The Poison in the Ink Bottle: Poison Cases and the Moral Economy of Knowledge in 1930s Equatoria, Sudan

Abstract

Poison cases – in which people are accused of deliberately administering a toxic substance in food or drink or by touch – have long posed a problem for the government judicial system in Central Equatoria. Although poisoning is potentially provable in court on the basis of a material substance, it also transgresses the boundary between occult practice and ‘real’ criminality. The recent revival in the study of African witchcraft has circumvented the question of ‘reality’ to argue that occult discourse is a sophisticated discussion of modernity and its economic inequalities. This approach risks ignoring the longer history of occult thought and practice and its place in prior economies. This article uses colonial records of mass trials of suspected poisoners and a detailed account of a specific accusation, all in 1930s Kajo Kaji, to demonstrate that poison existed as or derived from physical substances with a history of acquisition and utilisation, and embodied historically dynamic social, economic, and gender relations. The argument is that both the longer-term histories and the individual specificities and local realities of occult expressions can be understood in less isolation if approached through the idea of a moral economy of knowledge. Occult discourse and practice was fundamentally connected to the differentiated introduction or possession of foreign or specialist kinds of knowledge. The article looks at the sources and exchanges of knowledge and materials that formed the deeper historical context for the practice or belief in poison in Kajo Kaji, before turning to the actual cases of the 1930s. The latter reveal how claims and accusations could be wielded as tools of resistance and contestation, as changes in local authority and socio-economic relations were being worked out.

This paper is drawn from the largely archival research for my PhD thesis: ‘Knowing Authority’. I would like to thank the AHRB for the PhD funding and Justin Willis for his supervision and his suggestions for this paper. I am also very grateful for the comments on an earlier version of this paper from the members of the African History seminar at SOAS in March 2005.

Notes

1. DC Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’, Yei, 31 Dec. 1939, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, MSS Perham 549/5 ff. 1–2, pp. 13–14.

2. Geschiere, Modernity; Comaroff and Comaroff, Modernity and its Malcontents; White, Speaking with Vampires.

3. Comaroff and Comaroff, Introduction.

4. Shaw, ‘Production of Witchcraft’, 856–76. Both Englund and Green criticise White for locating the origin of vampire stories in the colonial period as ‘new imaginings for new relationships’ (White, Speaking with Vampires, 22): Englund, ‘Perils of Transparency’; Green, Priests, Witches and Power, 73.

5. Also Austen, ‘Moral Economy’

6. Guyer and Belinga, ‘Wealth in People’, 91–120.

7. Geschiere focuses much more on the ambivalence of ‘the witchcraft of authority’: Modernity, 199, also 92–94.

8. Lambek highlights the moral ambiguity and dangers of knowledge: Knowledge and Practice, esp. 220–26.

9. Austen, ‘Moral Economy’, 94, 104.

10. Yunis, ‘Notes on the Kuku’, 1–41.

11. Equatoria Province Monthly Diaries Sep. 1937, National Records Office, Khartoum (hereafter NRO) Civ Sec 57/4/17.

12. Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’, 14.

13. Comaroff and Comaroff, ‘Introduction’, xxvii; Douglas, ‘Thirty Years’, xxix–xxx.

14. Douglas, ‘Thirty Years’, xiv.

15. Middleton depicts witchcraft as the inversion of ideal social relations and kinship authority: Middleton, ‘Witchcraft and Sorcery’, 257–75, at 271–73.

16. Middleton, Lugbara Religion, 247.

17. Middleton, ‘Witchcraft and Sorcery’, 264.

18. Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’, 14.

19. Johnson, ‘Criminal Secrecy’, 170–200, at 179–81, and Nuer Prophets, 27–29.

20. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, 477, 417.

21. Johnson, ‘Criminal Secrecy’, 200.

22. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, 519–20.

23. Allen, ‘Ethnicity and Tribalism’, 112–39, at 128–31.

24. James, Listening Ebony.

25. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, 425–32, 445–46. See also Buckner, ‘Modern Zande Prophetesses’, 102–21.

