“Recasting sorcery as critical psycho-social commentary,moral discourse,and local psychotherapy”

Introduction

A puzzling case of ark echaghel

The following case concerns a puzzling incident in which a scorpion sting is reported in order to test an outsider’s compassion and generosity, with an aftermath of religious approbation labelling this instead as anti-social sorcery (ark echaghel):

An American traveler in a small town in northern Mali with predominantly Tuareg residents once ordered some leatherwork from a smith/artisan there. I had met the traveler, who was visiting the region while touring alone through the Sahara, while I was staying near a tourist guest house during one phase of my field research in and around that town. The traveler, whom I’ll call “Ben”, was informally touring the area independently, without a tour agency, during a peaceful interval between a series of Tuareg dissident armed rebellions. We occasionally socialized, and I tried to be of informal assistance to him during his brief stay.

In addition to making the required advance partial cash payment deposit to a smith/artisan, a customer is also supposed to ideally visit, bring small presents of food, tea, or tobacco, and socialize with the artisans during their progress in working on the commissioned item. As in the traditional hierarchical patronage system of very personal mutual rights and obligations, the customer must be generous. A commercial work order remains very personal in lingering obligations of patronage from the older ranked system of noble elite families inheriting smith/artisan families, even with customers from outside the Tuareg community. In other words, there are still expectations of some reciprocal sociability beyond the monetary purchase.

Although “Ben” the traveler made the advance cash “deposit”, they neglected to visit the smith/artisan, to bring them additional small presents, or to otherwise socialize with them during the manufacture of the item ordered. Notwithstanding globalization and migration, and some changes in sales of art works to tourists outside the local community of traditional noble elite patrons, transactions in the local community between smith/artisans and their customers—whether the latter are traditional patrons of noble descent or outside buyers—are not supposed to be solely impersonal or commercial. Beginning in the 1960’s, some noble elites, once wealthy in livestock but later impoverished from droughts, famines, and sporadic political violence in their regions between dissidents and the central states of Mali and Niger, could no longer easily support their attached smith/artisans. Some rural families, pressured to settle down by central state policies of control over nomads and aid distribution, moved from nomadic camps to towns and oases.

When tourism entered the northern regions of Mali and Niger, smith/artisans, who found fewer traditional noble patrons in the countyside, also migrated to towns, and turned to many non-Tuareg, such as European and American tourists, NGO, and other aid workers such as Peace Corps volunteers and African civil servants, who in effect replaced smith/artisans’ noble elite patrons. But importantly, these “modern” patrons/customers often did not reside longterm in the region, thereby avoiding longterm expectations of supporting smith/artisans, and were perceived by some smith/artisans as abandoning them in their departure. Thus, there were efforts to engage these outside strangers and absorb them as “guests” and patrons as much as possible into the local moral economy of reciprocal and balanced social obligations. Many local residents perceived the visitors and travelers in their region as “guests”, not solely “strangers” (the Tamajaq term amagar (masc. sing., imagaren, pl.), significantly, denotes both), and as rich and capable of greater generosity beyond the immediate transaction of purchasing art objects. Hence the local attempts to integrate these visitors into local networks of personal patronage, albeit in short-term truncated form. Also at play was religion: the Islamic obligation of charity—one of the five pillars of the faith.

One day, some time after the leatherwork had been commissioned, while the item ordered was still being made, a member of the smith/artisan family working on it visited Ben the tourist/traveler in the latter’s guest house room. The smith/artisan wore the customary Tuareg men’s turban/faceveil (tagelmust), but unlike the usual more relaxed style worn by most smith men, this particular smith wore the veil very high over his nose and mouth, a style in Tuareg men’s veiling that signifies, variously, formality, respect, defiance, or a potentially dangerous situation. This visitor made a request of Ben: “A small child in our family has been bitten by a scorpion. He needs an injection at the clinic. Could you give us some money to cover the cost of the injection?” The traveler, though genuinely concerned and wishing to assist, lacked sufficient cash equal to the amount requested; for this traveler had attended another child’s nameday celebration that day, and had offered the host family a considerable sum as guest.

