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Double, double toil and trouble:

An investigation on occult forces expenditures in the heartland of

voodoo

Vincent Somville (Michelsen Institute, Bergen)

Joël Noret (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Philippe LeMay-Boucher (Heriot-Watt University)

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Preliminary considerations

Preconception that in Beninese (West-African) context occult forces were anecdotal

A mere tourist trap advertised at Beninese consulates.

But among locals : recurrent topic, something affecting daily lives, deeply rooted & pervasive

Preliminary considerations• ‘High representatives of established

Christian churches, such as the bishops of Lagos and Kinshasa, believe in witchcraft.’

• According to the latter, this belief is shared by about 80% of all Africans.

• ‘Even African scholars and decision makers, educated in renowned Western universities, strongly share witchcraft beliefs according to occasion, more or less openly.’(Kohnert, 1983; Kadya Tall, 1995)

Preliminary considerations• Jenkins and Curtis (2005) (SSM):

What drives decision to install a pit latrine in rural Benin (40 hh)?

→Protect from supernatural dangers (is one of the 3 main drive)

• A Latrine can prevent / attenuate:

1) Fear of supernatural illnesses caused by smelling or seeing others’ faeces

2) Fear of encountering a snake: a sign of impending death in family / Fear of voodoo sorcery, magic, and dead spirits in the night

3) Fear of enemies stealing your faeces for sorcery against you

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Based on field evidence collected in Cotonou Benin (2006):

What hh & ind. characteristics influence expenditures in occult forces?

Anthropologist preoccupied by question for a long time

Will our empirical evidence corroborate their findings?

Research Aim

Some of our key findingsSpending in Occult Forces is not anecdotal

48% of all hh in our dataset spend positive amount in ‘Protection & Cure’

Expenditure on ‘Protection & Cure’ :

2.7% of all monthly expenditure

5.6% if we take subsample with non zero exp.

Our findings corroborate anthropologist assertions

What are occult forces?

Example: the granary & the death (Evans-Pritchard 1937)

How? = termites

Why? = occult forces give answer

Offers explanation to misfortune

Complex institutional system

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What are occult forces?

Catch-all term: different practices from region to region

Mystical & super-natural power: good, evil, causation; coherent ideology for daily living

→ gives interpretations of misfortune

Not ‘belief’ about the world but self-evident & real force

Plurality of meanings, not all of them associated with harmful activities

Example of a client

• young father from a poor rural background: recently graduated from university

• Series of misfortunes in the last 6 months: child becoming ill + wife discovers she can no longer become pregnant.

• Interpretation: comes from an attack by occult forces →retaliation from his siblings who never

attended high school and remained in the village.

• To cure his household: buys services from local diviner.

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Principal Mechanismjealousy, familial

dispute over heritage, unsettled legal dispute (land

ownership), professional progression

TensionsOccult forces?

Symptoms:1)Uncured illness,

biomedical failed,

sterility/death2)Accumulation of

misfortunes (unempl,

children failing school)Visit / diagnosis

Step towards protection/

cure

1. Priest of the Fafor a diagnosis (100-500F)

2. Celestial Church of Christone candle, 25-100F

3. Pastor of Evangelical Church

4. Catholic Priest

1. Witchcraft / SorceryHarm/good done by witch/sorcerers who possess supernatural powers (no divinity)

Witch: natural talent

Sorcerer: uses ‘ingredients’ & incantations

Evil magic consciously practiced against others

Both low profile (fear of accusations)

Services not for sale

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2. System of Magical belief: Voodoo

Complex pantheon of divinities

Voodoos = divinities with super powers, fear & devotion surrounding them

Perennial relationships: humans honoring them

Rituals & sacrifices required to activate specific powers

Breach of rules (or insufficient sacrifices) provoke their anger (→ illness, death)

Voodoo, cont.

Voodoo powers for sale

Tariffs flexible, depending on means of client

Suffice to ask a voodoo’s priest for an ‘attack’: ‘ingredients’, incantations & breach of rule

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Whose decision to spend?

Household financial structure: husband & wife have separate financial spheres (Dagnelie et al. 2012)

Each latitude to make consumption decision on basis of own income

Provision of household goods:Social norms

Husband (breadwinner): house repair, rental fees, electricity, schooling fees, medical bills, extra money for housekeeping (complement wife’s contribution)

Occult forces : if hh is headed by a couple vast majority of cases males take in charge

Wife: cooking, care of family, water

Documented by: Falen (2003) + our numerous informal interviews + our descriptive stats

The dataset

Questionnaire in 2 parts: a) Households characteristics, b) Personal expenditures

Separated women/men interviews

178 households, only head of household

Data on expenditures on Occult Forces:

PROTECTION or CURE

→ Nothing on ‘attack’

• See Table 1: Categories of magico-religious expenditure.

Hypotheses from literature

(1) Use/belief in occult forces is not gender-specific

(2) Use/belief is common at different levels of education

(3) Use/belief is common among various religious affiliation.

Exception: Celestial, pentecostal, rosarian Evangelical churches provide protection against occult forces

Hypotheses, cont.(4) Do Magico-religious beliefs play an important role in the enforcement of redistributive norms?

Income itself: no (can be concealed)

Item highly visible: auto/motorcycle

(5) Higher transfer to hh & relatives reduces jealousy & need for protection/cure

Current transfers (endogenous): transfers (t-1) in 2004

(6) Death or funerals are great source of tensions.

dummy if funeral inside family within last year

• Descriptive Stats: Table 2

• Estimation results: Table 4

ConclusionsSpending in Occult Forces is not anecdotal

Expenditure on ‘Protection & Cure’ : around 2% of all monthly expenditure

Dataset seems to give evidence in favour of anthropologist assertions

Larger prop. of HH spend on Occult forces than on bio-medical treatments