On worldview and witchcraft among the tribes of India

Abstract

This chapter critically investigates the continuity and changes in tribal worldview pertaining to witchcraft belief. It also attempts to give a systematic understanding and a contextual theory for the Indian context keeping in perspective the current ethnographic research and findings on witchcraft especially with reference to Nagaland and Jharkhand. Significantly, the chapter studies phenomenological aspect of the practice, but not its rationality. At the core of the chapter lies the analysis of witchcraft in tandem with magic-both as belief system and theory, and a characteristic view of the world not an epiphenomenon seen through the lens of factors like rationality, gender, disenfranchisement, land alienation and so on.