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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The 'fetishes are there': the management of sorcery in an urban Ghanaian court
Author:Lowy, Michael J.
Year:1975
Periodical:Kroniek van Afrika
Volume:1
Issue:4
Pages:38-46
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:administration of justice
witchcraft
Abstract:In the absence of quantitative data on the frequency of sorcery accusations and shrine use, it is difficult to prove whether today it is social tensions or the lack of legal recognition of sorcery as a crime that is the more important variable influencing the persistence of this social practice. On the basis of two cases tried in the Koforidua District Magistrate's Court Grade II in early 1969, the author indicates how the withdrawal of the legal recognition of sorcery as an offense, coupled with the activities of those in the legal profession, may serve to increase the use of shrines quite apart from any increase in social tensions. This situation is possible since the major actors in the conflict resolution process have not forsaken the belief in the efficacy of the supernatural principle. In the absence of social conditions which might support different explanations of misfortune, the continued use of shrines is at least in part the consequence of an attempt to disregard them legislatively. Notes, ref.
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