26. Evans-Pritchard found no proof of the claim that sorcerers used to be executed: Witchcraft, 190–93. Delius warns against projecting ideas of witchcraft back into the pre-colonial past, by showing that while fears of witchcraft were pervasive in nineteenth-century Sotho and Tswana communities, actual accusations or executions were rare, unlike in the later twentieth century. Delius, ‘Witches and Missionaries’, 429–43, at 430, 440–43.

27. Johnson and Anderson, Introduction to their Ecology of Survival, 1–24.

28. C. H. Stigand, Inspector Rejaf Merkaz, to Governor, 6 March 1911, NRO Intelligence 2/29/239.

29. John Winder, ‘Fifty Years On: Service in Mongalla Province, 1930–33’ (1979), Sudan Archive, Durham (hereafter SAD) 541/7/1-32; Stigand, Equatoria, 72, 92–93, 100; Nalder, Tribal Survey, 222.

30. Elias Nyamlell Wakosan, ‘Origin and Development’,127–204, at 127–28; Middleton, Lugbara Religion, 245; Yunis, ‘Notes on the Kuku’, 30.

31. Jackson, Governor of Uganda, to Harcourt, 14 March 1912, Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO) WO 181 236.

32. Leopold, Inside West Nile, 126–27; Gray, History of the Southern Sudan, 57; Governor Nalder, ‘Mongalla Province Summary of Information’, Nov. 1933, NRO Civ Sec 57/35/131; C. H. Stigand, Inspector Rejaf Merkaz, to Governor, 6 March 1911, NRO Intelligence 2/29/239; Yunis, ‘Notes on the Kuku’, 35.

33. Interview with Barnaba Dumo Wani, 17 Feb. 2003, Khartoum.

34. Larick, ‘Warriors and Blacksmiths’, 301, 313, 318.

35. Yunis, ‘Notes on the Kuku’, 27; Williams, ‘Pagan Religion of the Madi’, 202–10, at 209.

36. Stigand, Equatoria, 92–93; Birch, ‘Metu People of West Madi’, 134–36; John Winder, ‘Fifty Years On: Service in Mongalla Province, 1930–33’ (1979), SAD 541/7/1-32; Governor Nalder, ‘Mongalla Province Summary of Information’, Nov. 1933, NRO Civ Sec 57/35/131.

37. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, 271–80.

38. John Winder, ‘Fifty Years On: Service in Mongalla Province, 1930–33’ (1979), SAD 541/7/1-32.

39. Larick, ‘Warriors and Blacksmiths’, 310; Stigand, Equatoria, 157; Whitehead, ‘Suppressed Classes among the Bari’, 265–80, at 269, 271–72; Evans-Pritchard, ‘Preliminary Draft of An account of the Moro’, n.d. (1930s), NRO Dakhlia 112/14/95.

40. Herbert, Iron, Gender and Power. Blacksmiths also played a unique role in Kuku funeral ceremonies: Interview with Barnaba Dumo Wani, 17 Feb. 2003, Khartoum.

41. Stigand, Equatoria, p. 74.

42. John Winder, ‘Fifty Years On: Service in Mongalla Province, 1930–33’ (1979), SAD 541/7/1-32; Baxter and Butt, The Azande, 116, 121.

43. Middleton, ‘Witchcraft and Sorcery’, 264.

44. Yunis, ‘Notes on the Kuku’, 30–31

45. Williams, ‘Pagan Religion of the Madi’, 204–05; Middleton, Lugbara Religion, 260–61; Baxter and Butt, The Azandi, 125.

46. Evans-Pritchard detailed the Zande opinion that women should not use magic and medicines associated with male activities like hunting: Witchcraft, 427.

47. Guyer and Belinga, ‘Wealth in People’, 115–16; Interview with Simon Wani Ramba, 10 Jan. 2003, Khartoum: a woman brought rain-making to the Fajelu from the Bari in marriage.

