“Deaths by guns will never outnumber magic”: New oracles among the Azande

Abstract

Benge, the famous chicken poison oracle that Evans-Pritchard vividly described in his classic ethnography, subsequently disappeared from Zande lore. While contemporary Azande still talk about the vanished benge sorrowfully, the society turned to a neighboring ethnic group’s oracle, the dabaya. The dabaya, or slaughtering, also uses chickens to arrive at an answer to questions. The dabaya operator cuts the throat of the chicken and, unlike the effect of the poison during benge, the location of the death and the positioning of the carcass gives the verdict. Using deep ethnographic description, oral history interviews, archival and historical sources, this article argues that the need for powerful oracles to determine the validity of public witchcraft accusations grows in times of turbulence and social upheaval, while in relatively calm times witchcraft and magic withdraws to the private sphere. In the last section, the article offers an analysis of the politicization of the new oracle and how chiefs are using bureaucratic measures to control dabaya and extend their judicial control over their subjects.