a great uncertainty in people's attitudes toward such specialists. It is
not absolutely clear that they do have the special quality in question.
More worrying, it is not really clear either that they will use it onlyfor
defensive purposes, or indeed that the distinction really means much.
For what you see as a vicious witchcraft attack against you may also be
described as a preemptive strike against your own witchcraft. So it is
not always clear which side the specialist is on. Most of my Fang
friends were quite definite that they did not want to have too much to
do with such characters, except in case of real and urgent need.
What makes a ngengangdifferent is not something that you could
observe, or deduce from unambiguous cues. Indeed, it sometimes hap- [271]
pens that people lose confidence in one of these specialists and con-
clude that he probably never had evurto start with. But it is clear to
everybody that there is a fact of the matter, that each person either has
or else does not have evur.Being a specialist is not just being able to
perform certain rituals, for the rituals would be pointless if performed
by persons without evur.It is not even a question of actually achieving
particular results. University-trained physicians are known to cure
(some) illnesses, but no one thinks this is because they have a special
organ. In this sense the difference between the ngengang and other
people is represented very much in the same way as the difference
between natural species. We assume that there is something inside
tigers and giraffes that makes them develop and behave in different
ways, but we do not usually have a description of that inherited
"essence." In the same way, people assume that some individuals have
a special quality that makes them shamans or healers or mediums.^4
The presence of specialists clearly recognized as different from
other people stems from a much more general tendency to create
cooperation between individuals with different perceived abilities. As
soon as some people are perceived, for some reason or other, to be
able to provide some service better than others, there is the potential
for creating some minimal division of labor. To illustrate this, let me
return to the example of the Buid. They seem to have the most
"democratic" religion imaginable, in the sense that everyone is
thought to be capable of mediumship. However, even in this situation,
people do recognize differences between individuals, a first step
toward the creation of local specialists. This is indeed what happened
among the Taubuid, a neighboring group where efficient singers have
become specialists who derive prestige and material benefits from
their reputation, as well as some political influence. These Taubuid
WHYDOCTRINES, EXCLUSION AND VIOLENCE?