ABSTRACT
Part 6 provides a nuanced analysis of witchcraft accusations as ‘critical events’ enacted in moments of violence that emerge from particular constellations in intimate relationships, multiple agencies and structuring themes calling for and legitimising violent action. It views violence as related to human subjectivities and thus inbuilt in a fragile everyday social order depending on consensus and commitment to that order. The violation of social norms embodied by the witch is different from the collective violence constructed as a defence of the social order that paradoxically produces ruptures and disorder. As unrestrained violence ultimately denies sociality, individuals and the community generally do their best to avoid this happening. Although murderous violence in witchcraft accusations does exist, witch murder is the exception rather than the rule. Witchcraft accusations are a men’s game, although women do participate actively in witchcraft accusations, albeit in different ways: through rumours supporting suspicion and indirect violence. Somewhere on the fringes sits the baiga (village healer) who plays a crucial role in influencing how misfortunes are to be understood, treated and dealt with where treatment fails. Sometimes those in power instigate the violence and other times act to dampen it.
