Eight theories of religion second edition

Evans-Pritchard’s approach to anthropology—and consequently religion—took shape against the background of three earlier traditions. The first might be called older Victorian anthropology, the second was French sociology, and the third was the newer British school of fieldwork anthropology. We have already met the last of these, at least briefly, in the form of his teachers Seligman and Malinowski, with their emphasis on close study of a foreign culture, but we can understand why this type of research was important only if we introduce the two other traditions and the view Evans-Pritchard took of them as he began his work.

As we noticed earlier in the case of such figures as Tylor, Frazer, and their associates, the Victorian founders of anthropology were inspired by the vision of a science of human affairs. They felt they could study such things as religion and the rise of human culture in a scientific manner by methodically collecting, comparing, and classifying facts. They felt further that this science led to evolutionary conclusions. Through their inquiries, they would bring out the “laws of development” according to which humanity had made progress from its primitive beginnings to its modern achievements. And though they were less aware of this than the other principles, they preferred an approach to their field that was intellectualist and individualistic. As we noted earlier in the case of Tylor, when these scholars sought to understand primitive or religious people, they always envisioned “the savage philosopher”—an ancient man standing quite alone in his clan or before his cave, puzzling over problems and devising explanations of things around him, just like a modern scientist.

Looking back on this enterprise, Evans-Pritchard, like others in the early years of the twentieth century, gave it a quite mixed review. The ideal of science he found the easiest to accept, and even improve upon, chiefly by using the Victorians’ research, gathering more facts, and refining the methods for studying them. The evolutionary conclusions, however, were another matter. He recognized that certain technical improvements in history were obvious: a better plough, a faster loom, a stronger wheel. Cultural progress as a whole, however, was a much larger, more elusive issue. And though it may have seemed self-evident to Tylor and Frazer, Evans-Pritchard insisted that such a theory contradicted the very scientific principles upon which it supposedly was based. Darwin, after all, had provided evidence to prove the physical evolution of animal species; unfortunately, evidence was precisely what the older

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With regard to the other feature of older anthropology, its individualist intellectualism, Evans-Pritchard had a more divided mind. Insofar as Tylor and Frazer explained primitive belief as the ideas of isolated ancient thinkers, they had clearly failed to see that humans always live in society, which conditions and colors their thought in a fundamental way. Insofar as they explained religion intellectually, their emphasis was rather one-sided; however, they were partly correct. All human beings, even uneducated ones, do approach life to some extent in intellectual terms; they frame concepts, connect them to other concepts, and relate both to the activities and rituals of daily life.

Evans-Pritchard felt strongly that the proper corrective to the individualism of Tylor and Frazer could be found in the field of sociology as it had recently developed in France. As we saw in discussing Durkheim, the French tradition of interpreting human affairs in social terms went back to the period before the Revolution and could be seen in the works of the Baron de Montesquieu, especially his Spirit of the Laws (1748). It had been developed by men like Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte in the early nineteenth century and further refined at its close by Durkheim and his disciples. Evans-Pritchard had great admiration for Durkheim, whom he called “the central figure” in the development of social anthropology, not just because of his own work but because of the way in which he formed a circle of talented associates and students to work with him.⁵ He was the leader of the French school, which had shown definitively that human social life, which included religion, could never be understood merely as what individuals think and do, though in associations and numbers; there was more to the formation of social groups than merely private thoughts and emotions in assembled form. Durkheim’s disciples demonstrated that the framework of life is fixed for every person by society even before birth and remains in place through the generations. Accordingly, in their view, it was society that created much of the individual. A child born in France will speak the French language, feel obliged to obey French laws, and observe French customs. So too in thought: A French child will understand

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the world with French ideas. Everyone knows these things, but until Durkheim not everyone knew their importance.

Evans-Pritchard thought the work of Lévy-Bruhl to be brilliant, even though, on the key point of the primitive prelogical mind, it would need correction. Not only had it shown that the ideas and attitudes of nonliterate peoples must be understood within the context of the whole world—the whole sea of values, habits, and assumptions in which they swim—it also marked a most important change in the attitude of modern thinkers toward primitive people. In Lévy-Bruhl’s perspective, early peoples were not mentally deficient, subhuman, or childish; they were equally but differently mature, human, and intelligent beings. To Evans-Pritchard, this was a perspective every anthropologist should take with him into the field.

