ABSTRACT
In Europe and Massachusetts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries children were used for 'crying out' witches, and their accusations were taken as gospel by priests, judges, and respectable members of the community. Young girls became officials of witch courts where their supposedly unbiased confessions and accusations were accepted as fact. Innumerable people were sent to their death because of the wanton mischief of unruly children. Girls accused priests of gross immorality. Sometimes they were coached by interested parties. In Ba.ngwa, Cameroon, 1 children are frequently accused of witchcraft. They also confess to witching others, giving the names of their victims and incriminating other children and adults. Although accusations are never made in Bangwa with the same degree of irresponsibility as they were in Europe, the parallels between the European child-accusers of witches and the Bangwa confessed childwitches are clear. In Bangwa and Europe some of the children involved were little exhibitionists, confessing to witchcraft in order to get attention. In both cases it seems that deprivation (in the one case protein, in the other sexual) played an important role. In Europe and Bangwa children have been used by professional witch-hunters for political ends, and the child's accusation against adults is taken at face value. In Bangwa a child's evidence could be used by a chief against a wealthy political opponent. The onus is always on the accused to clear his name; in Bangwa it was formerly through a sasswood poison ordeal from which few escaped.
