THE BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF VARIOUS FORMS OF WITCHCRAFT AMONG THE GBAGYI PEOPLE

These include agunzheyin (“witchcraft”), ashigbe (“medicine”), and zoku (“divination”). These three concepts have the inherent meanings of good and evil. This essay, however, highlights more of their negative influence.Witchcraft: Reality, Theory &InterpretationHenry Jay Watkin in defining witchcraft draws from the Eurocentric conception it represents. He says the word “witch” comes from the English noun “Wicca” which means, “to cast spell.” He therefore defined it as “a web of beliefs and practices whose purpose is to manipulate nature for the benefit of the witch or the witche's client.”

The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary sees it as “the practice of witch or witches especially the use of magic or sorcery: the exercise of supernatural power supposed to be possessed by a person in league with devil or evil spirits.”

While the first definition agrees mostly with the concept of witchcraft in Gbagyi land which generally has to do with „the witches‟ being able to influence supernatural powers to their advantage, the second contains more of Christian biases. Indeed, to the Gbagyi witchcraft can be used either positively or negatively. The Gbagyis do not see the spirit behind witchcraft as inherently wicked or evil. The enterprise to which the „witch‟ puts the supernatural powers determines how witchcraft qualified as good or bad.Looking at the various theories on witchcraft developed by scholars, three theories provide helpful insights to understand Gbagyi witchcraft more fully. Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902–1973) was one of the early scholars who studied the role of witchcraft among the Azande in Central Africa. He opines that witchcraft was a method adapted to control the social behaviour of a people.

Secondly, E. Bolaji Idowu,a Yoruba scholar of African Traditional Religion, brings out the harmful effects of witchcraft. He explains that witches can send out “the spirit of living human beings” in “body, mind, or estate.”

Thirdly, Barry Hallen and J. Olubi Sodipo who have studied the practices of witchcraft among the Yoruba have noted that witches come from the lower strata of the society in general, and from economically poor background in particular. Both scholars have also found out that people become witches for socio-economic reasons: they do not wish to succumb to “resignation and self-pity,”but ensure their survival by protecting their socio-economic interests.

In other parts of Africa the concept of witchcraft tend to be the same with the Gbagyi people; Ter Haar, who has studied the beliefs associated with Ghanaian witchcraft practices, state that evil spirits associated with witchcraft “come from outside to torment people.”It is evident that the Gbagyi‟s understanding of witchcraft consists not only of good forces, but also of the evil ones. They believe that good can come outof evil as well. People have both the good and evil tendencies. Deities can make use of human beings either to achieve good things or to harm others. J. O. Kayode affirms that “these human officials (priests,priestesses)are used asintermediaries because man always finds the sacred mysterious.”

It must be noted here that the deities in themselves are not regarded as witches or wizards but the outcome of their activities. Happenings that impact negatively on the people are attributed to witches and wizards especially when no natural explanations can be readily offered. For example, sudden death of a promising young a boy or girl in a community is naturally attributed to witchcraft activities in Gbagyi community, and in any African community, because death and calamities most times defy any natural explanation. Witches and wizards are, therefore, blamed most of the time for such calamities.

Witchcraft is not only perceived as a negative phenomenon by the Gbagyi people, they serve some positive and useful purposes in their society. The continuing existence of witchcraft fulfils several utilitarian purposes. According to Umar Habila Dadem Danfulani, who has examined the worldviews of Mupun in Nigeria, people conceive the mystical forces of witchcraft “according to their utility,”particularly in  critical situations. Paul G. Hiebert and his colleagues have spelled out the utilitarian purposes of witchcraft. Accordingly the Gbagyi people like any other primal people, hold the idea that, witchcraft is “used to make rain, ripen the harvest, procure peace, protect family members from attack and ensure victory in battle.”

The selfish and the greedy were treated like wizards, or witches (Guzyenyi), no one wants to have close association with them in the community in Gbagyi land because, in an ideal situation, nobody was allowed to accumulate more than others. Chief Enock B. Jarumi, a Gbagyi writer, has identified other factors such as “fear, suspicion, jealousies, and ignorance”as aiding the continual existence and practice of witchcraft in Gbagyi land. If a new religion fails to provide utilitarian means of facing critical challenges, to certain aspects of their ancienteople choose to resort ancestral faiths. Harriet Hill‟s study of the Adioukrou people of Cote D‟Ivoire gives a fitting example. He notes that, many people in Cote D‟Ivoire became Christians and openly burnt their fetishes hoping that they got rid of all mystical powers in their lives. Seventy years later, they found themselves practising witchcraft because, in their opinion, Christianity did not solve their everyday problems and fears associated with the spirit beings, ambiguities and uncertainties of life.

