He Got Juju Eyeball

Photos (top to bottom):  Ceramic fetishes from Mali;  Congolese "nkondi" nail fetishes, rich in juju

Five perspectives on the meaning, significance, and obstacles to development presented by the concept of  juju  (from the first few several pages of a google search):

from Wikipedia

> Title:  Juju Magic

Juju is an aura or other magical property, usually having to do with spirits or luck, which is bound to a specific object;  it is also a term for the object itself.  Juju also refers to the spirits and ghosts in West Africa lore as a general name.  The object that contains the juju, or fetish, can be anything from an elephant's head to an extinguisher.  In general, juju can only be created by a witch doctor;  few exceptions exist.  Juju can be summoned by a witch doctor for several purposes.  Good juju can cure the ailments of mind and body;  anything from fractured limbs to a headache can be corrected.  Bad juju is used to exact revenge, soothe jealousy, and cause misfortune. 

>  from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juju

from ModernGhana.com (18 May 2008)

+ Crime:  Battling JuJu-Marabout Medium

Today, the Ghana Police Service is not only increasingly re-connecting with its traditional roots in order to serve Ghanaians better, but moving deeper to tackle certain traditional values that have for long been untouchable despite aiding crime.

The arrest of a 40-year-old spiritualist by the police for allegedly helping, spiritually, in the robbing of the Church of Pentecost of about 2000USD is a case in point.  According to the Accra-based The Ghanaian Times, Ali Baba, the spiritualist, purportedly helped (the thief). 

From pick-pockets to fraudsters to armed robbers to roadside tricksters to money doublers to most of the crimes reported at the police station, juju-marabout mediums and other spiritualists are partly to be blamed, playing heavily on the negative superstitious parts of the culture to the detriment of peace.

At this juncture, it is important to know that when the Ghana Police Service arrested leading armed robber, Atta Ayi, huge amulets and other spiritual paraphernalia, prepared for him by various juju-marabout mediums and spiritualist, were stripped from his body.

For some time, juju-marabout mediums and other spiritualists have not been considered in the larger criminology thought.  In the face of the criminality of some traditional spiritualists, including even aiding military coup detats, the traditional spiritualists have not been held criminally responsible for long -- most times out of the radar of social accountability.

+ from http://www.modernghana.com/news/165951/1/crime-battling-juju-marabou-mediums.html

from http://www.springerlink.com/content/m344757tr23jkq72

Article (from Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry):  Understanding genital-shrinking epidemics in West Africa:  Koro, juju, or mass psychogenic illness?

Abstract:  A small-scale epidemic of genital-shrinking occurred in six West African nations between January 1997 and October 2003.  This article presents a summary and analysis of 56 media reports of these cases.  A clinical formulation of these cases considers a variety of explanations from theory and research in social and cultural psychology, psychopathology, and anthropology.  Of particular interest is a comparison of genital-shrinking distress in West African settings with koro, a culture-bound syndrome involving fears of genital retraction that is prominent in Southeast Asian settings.  The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the role of culture in both the experience of genital-shrinking distress and conceptions of psychopathology.

from the African Executive, Nov 5-12, 2008

=  Juju Clouds African Way of Thinking

In Africa's cultural and development context, it is not strange that Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo should accuse his deputy, Mr. Atiku Abubaker, of craving to kill him through the dreaded juju spell.  Obasanjo's claims that Atiku has been "consulting Islamic holy men on the date of his demise," reflects the unrefined elements within the African culture that wait to be polished for progress.

"Don't worry, the president will be dead soon," a juju medium is said to have told Atiku.  More expression of the deeper under-currents of the troubles of the African development process, Atiku responded that Obasanjo's mind is full of "the cobwebs of juju or occult."

Developmentally, and in an era of the on-going African Renaissance, it is culturally healthy that such incidents are coming from the top ruling elites, who have been linked to dabbling in juju to the injury of Africa's progress.  Such practices have been part of the African culture for thousands of years, especially in West Africa, the most juju and witchcraft infested region of Africa.

African elites are yet to realize that juju practices are counterproductive to progress.  Dabbling in juju weakens the rulers' ability to totally rationalize developmental problems on the ground.  As the Obasanjo and Atiku row demonstrates, juju and other such practices not only weaken trust, a key ingredient in national development, but also undermines "national morality, because they are based on irrational spirit power,"  as Robert Kaplan reports in "The Coming Anarchy."

African experiences show that developmental problems are not solved by dabbling in juju.  Nigeria's Gen. Sani Aacha's juju-directed murdering spree to transform himself into a civilian President and solve his mounting problems is case in point.

Africa's development history shows that leaders, both military and civilians, who dabble heavily in juju either paralyze their country, blow it into pieces or are blinded from reasoning properly to solve problems.  From Liberia's Gen. Samuel Doe to Uganda's Gen. Idi Amin to Central Africa Republic's Jean-Bedel Bokassa (who ate human flesh as part of his juju rituals), dabbling in juju weakens the rational abilities of the ruling elites to handle the problems of the people.  The leaders becomes unrealistic, depending upon illiterate, irrational, unscientific and impractical juju mediums that, in all measure, are immoral and destructive.  The juju-dabbling Africa leaders see critics as enemies and live in paranoia to the detriment of Africa's progress.  Such leaders become the manipulative robots of the juju and spiritual mediums as we saw in Gen. Idi Amin's Uganda, perhaps one of the most rabid juju dabblers Africa has seen.  Amin listened to these mediums to the extent of exporting Ugandan-Asians, consequently destroying Uganda's economy.

=  from http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=2304

from http://www.djembe.dk/no/13/juju01.html

*A New Look at Juju

African religions had their biggest boost two years ago when Pope John Paul II, on a visit to Benin, apologized for centuries of ridiculing African cultural beliefs by the Western world. Benin is the home of voodoo, one of the continent's most enduring cults.  The crucial question is whether the Pope's 'penance' will force others to start respecting African cultures, in particular the belief in African religions.

It is not easy for most people in the West to accept that the much maligned voodoo and other such cults and sects in Africa are based on the same universal belief in the supernatural found everywhere in the world.  People do not understand and appreciate the complex interplay of religion medicine and psychology in African beliefs.  In other words,  the simple fact that Africans have largely reduced religious thought and practice to everyday practice, that African religions seek to link the supernatural with the natural and the mundane, continues to baffle the Western world.

African beliefs in spirits and juju is just like taking the universal belief in the supernatural to the next logical step.  Universal belief in the supernatural and spiritism rests on a conviction of the existence of unseen beings with magical powers that can be harnessed to help the human race in their everyday existence.

Africans include the spirits of dead ancestors and relations among these unseen beings.  And the belief is that these beings are to found anywhere and everywhere.  Cults therefore revolve around wherever any such being is presumed to be found.  But the need to harness the powers of these unseen beings is separate from the beliefs in, and worship of, the Supreme Being, or God.  Thus, an akan from Ghana, pouring libation, will raise his calabash or glass to God, called Onyankopon or Twereampong -- and by other names -- before anything else.  This is true across the continent.

The commitment to God is, in other words, unaffected by the need to seek the help of minor deities to solve pressing everyday problems.  This explains the paradox of many otherwise devout followers of other religions like Christianity, Muslim and so on also concurrently consulting diviners, fetishes and other cults.

*First published in Djembe Magazine in 1995.  It was written by N. Adu Kwabena-Essem.