254 mind
Witchcraft beliefs are only one manifestation of a phenomenon that is found
in many human groups, the interpretation of misfortune as a consequence of
envy. For another such situation, consider the widespread beliefs in an “evil
eye,” a spell cast by envious people against whoever enjoys some good fortune
or natural advantage.^35 Witchcraft and evil-eye notions do not really belong to
the domain of religion, but they show that, religious agents or not, there is a
tendency to focus on the possiblereasonsfor some agents to cause misfortune,
rather than on theprocesseswhereby they could do it.
People focus on an agent’s reasons for causing them harm, but note that
these reasons always have to do with people’sinteractionwith the agents in
question. The way these reasons are expressed is, in a great majority of cases,
supported by our social-exchange intuitions. People refused to follow God’s
orders; they polluted a house against the ancestors’ prescriptions; they had
more wealth or good fortune than their God-decreed fate allocated them, and
so on. All this supports what anthropologists have been saying for a long time
on the basis of evidence gathered in the most various cultural environments:
misfortune is generally interpreted insocialterms. But this familiar conclusion
implies that the evolved cognitive resources people bring to the understanding
of interaction should be crucial to their construal of misfortune.
To return to our examples: the Kwaio ancestors afflict people with some
disease because they want some sacrifice. In some of these cases, people admit
that they should have performed the sacrifice to start with. They are guilty of
neglecting a particular ancestor. They failed to maintain proper relations with
him. These are clearly construed as exchange relations. Ancestors provide
some form of protection, and people provide roasted pigs. In some cases, peo-
ple tend to think that the ancestors are “pushing it” a little and feel justifiably
resentful. This is the kind of emotion that we find in situations where one
party in a social exchange seems to be increasing their benefits without paying
an increased cost. In other words, relations with ancestors are framed by un-
derstandings and associated emotions that are intuitively applied to social
exchange. Witchcraft, too, seems to be clearly construed as unfair exchange.
The witches are trying to reap some benefit without paying any cost: witches
are quite clearly “cheaters” in the technical sense. Indeed, that is precisely what
people like the Fang and many others who have witchcraft concepts say about
witches: they are the ones who take but never give, who steal other people’s
health or happiness, who thrive only if others are deprived. Finally, as the evil
eye shows, people someone represent misfortune as caused by someone else
who takesthemfor cheaters. People interpret your benefits as having cost you
nothing. In their view, your benefit should be compensated by a cost. You think
they do not perceive any cost in your good fortune, therefore they are jealous
of you and this creates calamities.
These examples show that some prior mental process describes misfor-
tune in such a way that it makes sense to include gods and spirits in an expla-