book chapter
Witchcraft among the Tapanahoni Djuka
Maroon societies : rebel slave communities in the Americas • Baltimore • Published In 1979 • Pages: 370-388
By: Wetering, Wilhelmina van.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This article is excerpted from a larger work by Wetering, 'The Dynamics of Witchcraft Accusations in Tapanahoni Djuka Society.' According to Wetering, witchcraft accusations involve not only the accuser and the accused, but also the community and its leaders. This larger social field includes the localized lineage and village ward, priests of the cult of the Great Deity who supervise the post-mortem inquest to determine the moral status of the deceased, and the grave diggers who actually carry out the divination. Accusations occur within wards and between wards and express the social tensions that exist within and between these fundamental social groupings. Priests who are often village leaders have the power to validate witchcraft accusations and are guided by their interest to keep the peace among wards and lineages. The grave diggers are saavy to the general consensus within lineages and wards and will act accordingly. The relative status of accuser and accused will affect the number of people mobilized on one's behalf and will also influence the outcome of a witchcraft trial.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Status, role, and prestige
- Kin relationships
- Lineages
- Community structure
- Sorcery
- Priesthood
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Ndyuka
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 1998
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- South America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Amazon and Orinoco
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- book chapter
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 1997
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1961-1962
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1950-1965
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Tapanahoni river, Suriname
- NotesAdditional notes
- W. van Wetering
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 388)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 79016806
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Djuka people