That applies to the Gbagyis in the findings of this study.Witches or wizards in the Gbagyi cosmology refer to person(s) who, through supernatural means, are able cause harm or death to individuals or a community. They also have the capacity to help and defend the people and community at large using the same supernatural means. 

GBAGYI RELIGIOUS CONTACT WITH ISLAM. 

Islam first came to Gbagyi land in the 19th century, during the Sokoto Jihad of 1804 led by Usman Danfodio. Christianity on the other hand came in the 20th century through the southerners.

Harold D. Gunn and F. P. Conant, in their study of the people of the Middle Belt region of Nigeria, have stated how in 1804Sarkin Zauzau, the Muslim ruler of Zaria, took a few Gbagyi slaves to Abuja and how subsequently Islam began to take hold of the Gbagyi people.Islam was able to gain more converts than Christianity. The reason for this was because practices like polygamy, divination and the using of rings and amulet were part of the religion, and the fact that Gbagyi religion also encouraged the use of such, many of them received the religion whole heartedly. 

GBAGYI RELIGION ENCOUNTERS CHRISTIANITY.

Gbagyi people came in contact with three large categories of Christians: Protestant missionaries, British colonial administrators who claimed to be Christians, and Roman Catholic Christians. Charles Lindsay Temple, an ethnographer in the service of the British Colonial Government in Nigeria states that Protestant Christianity came to Gbagyi land with the arrival of the missionaries of the Sudan Interior Mission(SIM) in 1904. The following year, other missionaries belonging to the Church Missionary Society (CMS, 1905) followed them. British colonial administrators introduced new legal, educational, and political policies that failed to address issues related to Gbagyi witchcraft and witchcraft related crimes. S.F. Nadel, who studied the Nupe, describes a common African perception of the Europeans with regard to the persisting nature of witchcraft in Africa: “White Man did not believe in witchcraft” The British administrators, mostly under the spell of EuropeanEnlightenment, could not understand the centrality of witchcraft among the Gbagyis and failed to take it seriously. Therefore, the Gbagyis developed their own ways of addressing their social problems; but they got into moral crisis originating from their loyalty to their ancestral traditions pertaining to witchcraft and their need to conform to British legal system.

The second group of Christians with whom the Gbagyis came into contact with were the Roman Catholic missionaries of the Society of African Mission (SMA, founded in 1856) who reached Gbagyi land in 1913.17

According to the Catholic Diocese of Minna, Nigeria, the work in 

Gbagyi land began as an outstation of Lokoja while, her history states that it was administered from Asaba by the Vicar Apostle. The first missionary to plant a Catholic Church in Gbagyi land was Rev. Fr. Leon De Bourge.

Largely, the membership was drawn from immigrant rail workers from the South East who made the parish grow. Furthermore, the Catholic work among the Gbagyis was precipitated strongly on the use of Western 

education and health facilities. On the other hand, the first SIM/ECWA missionaries to Gbagyi land were Dr. Andrew P. Stirrett and Rev E. F. 

Rice who came to Wushishi in 1904 to begin the work in the Northern Nigeria.

The work progressed in the following order: Paiko (1909) by 

Rev E. F. Rice and Rev. George; Karu (1910) by Rev George Sanderson 

and Rev. Charles Dudley: Minna (1913) by Rev. James F. Cotton while 

Kuta (1919) was by Rev. John Hay and Rev. E. F.

The long histories of Islam and Christianity did not completely 

replace the old loyalties of the Gbagyi people to their Traditional Religion. In certain situations, all Gbagyi people, whether Christians or Muslims, 

practice their Knunu. They claim that Knunu safeguards them, their 

families, societies, and activities from certain evil forces and uncertainties of the future. Thus, the Gbagyi Muslims and Christians live with an unresolved dichotomy between Christianity and Islam and between traditional religion. Even after two centuries of Gbagyi‟s encounters with 

Islam and Christianity, belief in witchcraft still thrives.