gods and the mental instincts that create them 253seem arbitrary.”^33 Good taro crops and prolific sows indicate that the ancestors
are happy with the way the living behave. Illness and misfortune are generally
an effect of the ancestors’ anger. True, the Kwaio like most people in the world,
accept that some events just happen and have no particular cause. Some ill-
nesses may be interpreted as a straightforward weakening of the body with no
special implications; the fact that some ailments are cured by Western medi-
cine shows that they are in that category of mere mishaps. But in general any
salient event, particularly any remarkable misfortune, is seen as the action of
theadalo. As a Kwaio diviner tells Keesing: “If we see that a child is sick...
we divine and then we sacrifice a pig [to theadalo].” Divination is required to
understand which spirit is angry and why. A diviner will take a set of knotted
leaves and pull them to see which side breaks first, indicating either a positive
answer or no answer to a particular question. In most cases, ancestors are
unhappy either because people have broken rules about what is proper and
what isabu(forbidden or dangerous—from the Oceanian roottaputhat gave
us our “taboo”). Ancestors, like humans, crave pork and demand frequent
sacrifices of pigs.^34 Interaction with the ancestors can be quite complex, be-
cause it is not always clear which ancestor is causing trouble: “If it is not really
that adalo [discovered in divination] that asked for a pig, in order that our pigs
or taro grow well, then even though we sacrifice it, nothing will happen.” So
people may go through several cycles of divination followed by sacrifice to reach
a satisfactory arrangement with the ancestors.
This case highlights some very common features of the association be-
tween misfortune and religious agents. Although people assume that the an-
cestors are involved in many occurrences (like bad crops, illnesses, death, etc.)
they do not bother to representin what waythey bring about all these states of
affairs. That is, people’s reasoning, when thinking about such situations, is
entirely centered on thereasonswhy an ancestor would want them to fall ill or
have many children, certainly not on thecausal processwhereby they make it
happen.
This is also true of other kinds of supernatural notions that people com-
monly associate with misfortune. One of the most widespread explanations of
mishaps and disorders, the world over, is in terms of witchcraft, the suspicion
that some people (generally in the community) perform magical tricks to steal
other people’s health, good fortune, or material goods. Concepts of witches are
among the most widespread supernatural ones. In some places, there are ex-
plicit accusations and the alleged witches must either prove their innocence or
perform some special rituals to pay for their transgression. In most places, the
suspicion is a matter of gossip and rarely comes out in the open. You do not
really need to have actual witches around to have very firm beliefs about the
existence and powers of witches. Witchcraft is important because it seems to
provide an explanation for all sorts of events: many cases of illness or other
misfortune are spontaneously interpreted as evidence for the witches’ actions.