Crimes of the dream world: French trials of Diola witches in colonial Senegal

International Journal of African Historical Studies

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 201-228

  Baum, Robert M ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949860261     PISSN: 03617882     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4129007     Document Type: Review

References (56)

1. J. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder, "West Africa, 1919-1939: The Colonial Situation, " in J. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder, eds., Historyof West Africa, II (New York, 1975).
2. J. A. Barnes, "The Politics of Law, " in Mary Douglas and Phyllis Kaberry, eds., Man in Africa (Garden City, N.Y., 1971), 102.;
3. Richard Roberts and Kristin Mann, "Law in Colonial Africa, " in Kristin Mann and Richard Roberts, eds., Law in Colonial Africa (Portsmouth, N.H, 1991), 3-7.
4. The prophet Kinjeketile, who organized the Maji-Maji revolt in Tanganyika, is perhaps the best known of the prophets who led an armed revolt.(See G.C.K. Gwassa, "Kinjikitile and the Ideology of Maji Maji, " in T.O. Ranger and I.N. Kimambo, eds., The Historical Study of African Religions(Berkeley, 1972).
5. Arrests were not limited to those who advocated military resistance, however. Such leaders as Simon Kimbangu among the BaKongo and AlinesitouéDiatta among the Diola were imprisoned because of the fear by colonialofficials that they could eventually lead such a revolt. On Alinesitoué, see Robert M. Baum, "Alinesitoué: A Diola Woman Prophet in West Africa, " in Nancy A. Falk and Rita M. Gross, eds., Unspoken Worlds: Women's Religious Lives (Belmont, Calif., 2001), 179-95;
6. Marilyn R. Waldman with Robert M. Baum, "Innovation as Renovation:The 'Prophet' as an Agent of Change, " in Michael A. Williams et al., eds., Innovation in Religious Traditions: Essays in the Interpretation of Religious Change (Berlin, 1992), 241-84.
7. J. B. Peires, The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of l856-1857 (Bloomington, Ind., 1989), passim.
8. T. O Ranger, "The Mwana Lesa Movement of 1925, " in T. O. Rangerand J. Weller, eds., Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa(Berkeley, 1975), 45-47.
9. For a discussion of Balanta and Diola witchcraft accusations in Senegal, see Dr. Maclaud, "Le Basse Casamance et ses Habitants, " Bulletin de la Société de la Science de Géographie Commerciale de Paris(1907), passim.
10. Albert Memmi, The Colonizer and the Colonized (New York, 1965), 82.
11. Martin Chanock, "Crimes Created and Wrongs Experienced: Perspectiveson the Social History of Crime in Colonial Central Africa, " paperpresented at the Conference on Law, Labour and Crimes, University of Warwick, 1983, pp. 8-12.
12. Philip Curtin, The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Actions, 1756-1850(Madison, 1964), 210.
13. William B. Cohen, The French Encounter with Africans (Bloomington, 1980), 284.
14. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, cited in W. Arens, The Man-Eating Myth:Anthropology and Anthrophagie (New York, 1975), Frontispiece.
15. For the most extensive description of the Diola, see: Louis Vincent Thomas, Les Diola: Essai d'analyse fonctionelle sur une population de Basse Casamance (Dakar, 1959).
16. For a study of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see Francis G.Snyder, Capitalism and Legal Change: An African Transformation (New York, 1981).
17. For a study of precolonial Diola religion and cultural history, see Robert M. Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegambia (New York, 1999).
18. Maclaud, "La Basse Casamance et ses Habitants, " Bulletin de la Société de la Science de Géographie Commerciale de Paris(1907), 197.
19. See also Christian Roche, Conquête et Résistance des peuplesde Casamance (Dakar, .1976), 186-88, 281-94. All translations of citations in French or Diola are by the author.
20. Calendrier Historiques, 1919. Archives de la Sous-Prefecture de Loudia-Ouloff (ASPLO).
21. If there were no qualified people on the lieutenant-governor's list, theadjunct assessors would participate in the trial. Gouverneur Carde, "Arrêté de 22 mai, 1924, " printed in Raymond Buell, The Native Problem in Africa, II (New York, 1928), 133-34.
22. P. Meunier, Organisation et Fonctionnement de la Justice Indigèneen l'AOF (1910),
23. cited in Buell, The Native Problem, I, 1008.
