Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande

Record summary

E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande is a landmark study of Zande explanations, divination, ritual practice, and causation. Although not primarily a sky-lore book, it matters for luminous and fire motifs because it demonstrates how events, including accidents and environmental occurrences, may be interpreted through a culturally specific system rather than through a simple natural-versus-supernatural binary. The work is an analytic ethnography, not proof of occult forces. Its examples, translations, and generalizations should be checked against later Zande scholarship.