So Ben, wishing to help as much as possible, gave some cash to the visiting smith/artisan, but an amount short of the amount the latter had requested for the child’s treatment. The smith/artisan was nonetheless grateful. He indicated that this amount would help, and that the remainder could hopefully be found elsewhere. Then he left.

Soon afterward, still concerned, and intending to contribute more fully to the treatment’s cost, the traveler inquired about the child’s health at the clinic and at other households. But no one in that small community knew of any child who had been stung by a scorpion recently.

Later, the leatherwork, a large, finely-worked, dyed, cut, and embroidered sack with small mirror insets was completed and delivered to the traveler, who was very pleased with the workmanship and paid the full amount remaining for this item, thereby completing the transaction for the order. The next morning, however, on awakening, the traveler noticed, horrified, (or at least startled), two insects crawling out of the sack: one was a large spider and the other a praying mantis.

The traveler, shaken and seeking some explanation in terms that could be understood across the cultural divide, called me in to view the scene, and on the advice of local contacts, including myself the anthropologist, saw an Islamic scholar (Tam. aneslem, pl.ineslemen), popularly called a “marabout” in West Africa. These specialists diagnose, divine, and heal with Qur’anic verses and amulets. Many of these non-organic conditions and their treatments involve psycho-social counseling, but defy positivist empirical explanations for their efficacy (Rasmussen, 2001,2006,2021). These religious specialists sometimes diagnose and treat ark echaghel. Most marabouts are very devout, respected, and tend to adhere to Sufi-influenced Tuareg cultural interpretations of Islam. Others are more controversial, influenced by da’wa Wahabbi/Salafist piety movements, the latter mostly non-violent, though a few more militant jihadists have entered some groups through marriage and clan ties (Rasmussen, 2019).

This anthropologist was present at the consultation. The aim here was to experience a local form of psychological counseling or at least, some empathy, given the jarring impact of the foregoing incident. On hearing this story, the marabout, also shocked, declared that this action was unquestionably “very bad” ark echaghel. He explained that the spider, though not as lethal as a scorpion, was nonetheless intimidating, perhaps representing symbolically (Tam. tangalt, denoting “shadowy words” symbol, or euphemism) the partial but not full amount the traveler contributed to the child’s treatment, which was, though insufficient, better than nothing at all, thereby evoking a moral contrast to the praying mantis, the latter iconically representing the religious devotion, in particular, obligations of praying and by extension, generosity. In other words, although the insects could well have randomly crawled into the leather sack, the marabout asserted that they had more likely been intentionally inserted into it by someone, probably, he surmised, the smith/artisan or a close relative in their family.

Smith/artisans (called inaden) despite their important artistic, ritual, and social intermediary roles in Tuareg society are often scapegoated, as are other persons of ambiguous, marginal, or subordinate statuses such as formerly enslaved persons, accused of activating malevolent powers such as sorcery and other, more specialized powers.

Preliminary analysis

Hence the ambiguity in this incident for traveler and anthropologist. But the marabout was emphatic in his interpretation of the insects inside the sack as inserted there as an act of sorcery (intentional malevolence). The incident prompted a discussion of causality, moral commentary, and psycho-social counseling. On one level, at least, this interpretation of their symbolism was constructed as a critical commentary on the traveler’s predicament and the actions of smith/artisans who, the marabout assumed had placed the insects into the sack. Sorcery is considered evil and anti-social (in the marabout’s view, this act was revenge for the incomplete donation to treat the child’s scorpion sting). The marabout then commented, however, that the traveler was not intentionally greedy since they could not contribute the full amount at the time of the request, and they tried to make amends later but could not since no one knew of a child who had recently been stung by a scorpion. Yet regardless of intent, the incomplete donation was perhaps still perceived by the smith/artisan as greedy. In rural Tuareg communities, until very recently smith/artisans had the right to retaliate if a noble patron neglected obligations to their attached smith/artisans in rituals called albourousa: the offended smith/artisans travel through neighboring villages and camps and loudly mock their patron/customer’s lack of generosity in, for example, not adequately paying them for goods or avoiding hiring them for ritual services (Rasmussen, 2013).

