ABSTRACT
The student of African folklore must be careful when encountering the terms witchcraft, magic, and sorcery to ascertain exactly what is meant. They have wide ranges of meaning, and may be used interchangeably and pejoratively. All three are frequently categorized under the pidgin English term juju-roughly equivalent to today’s concept of occult. They are often regarded as embarrassing aspects of a superstitious, “primitive” past; and they may be omitted or given only brief mention in modern discussions of traditional African culture. Systematic recording of African cultural traditions began in the colonial era; European administrative agencies, and Christian missionaries, regarded magic, sorcery, and witchcraft-and, of course, much of African ritual and belief-as dangerous, evil, or even satanic. Often, indeed, the use of these terms may reveal more about the beliefs and biases of their users than about the phenomena under consideration. But in fact the concepts are important in both traditional and modern African societies. Understanding them yields insight into cosmological ideas and the workings of society; moreover, they are not uniquely African but are expressions of universal human ways of thinking.
