Sorcery accusation can have bad consequences for the defendant. Just remember the witch hunting era which was lead by the inquisition. But there are also more recent examples. For example, in east Java, there are reports about sorcerer-killing from the begin of the 21st century. How can it be that the belief in sorcery is still active? Recording to anthropologists, the modernity of the supernatural lies in an association of evil spirits with capitalism. Therefore, “instead of declining in the modern period, beliefs and practices associated with evil spirits and magic are regularly invoked to explain the experience of capitalism.” For example, in the religion of Java, there are spirits called tuyul which are “spirit familiars who appear like children and can be ‘sent out to steal money’ for their owners.” In order to obtain a tuyul, the sorcerer has to sacrifice ‘either a close relative or a friend’ (Geertz 1960: 21–22). That means that the sorcerer let people suffer for his own gain. He takes advantage of a miserable situation of somebody else which he created by himself and sacrifices relationships in order to benefit from it. That concept is an intense simplification of capitalism. However, as Nicholas Herriman points out in a paper from 2015, capitalism is just one reason for sorcery accusation. Sorcery accusation is also based on conflicts about reciprocity. The connection between evil magic and reciprocity can be seen for example in the Maori concept of hau: “When I receive a gift, I also receive a spirit or hau along with it. If I reciprocate the gift, the hau will return to the original giver. If I do not reciprocate the gift, the hau will stay with me and ‘serious harm might befall me, even death’ (Mauss 1990: 14)”. Indeed, many cases of sorcery which Nicolas Herriman reports from his excursion to Java, include conflicts about reciprocity which don’t have to be connected to capitalism. In many cases the sorcerer wanted something from the person and his request was denied before the affected person got ill because of “evil magic”. So maybe the focus for finding the “sorcerer” who is responsible for the illness is not the question “who benefits from that” but more “who was in a reciprocity relationship with the affected person”. This is maybe why the most “sorcerers” are relatives or neighbours of the affected person. "The Morbid Nexus: Reciprocity and Sorcery in Rural East Java.”
Nicholas Herriman, 2015 The Australian Journal of Anthropology 26.2 (2015): 255-275.
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