48. Yunis, ‘Notes on the Kuku’, 4–6.

49. Allen, ‘Ethnicity and Tribalism’, 131–32.

50. History of the Southern Sudan, 57; Johnson, ‘Structure of a Legacy’, 72–88; Inside West Nile, 118–28.

51. Governor Owen ‘Notes on Enclave’, 1910, NRO Mongalla 1/8/51.

52. Larick, ‘Warriors and Blacksmiths’, 309.

53. History of the Southern Sudan, p. 113.

54. Whalley, A/D. C. Opari and Kajo Kaji, to Governor, ‘Resolutions from Kuku chiefs of Kajo Kaji Lukiko’, 19 Nov. 1929 and 22 Nov. 1929, NRO Civ Sec 1/39/104.

55. Nalder, Tribal Survey, 216–18.

56. For a history of local authority in central Equatoria, see Leonardi, ‘Knowing Authority’. For general accounts of Condominium administrative policy, see Collins, Shadows in the Grass; Daly, Empire on the Nile, and Imperial Sudan.

57. Stigand, Equatoria.

58. E.g. Gray, ‘Witches, Oracles and Colonial Law’, 339–63, at 340; Fields, Revival, 72–73, 248; Crais, Politics of Evil, 13.

59. Waller, ‘Witchcraft and Colonial Law in Kenya’, 241–75.

60. Brock, Governor Bahr El Ghazal, to Civil Secretary, 4 July 1929, NRO Civ Sec 1/13/43; Holland, ‘Lukiko District Order no. 3’, 30 Sept. 1923, NRO Mongalla 1/1/2.

61. John Winder, ‘Fifty Years On: Service in Mongalla Province, 1930–33’ (1979), SAD 541/7/1-32; Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’, 14.

62. Equatoria Province Annual Report 1937, NRO CS 57/24/99; Yei District Monthly Diary Sept. 1944, NRO EP 2/24/87.

63. Mrs Selwyn, Kajo Kaji, Aug. 1932, Church Missionary Society Archives, University of Birmingham Library (hereafter CMS) G3 AL; Winder, ‘Fifty Years On: Service in Mongalla Province, 1930–33’, (1979) SAD 541/7/1-32.

64. Equatoria Province Monthly Diaries Sep.–Oct. 1937, NRO Civ Sec 57/4/17; and Feb.–March 1938, NRO Civ Sec 57/7/29.

65. F. J. Finch, Kajo Kaji, 10 July 1935 and 8 Nov. 1938, CMS G3 Annual Letters, 1935–39.

66. Sudan Intelligence Report 228 (July 1913), PRO WO 106 6225.

67. See, for example, Allen's discussion of the colonial origins of the ethnic labels ‘Acholi’ and ‘Madi’: ‘Ethnicity and Tribalism’, 123–25.

68. Equatoria Province Monthly Diary Jan.–March 1937, NRO Civ Sec 57/4/17; Interview with Barnaba Dumo Wani, 17 Feb. 2003, Khartoum.

69. Sleeping Sickness Annual Report 1924, NRO Mongalla 1/6/39.

70. Gillies, Introduction, xvii; Allen, ‘Ethnicity and Tribalism’, 128; Green, Priests, Witches and Power, 137. But though jealousy was an aspect of poison discourse, there were other named categories of occult activity in Kajo Kaji more obviously related to ‘property’ and envy: Interview with Barnaba Dumo Wani, 17 Feb. 2003, Khartoum. Jealousy and the location of witchcraft within close, intimate relations have been frequently discussed: Geschiere, Modernity; White, Speaking with Vampires, 20; Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, 55, 73.

71. See also Lyons, Colonial Disease, 198.

72. Yei District Monthly Diary July 1942, Nov. 1943, NRO Equatoria 2/24/87.

73. White also highlights the profound and contradictory understandings of the ability of Western medical techniques to penetrate the skin: White, Speaking with Vampires, 99.

74. Homeostatic social control or crisis interpretations are particularly associated with the ‘Manchester School’ led by Max Gluckman in the 1950s and 1960s: e.g. Gluckman, Custom and Conflict in Africa, 93–108.

75. Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’. The original spellings have been retained.

76. Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’. The original spellings have been retained, 1, 14.

