[a humble lich]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Excellent.

Now, from what I can tell, the Peace Corps often operates within societies where belief in the supernatural as an active force in daily life is common. For example, in many sub-Saharan countries, over half the population believes in witchcraft and in countries like Angola, DRC, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and many others, accusations of witchcraft may lead to legal trials or extrajudicial punishment. As far as I know, this has even been a problem in Ghana, so you might have more information than I can find in United Nations reports. More benignly, daily rituals or the carrying of talismans may be intended to protect from hostile witchcraft or other supernatural forces.

Very true. Witchcraft is a powerful force*, and belief in witches is widespread. I saw a government printed pamphlet about AIDS prevention that had a question and answer section in the back. One question was, "Question: Is AIDS caused by witches? Answer: There is no evidence that witches cause AIDS." I had a friend who ran a women's group who had two posters up in house/office saying that killing witches was illegal. At one point I got in a long discussion with my class (I taught high school physics) as to whether lightning was caused by witches and whether holding a mirror during a storm would attract lightning.

Various traditional remedies were also common. There was a man in my village who sold traditional medicines who would walk around with scorpions crawling on his face. Unsurprisingly, one of the cures he sold was a remedy for scorpion stings. He also sold a length of string which if tied around the waist kept you from becoming pregnant.

In Ghana there were at least two witch villages, people from other villages accused of witchcraft could move there.

My feeling was a lot of traditions of witchcraft were remnants of older traditional religions. Nearly everyone would say that they were Muslim or Christian, but that didn't necessarily mean that they didn't also believe in various older beliefs. And if things were really important you might visit the Ju-ju man for help, or to curse an enemy. I think to a large part that is true in much of the world, a lot of European witchcraft was probably remnants of pre-Christian beliefs


* Disclaimer: Specifically, my personal experience concerning witchcraft is specific to rural northern Ghana 10 years ago. Although my personal experience is limited, my understanding that most of the following is true in other parts of Africa as well, but I'm sure there are some significant differences.

How open-minded are Peace Corps volunteers when it comes to local beliefs in witchcraft or other supernatural causes for misfortune or apparently accidental deaths? Would many of them accept witchcraft or a local legend of some monster as the explanation for the disappearance or death of someone?

Honestly, not very**. Generally, most volunteers I know tend to be fairly secular. However, that could change if there was fairly clear evidence, or there were stories that people discussed often and fearfully, or there were stories told by other volunteers.

** Disclaimer #2: I don't believe in witchcraft, although I try to be as respectful as I can when it comes to others religious beliefs.

Obscure languages are, indeed, one of the prerequisites for being able to work magic.

If I had known that 10 years ago, maybe I would have put more effort into learning Dagaare.

I imagine that volunteers who witnessed what they were convinced was actual incontrovertible evidence of the supernatural, and managed to resist the (weaker) Facade where they were, would indeed look for other volunteers with similar experiences and look for validation of their experience and advice on what to do. And that the international media or scientific community was not inclined to place much credence in a report of witchcraft in a small African community, for example, when no evidence that can be collected afterward proves anything but that the local people believe in it.

I agree. Since it is a tight-knit group, people tell a lot of stories. Once a couple people who are otherwise credible had experience with the supernatural, the story will quickly spread to other volunteers. That then makes the other volunteers more likely to believe other supernatural stories.

Finally, I meant to say that there are other similar organizations to Peace Corps. In my (limited) experience, these groups are typically smaller, tend to live in less rural locations, don't stay in country as long, and don't have as much language training as Peace Corps***. But they take non-Americans, and those volunteers could easily become part of the Peace Corps network.

*** Not intended to slight those other organizations at all, and they have a lot of other advantages in the real world, but they are maybe not as interesting from a hidden magic perspective.