Witchcraft and Return To Laughter

In Haviland’s chapter on religion and the supernatural witchcraft can be defined as an explanation of events based on the beliefs that some individuals possess a psychic power. This power is capable of causing harm, including such things as sickness and death. Because people believe that there is a meaning or a cause for the actions that happen to them, reversing the action is also possible; therefore there becomes an assumption that the problem …

…Yabo’s case, he kept saying that he did not kill his wife, however, the possibility still could have been pointed towards Yabo because he had been denying the death. However, in this instance, Yabo is in fact a witch and he is punished for his acts of witchcraft. He is only one of the examples of men as witches in this culture and Poorgbilin is another unfortunate example of the consequences of practicing witchcraft.