The War of Lions

Witch-Hunts, Occult Idioms and Post-Socialism in Northern Mozambique

Bibliographic Data

ID4603191
AuthorsPaolo Israel (0000-0001-5322-0929, University of the Western Cape, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume35
Issue1
Pages155-174
Publication date2009-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Southern African Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0305-7070 • E-ISSN: 1465-3893
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03057070802685627
OpenAlexW2005972625
LanguageEN
Citations received14

The year is 2002, the place Muidumbe, northerly cradle of the Mozambican Liberation Struggle. Lions devouring people, and people lynching sorcerers suspected of magically fabricating lions, unleash a crisis that soon assumes a political dimension. Widespread rumours accuse the local post-socialist elite of manipulating a group of lion-men and engaging in organ trafficking with an international alliance of vampires. Disempowered youth lynchers stage a paradoxical uprising. This article details the unfolding of this crisis over a year, and discusses its broader implications. Are contemporary sorcery crises a deflected effect of ‘millennial capitalism’? To what extent can occult rumours be interpreted as idioms that express political agency in metaphors? What is the role of the media and of cultural brokers in propagating rumours and crystallising collective anxieties in recognisable forms? How is one to understand the rationality, if any, of witch-hunts? Focusing on the forms and the effects of violence, a symptomatic reading of witch-hunts reveals their linkages with Frelimo's project of ‘total politicisation’. Finally, the article discusses a contradiction inherent in sorcery scholarship, hovering between repeating the Enlightenment's baptismal naming of witchcraft as superstition and producing populist representations of subaltern consciousness dismissive of dramatic experiences of violence

Elite · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Witch · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Law

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