Here, intention and consequence on the part of the suspected instigator and the traveler/victim of the sorcery were given different moral weights by the smith/artisan, the traveler, and the Islamic scholar/marabout. This frightening “sorcery” incident served in one respect as a morality tale through indigenously interpreted symbols: a judgment of merit after a testing of moral “fiber” in an attempt at mitigating inequality (of local access to health care and perceived inequality of wealth between Western tourists and local residents) in times of stress (alleged sting by a venom of a dangerous insect).

The marabout left unresolved the question of whether or not there was “really” a child stung by a scorpion, however; his concern was not with the truth value of the smith/artisan’s story, but rather with its broader implication: of moral testing of the outsider/stranger/guest. As a kind of psychotherapist, the marabout listened carefully to the account of what occurred, analyzed the incident as a specialist would a patient’s dream, did not judge the “target” of the sorcery, and assuaged possible guilt on their part.

In the aftermath, still unsolved was the matter of the alleged scorpion attack on the child. When I inquired, this matter remained a mystery throughout my residence/research there at that time. The marabout had not heard of any such scorpion attack, either, but refrained from accusing the smith of outright lying about it. But he did comment that the smith’s intention in making the request may have also been an attempt to obtain more money than the previously-agreed on cost of the leatherwork. It was the moral commentary in how the sorcery was expressed with its symbols, danger, and evil that he considered important, however, regardless of the smith/artisan’ additional possible valid reason for instigating it.

Was the marabout’s treatment “psychotherapeutic”? Some processes or effects many outsiders to that cultural setting would consider “psychological”, coincidental, or “placebo effects” can be manifested in ways considered very real and tangible, and not coincidental but purposeful, in local ontological, social, and moral contexts. Among Tuareg, as among some other African and indigenous peoples, human to human and human to non-human relationships, rather than individual personhood or humanness apart from other creatures, are prioritized in considering agency and causation (Karp & Masolo, 2005; Kohn, 2013; Olsen and Van Beek, 2014). Although a few so-called “bad marabouts” allegedly may be sometimes themselves involved in sorcery, for example, burying malevolent amulets beneath the sand to lead intruding travelers astray, their usually positive al baraka spiritual blessing force was manifested in this particular traveler’s consultation by the marabout’s therapeutic reassurance to the traveler/target of sorcery of the latter’s basically good intentions: to help as much as possible. Here, the local healer helped make sense of a disturbing incident. Any guilt on the part of the presumed “target” of the sorcery was assuaged somewhat. A biomedical western-trained psychotherapist also cannot know for certain what occurred to a patient, but rather on how to handle or cope with their subjective feelings and reactions in a patient’s narrative.

The marabout consultation psychologically soothed this traveler “victim” and myself somewhat in relieving their anxieties, but did not solve the “mystery” of the truth value of the scorpion attack. What is important, in my view, is not whether or not the scorpion attack actually took place (though they often do in the Sahara, and sometimes, sadly, kill children), but rather, how local residents I knew interpreted this incident and the broader ontological insights suggested.

Questions raised

In Tuareg and some other African philosophies (Jackson, 1990; Stoller, 1989; West, 2007), the visible and the invisible and their relation to other sense modalities can allegorically reveal larger moral preoccupations in non-textual ways, in particular, the interconnectedness of all living things in the universe. Or these entities can reveal careful observational skills and social knowledge of human specialists, who are not always viewed as separate from other creations, and may interact with and even “shape-shift” with them (Hountondji, 1997; Jackson, 1990; Rasmussen, 2017; Peek and Van Beek, 2014; West, 2007).

Also important was how the dynamics played out socially and psychologically. The economic differences between the American traveler and the local smith/artisan were substantial, of course; despite the relative success of skilled smith/artisans, there were growing inequalities in the IMF and World Bank neoliberal and capitalist/privatization restructuring of poorer countries beginning in the late 20^th century. In Tuareg regions of Mali and Niger during resurging political violence (such as dissident armed rebellions, abductions, and most recently, the global pandemic), smith/artisans have also experienced not only diminished support from their traditional noble elite patrons, who as noted, have lost much livestock in a series of droughts and waves of violence, but also from the irregular and sometimes decreased numbers of tourists passing through their region, upon whom, as also noted, smith/artisans depended because they compensated smiths for the loss of their noble patrons’ support. Moreover, in times of peace and heightened returning tourism, there is widely-perceived degradation of the Saharan environment from some tourists’ littering and also from damage caused by car-racing across the desert. Thus loss and inequality were possible factors underlying the smith/s request for additional money, whether to treat the child or whether to simply increase the price of the leather sack.

