ABSTRACT
Specific people are accused of being witches, other people are named as their victims. These are observed facts and can be analysed sociologically, unlike the ‘ideology of witchcraft’ which can only be interpreted. The two basic facts we may discover are the position, sex, age, and other details of witch and victim, and their relationship to each other. The study of the relationship between witch and victim has especially at tracted anthropologists, for it illuminates not only the tensions which precipitate witchcraft accusations, but, more generally, indicates the major stresses in the interpersonal relationships of a society. We will start by describing separately the characteristics of the witch and victim, but it should throughout be remembered that each detail about the victim (age, sex, personality) must be related to that of the witch and vice versa. Thus it is not enough to learn that Nupe witches are old women; we must also remember that their victims are usually young men under their influence.2
THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE WITCH