24. The abuse of the intermediary role in British Nigeria has been documentedin A.E. Afigbo's work, The Warrant Chiefs (London, 1972),
25. and a novel by Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God (New York, 1974).
26. David Groff has noted the ability of local interpreters to gain localpower in the French colony of Côte d'Ivoire. David Groff, "The Dynamics of Collaboration and the Role of Law in French West Africa: The Case of Kwame Kangah of Assikasso (Côte d'Ivoire), " in Mann and Roberts, eds., Law in Colonial Africa, 147-48.
27. Missionaries were the major exception. They tried to learn Africanlanguages and, in some cases, served as advocates of African rights. Father Esvan, a Holy Ghost Father, was expelled from the Casamance during World War Iafter intervening against military conscription. The potential for suchintervention was an important reason for affiliating with the missionaries. Inmany cases the missionaries failed to fulfill this hope, but their linguisticcapabilities made it a possibility. Robert M. Baum, "The Emergence of a Diola Christianity, " Africa 60, (1990), 370-98.
28. I have heard the story of the priest-king's skeleton being taken to the Musée de l'Homme, in Paris, since I started work in the Department of Oussouye, in 1974. The story has been recently confirmed by Charles Becker, H-West Africa, February 2004.
29. Maclaud, "Casamance, " passim.
30. Thomas, Diola, 211.
31. Thomas, Mort, 361.
32. René Devisch noted the hierarchical nature of sorcerers' societiesamong the Yaka of Congo. "Sorcery Forces of Life and Death among the Yakaof Congo, " in George Bond and Diane Ciekawy, eds., Witchcraft Dialogues:Anthropological and Philosophical Exchanges (Athens, Ohio, 2001), 111.
33. Serer and Wolof have similar visions of collective meals by witchsocieties in which human flesh is consumed. R. P. Henri Gravand, "Naq et Sorcellerie dans les Conceptions Sereer, " Psychopathologie Africaine XI, 2(1975), 185;
34. M. C. and Ed. Ortigues, Oedipe Africaine (Paris, 1961). Wolof and Sereralso describe witches as eating souls;
35. Henri Gravand, Visage Africain de l'Eglise: Une Expéperience au Sénégal (Paris, 1961), 49-50.
36. Gravand, "Naq, " 182.
37. Interview with Dionsal Diedhiou, Kadjinol-Kafone, 10/19/78. Barry Hallenfound that people he interviewed among the Yoruba of Nigeria also stressed thedifficulty of knowing who was a witch. See Barry Hallen, "Witches as Superior Intellects: Challenging a Cross-Cultural Superstition, " in George C. Bond and Diane M. Ciekawy, eds., Witchcraft Dialogues: Anthropological and Philosophical Exchanges (Athens, Ohio, 2001), 86-92.
38. ANS, Ziguinchor. "Tribunal" 47, 1924-1926.
39. Elias Bongmba has noted similar recruitment practices among the Wimbum of Cameroun. "African Witchcraft: From Ethnography to Critique, " in Bondand Ciekawy, eds., Witchcraft Dialogues, 51.
40. ANS Ziguinchor, "Tribunal" 14, 1924-1926.
41. Sénégal: Territorie de la Casamance, "Rapport Politique Général, 1926, " 4-5, ANS 2G 26:6.
42. ANS Ziguinchor, "Tribunal, " 14, 1927.
43. Interviews with Antoine Houmandrissah Diedhiou, Kadjinol-Kafone, 2/16/78;
44. Gregoire Diatta, Mlomp-Kadjifolong, 3/9/78.
45. Robert M. Baum, "The Emergence of a Diola Christianity, " Africa90 (1990), 386.
46. Calendrier Historique, 1929, Archives de Sous-Prefecture de Loudia-Ouloff.
47. See Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade, Chaps. 3 and 4.
48. Chadwick Hansen, Witchcraft at Salem (New York, 1969), 37;
49. Julio Caro Baroja, The World of the Witches (Chicago, 1975), 254.
50. A. D. J. Mac Farlane, "Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart Essex, " in J. S. Cockburn, Crime in England 1550-1800 (Princeton, N. J., 1979), 73.
51. Interview with Paponah Diatta, Mlomp-Etebemyae, 11/13/78.
52. Monica Wilson, cited in John Middleton, editor, Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa (London, 1963), frontispiece.
53. In Diola religion, livestock were rarely killed outside ritualobligations. Thus, control of shrines where there were frequent sacrifices washighly desirable. ANS Ziguinchor, "Tribunal, " 11, 1928.
54. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, cited in W. Arens, The Man-Eating Myth:Anthropology and Anthrophagie (New York, 1979), frontispiece.
55. ANS Ziguinchor, "Tribunaux, " 14, 1927.
56. J. R. Crawford, Witchcraft and Sorcery in Rhodesia (London, 1967), 113.