Phraseology and Culture in English

Fixed expressions as manifestations of cultural conceptualizations
405
SPIRITS ARE PART OF PRESENT REALITY
, as illustrated by 
Angry people coming back to the living to demand justice on those who 
had killed them. (Luangala 1991: 34) 
and the concept 
PERSONS OF RESPECT AND AUTHORITY ARE MEDIATORS 
BETWEEN THE SPIRITS AND THE LIVING
, which brings forth expressions 
like
Kings incarnate their cultural heritage and are intermediaries between the 
living and the ancestral spirits and deities. (CEC) 
The ancestors and gods keep a watchful eye on the living through the me-
diation of the king. (CEC) 
This spiritual or magical dimension is ambiguous and the moral matrix 
which is applied to it is strongly derived from the values of the kinship 
model. Magical forces directed against the kinship order are thus per-
ceived as negative, those that are in accordance with it, as positive. This 
ambiguity of occult practices is most notably embodied by the traditional 
doctors (or herbalists, witch-doctors, traditional healers for some alterna-
tive names). They protect and re-establish the social balance disturbed by 
witchcraft attacks, by applying magical means, i.e., by beating the threat 
with its own weapons. For the positive use of occult powers, see the fol-
lowing passages: 
In some African states like Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya laws have 
been passed long ago not only to tame witchcraft frenzy but to control witch-
craft activities though sometimes the regulation affected people like witch-
doctors who seek to protect society against witchcraft. (WCL) 
Traditional doctors are known to have the ability to cast evil spells, which 
can be attributed to death or illness, for example, or undo evil spells in the 
form of healing and rescue. (Williams 2002: 53) 
Negatively, witchcraft is often ascribed to events which are a particular peril 
to the continuation of the community and the kinship order. This applies to 
illnesses in general: 
His second wife Zama had [...] died while still very strong and healthy. She 
had been bewitched by her grandmother. (Luangala 1991: 45) 
and to sickness or death of children or young and healthy adults in particu-
lar (
ILLNESS OR DEATH OF A YOUNG PERSON OR HEALTHY ADULT IS A SIGN 
OF WITCHCRAFT
, see Wolf and Simo Bobda 2001: 247f ):

---

406
Hans-Georg Wolf and Frank Polzenhagen
Aina is [...] sickly and dull in school [...] the mother attributes his [sic] son’s 
predicament to the second wife’s jealousy. She must be a witch. (Gbadege-
sin 1991: 111) 
In two months, not less than five young men in their early thirties [...] had 
been brought home in coffins [...] and their deaths are all connected with 
witchcraft. (CEC) 
There are already very strong feelings that witchcraft emanating not very 
far from his parents could be at the basis of the boy’s death. (Cameroon 
Tribune 1995: 1) 
In the same vein, the blocking of reproductive power is ascribed to the in-
fluence of witchcraft, both in traditional and modern contexts: 
Ms. Tibu’s accusers, […] found her guilty of casting a spell on a local herb-
alist and supernaturally causing him to be poor and impotent. (WCL) 
The ECOMOG Commander has warned that his forces will deal severely 
with any person who attacked or accused Nigerian soldiers of making their 
genitals disappear. Several ECOMOG soldiers have been severely beaten in 
Monrovia [...] following rumours that strange men from Nigeria were capa-
ble of such witchcraft. (WCL) 
As is evident, the kinship model has a pronounced and omnipresent spiri-
tual dimension. A person, in the course of his or her life, is not only 
thought of as gathering experience but also as increasingly acquiring magi-
cal power and support. In other words, elders can be suspected of witch-
craft, as the following example illustrates: 
Whenever a young child died shortly after the burial of an elder, peo- 
ple would say that it was that elder who was responsible; he wanted a hu-
man pillow upon which to rest his head. Whenever a young child died 
when there was an ailing elder in the family, it was thought that he had 
sacrificed the young child so that he could remain alive. (Luangala 1991: 
230)
Yet normally the spiritual force of the elders is regarded as positive, i.e., as 
serving the good of the community. This understanding gives rise to no-
tions like “sacred power” and “magical leadership” (see, e.g., Bernault n.d. 
online for discussion). These notions play a central role in establishing the 
legitimacy of modern African leaders. In communion with the related ele-
ments of the kinship model (e.g. age), magic is used as an effective means 
of legitimating political power, and with numerous contemporary African 
politicians, we thus witness a strong recourse to occult practices and tradi-

---

Fixed expressions as manifestations of cultural conceptualizations
407
tional symbolism. In particular, the occult is perceived as a major and effec-
tive means of defending one’s power against opponents. The following 
examples demonstrate this 
BEING A LEADER IS HAVING OCCULT POWERS
conceptualization:
Sankoh [the leader of the RUF in the Sierra Leonean civil war] claims to 
vanish into the thin air, ability [sic] to transform himself into cat, dog 
mouse and whatever […] Sankoh has been able to exploit this against his 
drugged, gun-totting youthful followers who call him “Paa” (Father). 
(WCL) 
The less democratic and illegal an African regime is, the more it relies heavi-
ly on jujumen and marabous to contain its insecurity. (WCL) 
Nigerian press reports reveal human sacrifices and other fearful juju / 
marabou rituals at Aso Rock [the seat of the Nigerian president] to ‘pro-
tect’ Abacha from Nigerians crying for democracy and human rights. 
(WCL) 
Specifically, the abuse of political power and individual aspirations of lead-
ers and politicians at the expense of the community are readily construed in 
terms of occult practices. This is an extension and transformation of a ma-
jor aspect of traditional witchcraft, defined by van Binsbergen (2000 on-
line) as “the celebration of individual desires and powers at the expense of 
one’s kin.” 
Van Binsbergen’s explication also accounts for a further important con-
ceptual link, namely that of witchcraft and wealth. An individual’s material 
wealth, if not shared with the community, is often seen in the light of witch-
craft, as an undue acquisition of something that belongs to the community. 
WITCHCRAFT IS A MEANS TO OBTAIN WEALTH
is a concept that underlies 
the following examples:
9
an exorcist allegedly accused Adamou Bako, the affluent director of a local 
bus company, of enriching himself by means of witchcraft. (WCL, from 
Cameroon) 
Ritual killing is common in some parts of Nigeria, where some people be-
lieve witchcraft involving the use of human parts can make them rich. (WCL) 
Belonging to a nyongo secret society that used human sacrifice to build its 
wealth. (Makuchi 1999: 125) 
Likewise, the exploitation of people, i.e., their being made use of as (la-
bor) resources, is seen in the light of witchcraft (see, e.g., Austen 2001 on-
line and van Binsbergen 2000 online on this issue). We find the conceptu-

---

408
Hans-Georg Wolf and Frank Polzenhagen
alization
EXPLOITATION IS WITCHCRAFT 
(or vice versa) expressed, for ex-
ample, in 
And so the mind is lured to a witch growing rich from the work of zombies 
as the “living dead.” (WCL) 
Police in southern Tanzania have arrested a 90-year-old woman on suspi-
cion she abducted an 11-year-old boy to turn him into a zombie-like slave 
through witchcraft, the regional police chief said today [...] Many people in 
the rich agricultural region believe that such zombies can be made to per-
form menial farming chores late at night. (WCL) 
Just before you blink your eyes, you are being taking [sic] away from this 
world, in to [sic] the under world, so called Nyongo. Nyongo is some how 
[sic] a satanic owned business, where people are being sold in to, to work 
for others who are on earth. This is very common in the villages and among 
some big, responsible men around town [...] When some one sells the other