An Analysis of E.E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Ora s and Magic Among the Azande (The Macat Library)

The history of anthropology is, to a large extent, the history of differing modes of interpretation.As anthropologists have long known, examining, analyzing and recording cultures in the quest to understand humankind as a whole is a vastly complex task, in which nothing can be achieved without careful and incisive interpretative work.Edward Evans-Pritchard’s seminal 1937 Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande is a model contribution to anthropology’s grand interpretative project, and one whose success is based largely on its author’s thinking skills.A major issue in anthropology at the time was the common assumption that the faiths and customs of other cultures appeared irrational or illogical when compared to the “civilized” and scientific beliefs of the western world.Evans-Pritchard sought to challenge such definitions by embedding himself within a tribal culture in Africa - that of the Azande - and attempting to understand their beliefs in their proper contexts.By doing so,