Local ontological interpretations of sorcery and its cause-effects in psyche, body, and sociality, cannot be separate from wider inequality and hierarchy, translocal and local. Perhaps the story of the scorpion sting was a test of personal character in a cultural encounter with an intruding stranger (amagar, both “guest” and “stranger”) in times of stress, a critique of a traveler perceived as wealthy by local standards, by the smith/artisan (or someone else behind the scenes?) for prioritizing the purchase of the leatherwork over other considerations. The suspected instigator(s) were members of a smith/artisan family---whose ambiguous outside origins give them an anomalous position in Tuareg society, as not quite kin or strangers, but rather neighbors—an intersectional, interstitial position, at a cross-roads of cultural encounters, whose ritual powers are often blamed for certain misfortunes. Thus the echaghel instigator may use his/her powers in either direction, and often appears to be one’s neighbor, but one closer than an outright traveler from the distance or the anthropologist, the latter staying more longterm, but like the former, eventually leaves.

In effect, a non-verbal tale with a philosophical and psychological message grounded in moral, cultural and social ontologies and sensibilities was expressed through means defined by the marabout as anti-social: malevolent sorcery. What other medium could have conveyed a similar moral critique? The marabout did not specify an alternative means of expressing this. He offered to make an amulet for the traveler, as marabouts had often done for me as well, to protect against possible future sorcerous actions. The amulet contained honey, representing, in local exegesis, “making one’s way smooth”.

Yet the diagnosis and treatment of sorcery also yield forms of indigenous knowledge in which ambiguity is not a “gap” in knowledge, but rather, has less priority than helping to relieve personal suffering. The local healer’s symbolic analysis did not foreclose alternative meanings, or directly deliver judgment. Maraboutique assistance, a kind of psycho-social counselling, opens up the possibility of multiple “realities” in parallel worlds, thereby opening up rather than closing down alternative possible interpretations.

The role of the insects in this sorcery case was intriguing. Like some other animals who are famous in folklore as “trickster” types (e.g. coyote, hare) in local philosophies and mythologies (Peek and Yankah, 2014), the two in this case may or may not have been intended by the smith/artisan to illustrate a local folktale, though smiths do in fact tell folktales verbally and non-verbally with gestures, in particular, animal tales and matrilineal origin tales—usually pre-Islamic in their themes, characters, and plots. But the effect was powerful and the marabout interpreted them as such. The spider, called Anansi in Ghana, is a widespread trickster character in West African folklore who often represents greed because of its perceived large stomach (Peek and Yankah, 2014). The praying mantis, while less commonly appearing in myths and tales as a trickster, nonetheless in this case iconically represented prayer, implying a choice presented to the traveler: between following Islamic devotion (mores to pray, be generous, and to give charity), versus not meeting obligations of reciprocity (holding back the full amount for the child’s scorpion sting treatment, in the smith/artisan’s viewpoint, possibly a sign of greed—though the marabout disagreed about this). Praying is one of the five pillars of faith in Islam; another obligation is charity, helping the poor. Did these “critters” (tricksters?) simply emerge by chance from the leather sack in a climate where such findings are not uncommon? Or were they intentionally placed in there? Although beyond empirical understanding, what is clear is that their meanings and efficacy were in their prompting to reflect on moral obligations of generosity regardless of the reason for insufficient donations.

