The Bagayoko Curse: Mystical Powers and the Power of Words

Abstract

Belief in the reality of mystical powers has proved remarkably tenacious, in Africa and elsewhere. While “culture” may explain the form such ideas take, it cannot account for individual convictions that such powers are efficacious, not to mention dangerous. One example from Korhogo, Côte d’Ivoire, suggests mechanisms by which such beliefs are effectively sustained. The case concerns a curse which could be pronounced over a stolen item and that would condemn the thief to a painful death if the item were not returned. When a valuable necklace was stolen, the curse was invoked – but never pronounced – by several actors with highly divergent agendas: a woman implicitly accusing her co-wife’s relatives; a husband desperately trying to restore peace in his own family; an elder inducing a young man to confess to the theft. These threats and stories, uttered for different and very specific purposes, nonetheless served to reinforce the conviction in the deadly efficacy of the curse. Belief in mystical powers is reinforced by talk about them as well as, and perhaps even more than, actual attempts to deploy them.