77. Doyle, ‘Population Decline’, 436; Kaufmann, ‘The White Nile Valley’, 140–95, at 189.

78. Yunis, ‘Notes on the Kuku’, 16, 30; Doyle, ‘Population Decline’, 454–55; Interview with Barnaba Dumo Wani, 17 Feb. 2003, Khartoum. See Berger, ‘Fertility as Power’, 65–82.

79. Evans-Pritchard, ‘Preliminary Draft of An account of the Moro’, n.d. (1930s), NRO Dakhlia 112/14/95.

80. Doyle, ‘Population Decline’, 453.

81. Vanden Plas, J. ‘Les Kutu’: Van Overbergh, Brussels, 1910, cited in translation by Huntingford, The Northern Nilo-Hamites, 44–45C. H. Stigand, Inspector Rejaf Merkaz, to Governor, 6 March 1911, NRO Intelligence 2/29/239.

82. Finch, Kajo Kaji, 10 July 1935 and 8 Nov. 1938, CMS G3 Annual Letters, 1935–39.

83. Austen, ‘Moral Economy’, 104.

84. Doyle, ‘Population Decline’, 455.

85. Interview with Barnaba Dumo Wani, 17 Feb. 2003, Khartoum.

86. Middleton, Lugbara Religion, 246.

87. See Leopold, Inside West Nile, 77.

88. Equatoria Province Monthly Diaries Feb. 1951, NRO Dakhlia 57/9/24; and Jan. 1953, NRO Civ Sec 2 30/3/6.

89. See White, Speaking with Vampires, 279–80; Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade, 11.

90. Equatoria Province Monthly Diaries Oct. 1937, NRO Civ Sec 57/4/17.

91. Comaroff and Comaroff, ‘Introduction’, xxvi.

92. E.g. Macphail, ‘The Bandala Method of Hunting’, 279–83, at 283.

93. Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas, 270–98.

94. Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’, 4.

95. Juba Mission Report 1942, CMS G3 Sg2; Governor Parr to Hickson, Inspector Education, 20 March 1939, NRO Equatoria 1/4/17; Yei District Monthly Diary March 1945, NRO Equatoria 2/24/87.

96. Janson-Smith, ‘Report on Juba training school Final Examination, 1941’, NRO Dakhlia 3 1/6/29.

97. E.g. Equatoria Province Monthly Diary Sept. 1946, NRO Dakhlia 57/2/5.

98. Nalder, ‘Mongalla Province Summary of Information’, Nov. 1933, NRO Civ Sec 57/35/131. See also Shadle, ‘Bridewealth and Female Consent’, 241–62.

99. Whitehead, ‘Crops and Cattle among the Bari’, 140–41.

100. Reports in NRO Equatoria 1/5/26.

101. F. J. Finch, Kajo Kaji, 8 Nov. 1938, CMS G3 Annual Letters, 1935–39.

102. Meyer, Translating the Devil; Green, Priests, Witches and Power; Fields, Revival.

103. Chanock, Law, Custom and Social Order, 89–92.

104. F. J. Finch, Kajo Kaji, 8 Nov. 1938, CMS G3 Annual Letters, 1935–39.

105. Fields, Revival, 264.

106. Interview with Barnaba Dumo Wani, 17 Feb. 2003, Khartoum; Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’, 15.

107. Equatoria Province Monthly Diaries June 1940, NRO Civ Sec 57/12/46; Tracey, ‘A Case of Poison’, 10.

108. Geschiere, Modernity, 204–05, 275 fn 8.

109. In the 1920s, witchcraft and magic do not appear in lists of court cases (NRO Mongalla 1/1/2), but in 1945 there were 39 recorded witchcraft cases in Yei District B courts: Yei District Annual Report 1945, NRO Equatoria 2/27/98. There are recorded discussions in courts of the morality of ‘magic’ in Yei District Monthly Diary June 1942, NRO Equatoria 2/24/87, and Moru District Annual Report 1944, NRO Equatoria 2/27/97.

110. Pels, ‘Creolisation in Secret’, 1–28.

111. Geschiere, Modernity, 92–4.

112. Austen, ‘Moral Economy’, 105.

113. Wakosan, ‘Origin and Development’, 136.