other herbs which in turn induces severe illness. Madumo observes at this time that, “… the problem with us that we Africans, when life picks up and things are going smooth for us, we normally forget about our ancestors. Because we are trying to follow western culture” (24). Predominatly though, Madumo wonders if he should, “Westernize my mind and not think about witchcraft´´.
Throughout the adventure Ashforth is skeptical, and after talking with a surgeon friend seriously concerned, of what the medicine people suggest to his friend, but he remains supportive. Although over time the interventions appear to bring improvement for Madumo, he is no more nearer to regaining his place within his family. In the bigger picture of the story, Madumo is no nearer to gaining a stable place within the South African economy.
Ashforth points out that pervasive witchcraft practices are inter-woven with other prominent religions within Soweto. He emphasizes how this unique form of meaning making within the community provides them with purpose and understanding of their place in a globalized world. “Despite the dawning of democracy, people were still suffering. Yet the task of interpreting the meaning of misfortune was becoming more complex” (9).
Repeatedly, Ashforth denies his own belief in the witchcraft practices. However, he also recognizes that to the community of Soweto, Madumo’s experiences cannot be explained away by as a placebo effect. He notes that it would have been pointless for him to try and convince Madumo of what he (Ashforth) perceived as a useless endeavor. Ashforth though, covers the costs of the treatments that his friend receives and accepts that for his friend change occurs.
The importance of this ethnography is that it delivers to the reader insights of cultural practices that are quite common in South Africa, yet rarely talked about openly (Salome 1). Supernatural perils that Madumo must encounter and overcome gives even the reader who does not believe in witchcraft something to reflect on and consider. There are many learning moments throughout the book. Also, the conflict between maintaining traditional belief systems and adapting to modern industrialized lifestyles that do not take into account the supernatural highlights a critical struggle within South Africa at the moment (Durham 93).
On the one hand many of the townships inhabitants will openly state that they “don’t believe in witchcraft”, however, it becomes clear that they mean by this that they don’t practice witchcraft themselves, as it is immoral. However, many will not hesitate to use witchcraft when they feel themselves wronged and able to “get away with it”.
The “deluge of witchcraft” (98-99) indicates the function of bewitching for the South African people as a way to adapt to life in a “new South Africa” (post-apartheid). The concept of witchcraft maintains gender role expectations and social norms about how a life should be lived. That is “traditionally”.
However, the practice of witchcraft has also been shown to be innovative (with the more dangerous practices of modern medicine men who often use modern alternatives to traditional ingredients and so increase the risk of death by use of “traditional” remedies); and also profitable for some (again, the medicine men who are sought out to remedy modern day conflicts of spirit). “For all the talk of ubuntu, or “African humanism” by the new African elite, on the streets of Soweto the practice of everyday life was tending ever more towards the dog-eat-dog” (232). Hence, the interpretation of social and physical ailments remains attributed to malevolent and external forces, despite the gains made nationally with the fall of apartheid, and there were many who have benefited from this state of affairs.
The journalistic tone of the ethnography parallels the style of Karen McCarthy Brown’s Mama Lola (McCarthy Brown 2), where the narrator is less present at many active scenes and informants are considered to be friends. This has massively blurred the boundaries between observer and observed, however, Ashforth does not come across as being unreasonably subjective in his re-telling. Truth and fiction blend in both of these books to create a new form of ethnography/story.
As such, Ashforth has not drawn on anthropological theories to explain what he and others experience during the tale. He echoes a range of scriptures across the ages when he states that the beliefs of the spirit are untranslatable. Ashforth presents the subject of witchcraft in South Africa as akin to a “religious mystery”. As such, unless a person experiences the events that Madumo (and in some respects Ashforth) went through, it is difficult to comprehend and celebrate the wonders of it.
The sociopolitical and sociocultural filters that Ashforth uses to narrate his and others individual experiences is different form other books on African witchcraft that seek to interpret supernatural phenomenon. Ashforth’s work does not try to explain his and Madumo’s experiences rather it raises questions within the mind of the reader who is from an industrial society. A weakness of the book is that Ashforth is often not actually present at events instead he is told about them and then passes on this information to the reader.
He could have gone into detail about the processes he used to develop the ethnography/story, as this would have informed other anthropologists as to how to go about creating a work of this caliber (Wardrop 1). As it stands, Ashforth’s book brings to it a dominance of the affect which is missing from ethnographies of the past.
References
Ashforth, Adam. Madumo: A Man Bewitched. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Durham, Deborah. Madumo: A Man Bewitched – A Review. African Studies Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 pp. 93-94. 2001.
McCarthy Brown, Karen. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Los Angeles: U. of California Press.
Philip, David. 2005. Madumo: A Man Bewitched – A Review. Web.
Salome, Frank. Madumo: A Man Bewitched – A Review. Africa Today, Volume 48, Number 1, pp. 147-148. 2001.
Wardrop, Joan. A Sowetan bewitched. Web.
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