Evans-Pritchard was not the only one in the Britain of his day to appreciate French sociology. Its importance had already been recognized by A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, whose ideas dominated anthropological discussion at the time. From Durkheim and his colleagues, Radcliffe-Brown had borrowed

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and then further developed the functional theory of society as a complete, interconnected, working organism. No part of it could be understood without the whole. Explaining primitive religion without addressing primitive class divisions or economic needs was like explaining the human heart without ever referring to the blood or lungs. It was this new view that passed a final judgment, if any were still needed, on the ways of the older Victorian anthropology. From the functional standpoint, nothing could be more inappropriate than to take a custom out of one culture and a belief out of another and then connect them, as Frazer would have done, to make some broad statement about “the primitive mind” in general. Evans-Pritchard, along with almost every other aspiring younger anthropologist of the time, heartily endorsed this view, as well as the important practical conclusion that followed from it. To do his work, the anthropologist could no longer stay in a library or read the reports of missionaries about this strange notion or that odd habit. He must go out into the field and make a complete study of a single culture, observing not just its religion, its law and economics, its class structure or kinship connections, but all of these as they come together in a unitary, organic whole. It was this conclusion, endorsed and implemented by all of his most important teachers, that led Evans-Pritchard in 1926 to the interior of the Sudan—and to his first major anthropological study.

In this chapter as in the others, our plan of action requires that we focus our attention on the main books in which Evans-Pritchard developed his key ideas on religion. These are chiefly Nuer Religion (1956) and, to a lesser degree, his critical study Theories of Primitive Religion (1965). Before doing so, however, we must take note of his extremely important earlier work on the Azande people, in part because of its great significance for anthropological research as a whole but also because it provides the key link between the initial assumptions we have just noted and Evans-Pritchard’s views on religion as they were developed in his later years.

As its title indicates, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande (1937) deals with a topic that anthropologists since Tylor and Frazer had taken to be closely related to religion: namely, magic. For Evans-Pritchard, magic is the belief that certain aspects of life can be controlled by mystical forces or supernatural powers. Since most educated members of modern Western societies—and Evans-Pritchard includes himself in this group—think the belief in such forces is wholly mistaken, the natural question that arises is: Why then do the Azande believe in them? Evans-Pritchard found it unacceptable,

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The precise nature of Zande witchcraft seems strange to a Westerner, but it is not difficult to describe. The term “witchcraft” actually refers to a physical substance that some people have in their bodies, unknown to themselves. It is inherited and can be discovered in their bodies after death. EvansPritchard states his own belief that this substance, which the Azande find as a dark mass in the small intestine, is nothing more than undigested food. Yet the Azande believe that while this substance looks to be merely physical and natural, it operates in a mystical fashion to bring misfortune, and especially sickness, on other people. It is a mistake, Evans-Pritchard cautions, to suppose the Azande are so obsessed with witchcraft that they spend most of their time making and responding to accusations that they have it in their bodies. They do not. But references to it are made in every aspect of their life, especially in connection with almost any unfortunate turn of events that cannot be directly explained by ordinary mistakes or misjudgments.

Evans-Pritchard observes that if a blight hits one of the crops, if animals are not found in the hunt, if a wife and husband quarrel, if a commoner is turned away by his prince, there are always mutterings of witchcraft, though very little is done about it. Nonetheless, when a truly serious misfortune makes an appearance—say, the presence of a wasting disease that seems to be taking the life of an individual—there is no doubt in the Zande mind that such occurrences must be due to witchcraft. The person whose witchcraft is their cause must be found—and confronted—before it is too late.

In such cases the Azande regularly consult what they call the poison oracle. In this—again, to us quite strange—procedure, a man forces poison into the throat of a chicken while at that very moment asking a question which can be answered with a yes or no. The death or survival of the chicken then determines the answer. For example, concerning the sick friend: “If x has caused his illness, poison oracle, kill the fowl.”⁷ If the bird dies of the poison, the person whose witchcraft has caused the illness has been found. There then

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follows a procedure of accusation, a ritual of “blowing water,” in which the accused agrees to “cool” his witchcraft, which is devouring the soul of the sick person, and all is considered to be at an end—unless of course the victim of the witchcraft dies after all. In that case, vengeance must be taken. EvansPritchard points out that at one time in the Zande past, this act might have involved the murder of the accused witch. Now, however, it is usually a matter of offering compensation to the family or, even better, of discovering, again through oracles, that another person in the community, now deceased, was in fact the witch and has thus already suffered a fitting punishment for his witchcraft. Vengeance, moreover, cannot be claimed until the verdict of one’s private oracle has been confirmed by the secret poison oracle of the local prince, for Zande society is an aristocracy in which the ruling class makes all final decisions. If the logic of these oracles, deaths, and acts of vengeance were analyzed publicly, Evans-Pritchard notes, it would reduce itself to an absurdity, because every new death would have to be attributed to yet another act of witchcraft in an endless circle. The Azande—significantly—choose not to address this problem in any abstract or theoretical manner.

The great and painstaking detail with which Evans-Pritchard describes these magical practices is one reason for the extraordinary praise Witchcraft came to receive from experts in the field. It is a classic piece of what anthropologists call scientific ethnography. The details have great theoretical importance, for through them Evans-Pritchard is able to show how, from the Zande perspective, the seeming absurdities of witchcraft and magic form not only a completely coherent and rational system but one that plays a central role in social life. It offers a plausible account of all personal misfortunes. It also works alongside what we would call explanation through natural causes, for the Azande also believe in these and appeal to them often as well. In certain cases, witchcraft helps to explain why natural causes act as they do. It does not explain why fire burns, but it does explain why, on this particular unfortunate occasion, fire, which never bothered me before, now has burned my hand. The Azande,

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therefore, see no competition between science on the one hand and their system of magic, oracles, witchcraft, and religion on the other. Significantly, the notion of a struggle between these two forms of knowledge—which is so central to views of Tylor, Frazer, Freud, Lévy-Bruhl and so many other theorists of the primitive mind—seems totally foreign to their experience. Magic and religion are not replaced by science; they simply operate alongside and with it.

