ANTHROP 2R03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Zande People, Moral Panic, Syncretism
Document Summary
Syncretism: combo of diff belief systems: christian and witchcraft. Tam"s torso: 5 year old boy body found in tams river in london a few years back. Moral panic on what this was about. Was wearing german clothes: boy was from somewhere in west africa. African witch doctors were thought to have killed the boy in a witchcraft ritual. Said to be a common custom, witch doctors use the body parts for some ritual: sees africa as backward, violent, sinister and irrational. Puts africa as homogenous the same across africa. Police called nelson mandela you tell those africans to stop sacrificing kids. Like if nigerian police found a white body and called the president of. Italy to tell all of europe to stop sacrificing kids up in europe. Police were aware that in the year before this incident, there were exactly 3 reports of child sacrifice in the continent of africa.