For instance, one may be offered spiritually
poisoned food or drinks, which will inevitably
bring about disruption, trauma, or even death if
not dealt with promptly and efficiently. A live
animal may also be used as a juju. It may be
infused with a negative energy and then sent near
someone. Once physical contact has been made,
the person will most likely become ill. Again,
although juju is neither good nor bad, it may be
used to either uplift and heal or destroy and kill.
Thus, Juju—at its best—is a powerful and positive
set of practices when it uses a spiritual intent to
heal the mind and body, thus giving protection
and blessing to the soul of a person.
On a lighter note, Juju has been linked to a
style of passionately performed West African
music (primarily from Nigeria) that incorporates
intense traditional polyrhythmic drumming with
funky electric guitars, shimmering keyboard, hot
horn playing, rhythmic dancing, and call-and-
response singing that can produce semitrance
states of mind among live audiences. Juju music
developed to an apex in the 1960s to 1990s by
Nigerian highly creative musical artists (e.g., Peter
King, Segun Buchnor, Sonny Okosuns, King
Sunny Ade, Lagbaja, Tony Allen, Fela Kuti, etc.).
Fela Anikulalpo Kuti’s was a Juju African-Beat
international musical superstar who sang and
uttered gutsy political lyrics as his 20-piece bands
rocked andJuju’ed the audience and five female
dancers shook the stage with their dancing hips,
feet, and background singing. In similar respects,
Fela Kuti was to Nigerian Juju-African-Beat and
music world what Bob Marley was to Jamaica
Rastafarian-Roots-Reggae and music world.
Ibo ChangaSeealsoHealing; Magic
Further Readings
Anderson, J. A. (2005).Conjure in African American
Society. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
Barlow, S., Banning, E., & Vartoogian, J. (1995).
Afropop—An Illustration Guide to Contemporary
African Music. Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books.
Chireau, Y. P. (2003).Black Magic:Religion and the
African American Conjuring Tradition. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Knappert, J. (1995).African Mythology:An
Encyclopedia of Myth and Legend. New York:
Hammersmith.JUSTICE
In the African conceptual system, justice is insep-
arably linked to freedom. Justice is not sustainable
without freedom, which in turn has no anchorage
in an unjust system of human organization. Justice
is viewed alongside freedom as an important char-
acteristic of the Supreme Creator.
Justice implies that an individual contribution
to society is just as important as the societal con-
tribution to the development of the individual
human essence and spiritual existence. This is the
principle of equal standingin nature from which
justice is projected to the individual and the
social collectivity. In African social formation,
justice maintains within society the equality of
human essence established in nature. In this
respect, social justice is derived from belief in the
characteristics of creation and seeks to establish
general forms of societal rules that must be
applicable to all under conditions of freedom.
Thus, there is a complete rejection of the idea of
injustice. Differences are nothing but manifesta-
tions of the sameThingthat isAllandAllthat is
in theThing(God).
Differences among individuals can never be
used to violate the principle of equal standing
because difference is an asset of the universal idea
of unity among human beings. Any violation leads
to injustice, which is contrary to the postulate of a
Just Creator (God). The Creative Force is Infinite
and Just. This is revealed in the Principles of
Opposites. The Creative Force is in All and is the
All and hence sits in judgment of all to constitute
the socially derived principle of justice.
The principle of justice is thus composed of two
subprinciples: natural justice and social justice.
Natural justice constitutes a primary category of
fairness because it is an implementation of free-
dom that we find in nature. Social justice is a
derived category of fairness from natural justice as
the work of the Creative Force toward the imple-
mentation of freedom in society.356 Justice