All of this also puts Evans-Pritchard in the position to make a clear statement about how the Azande reason as compared with thinking in a modern scientific culture, and here it is worth quoting him at length. Although the Azande clearly do not see the theoretical weakness in their system of witchcraft belief,

their blindness is not due to stupidity, for they display great ingenuity in
explaining away the failures and inequalities of the poison oracle and experi-
mental keenness in testing it. It is due rather to the fact that their intellectual
ingenuity and experimental keenness are conditioned by patterns of ritual
behaviour and mystical belief. Within the limits set by these patterns they show
great intelligence, but it cannot operate beyond these limits. Or, to put it in another
way; they reason excellently in the idiom of their beliefs, but they cannot
reason outside, or against, their beliefs because they have no other idiom in which
to express their thoughts.⁹

Having said this, Evans-Pritchard then turns the argument around. He states that if we look closely at Zande witchcraft in the context of the society in which it functions, we find it a system of thought that shows certain quite striking similarities to our own nonmagical system. Certain beliefs—like the idea that there is such a thing as witchcraft—are fundamental and beyond

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dispute. Once these are accepted, other inferences, connections, and ideas follow from them quite logically and consistently. Moreover, the fundamental ideas are always affirmed in a way that allows for certain adjustments and protections of them if they do happen to be contradicted by the facts.

As philosophers, anthropologists, scientists, and theologians have gradually come to realize, what Evans-Pritchard shows to be true for the Azande has momentous consequences for the assessment of belief and doubt in our own society. The case of the Azande suggests that in any culture, certain fundamental beliefs must at all costs be preserved. They are too precious to lose.

In 1930 Evans-Pritchard began a series of visits to the land of the Nuer, a people living just to the north of the Azande but very different in character, culture, and traditions. He at once set upon the difficult work of learning their language and began questioning his hosts, a task that proved more difficult than with the Azande, who had volunteered information freely. Over a period of about six years, to 1936, he put together the equivalent of a year in the Nuer camps, questioning, observing, and writing. This research led in time to three impressive books—and numerous articles—which were published

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between 1940 and 1956. The first, entitled The Nuer, focused on the community’s economic and political life. Like the work on the Azande, it now has the status of a classic in anthropology. Among its notable features are an examination of the central place of cattle in economic life and an emphasis on the role they play in people’s personal affections, as well as a fascinating discussion of the way the Nuer have constructed their ideas of time and space in relation to their way of life. In 1951 The Nuer was followed by a more specifically social study of the community’s patterns of kinship and marriage. The trilogy was brought to completion in 1956 with Nuer Religion, the book that calls for our attention here.

Evans-Pritchard begins Nuer Religion at the very center of its subject. On a first look, he notes, one would almost say that the Nuer are a people without religion. They seem to have no formal dogma, no developed liturgy or sacraments, no organized worship, not even a system of mythology. But those appearances are misleading. In a sense, the Nuer actually do have all of these things, though they appear in the culture in such an informal, almost hidden way that the casual observer could easily miss them.

Nuer religion centers almost totally on the concept of kwoth, or spirit (in the plural, kuth: “spirits”). First and foremost in their thought is God, the being they know as Kwoth nhial, the “spirit of (or in) the sky.” He is the creator of all things, invisible and present everywhere, the sustainer—and taker—of life, the upholder of cuong, or what is morally upright, good, and true. A being with qualities of human personality, Kwoth nhial is also, and preeminently, a God who loves unselfishly the human beings he has created.¹⁰ Nuer are keenly aware of God’s control of their lives, often uttering quiet prayers to the effect “God is present.” And though proud in their attitudes to other people, the Nuer regard themselves as nothing before him. They are dumb and small, like tiny ants in his sight.

The Nuer have a strong sense of God’s complete control over the great natural events that happen in the world. Floods, storms, drought, and famine —all of these are in his hands and must be accepted as they may come. If, as happens often, someone is killed by lightning in a thunderstorm, they do not mourn or hold a normal rite of burial. They accept that God has just taken back what is his own. At the same time, the lesser, if still significant, misfortunes that arise in the course of daily social life are another matter. Unlike the Azande, the Nuer do not see them as caused by witchcraft, which must be discovered through oracles so the witch can be pointed out; they feel strongly that such things should be seen as their own fault, as reversals caused

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by their own wrongdoing. And they believe that life cannot go on, nor can their community prosper, until matters have been made right before God— until the pollution of their wrongs has been purged. To this idea we will return shortly.