Animal and other ‘shape-shifting” by humans are relevant here. Jackson (in Jackson and Karp, 1990:58–78) was enthralled by anecdotes and reports in Sierra Leone of human beings able to transform themselves into animals, regarded with ambivalence and awe, who in the form of predatory animals can destroy crops and kill livestock of anyone they begrudge or dislike. Perhaps, Jackson surmises, this was a means of vengeance or resistance or fear of loss of status suffered by men from their area during periods of upheaval (Jackson, 1990). West (2007), similarly, in studying his interlocutors’ reports of human-to-lion sorcerer lions among the Makonde in Mozambique, ruled out Western modernist functional, symbolic, and phenomenological approaches as not adequate to explain them; for when he presented a talk on this topic at the research center relying on metaphor to interpret their significance, local intellectuals and scholars there insisted that sorcerer-lions were real (West, 2007:5).

To the perpetrators, victims, patients, and healers of Tuareg sorcery, the connections are real, but their psycho-social, symbolic, and literal/physical reality is also situationally-based, remaining a matter of debate and lack of closure, which prompts reflection on moral obligations of generosity. Recall that the marabout himself, not this anthropologist, interpreted the symbolic significance of the insects in the sack. Hence a kind of “battle” waged here in ambiguous causation of this incident: between the orthodox Islamic religious moral discourse in the symbol of the praying mantis and the pre-Islamic folktale motif with symbols of scorpion and spider.

Relevant historical and ethnographic contexts

In the small but multi-ethnic Saharan town where this sorcery incident occurred, there is a large Tamajaq-speaking population. Some move in and out of town seasonally, herding their remaining livestock diminished from a series droughts and wars. Others have become sedentarized and reside longterm in town engaged in market trade, tailoring, and other informal economic occupations, and farm for relatives on nearby oases. Recent urban migrants to northern towns still maintain close ties with their rural homes, and return there often for extended periods. A few work for tour agencies. Many Tuareg have been propelled into labor migration, political exile, and refugee flight (Bourgeot, 1990, 1994; Kohl, 2009; Kohl & Fischer, 2010; Lecocq, 2012). Camel caravans across the Sahara have been largely replaced with truck marketing trade.

Most occupations no longer correspond exactly to inherited social status. Noble elite descent groups, while still important in chiefly families’ arranging marriages, no longer wield undisputed military domination over their former subordinates, and may now choose, rather than inherit, their family’s smith/artisan for goods and services. Although many residents, in particular smith/artisans, remain endogamous, intermarriages between different pre-colonial social categories are increasing. Furthermore, new incomes from markets and tourism, men’s migrant labor, and itinerant trade of artisan works have become important to persons of diverse social backgrounds in the increasingly monetarized economy.

Recently, smith/artisans’ roles include supervising state census-taking, tax collection, NGO food and medicine relief distributions, and school registration. In larger towns and the capital cities, smith/artisans have also worked to raise consciousness concerning public health measures preventing the spread of COVID-19, for example, in mask manufacturing and educational murals.

In the towns and settled oases, smith/artisans further modify their traditional mediating roles as “ambassadors” between chiefs, elderly heads of nomadic camps called imgharen (sing. amghar), whose rule depended on respect until French colonial policies of sedentarization shifted powers to designated chefs de village in residential villages.

In the countryside, smiths still manufacture silver jewelry and leather, wooden, and stone tools for household, herding, and gardening tasks, assist in arranging nobles’ marriages, and serve food and sing praise-songs with critical social commentary at their noble patrons’ rites of passage. Each noble family can now choose a personal smith on the basis of rapport, proximity, or perceived skill for certain tasks. Their artisanry and services are remunerated in some combination of cash, food, and tea, and over a long period of time.

In towns, smith/artisans are remunerated in cash. But as already noted, more impoverished nobles now have more difficulty supporting smiths, due to the droughts, economic crises, and battles in the region. Urban smiths, especially, have increasingly turned to non-Tamajaq-speaking ethnic outsiders (for example, NGO aid workers) tourists, and other travelers for income. These new sources are not always reliable, however; for in contrast to past practices, there are few ties of longterm geographic residential proximity and few means of enforcing smith/artisan rights as effectively as their traditional “shaming” albourousa ritual. Smiths therefore seek to maintain, even in modified form, some remnants of more personal relationships with customers; this was undoubtedly the intent of the smith/artisan in his request for the traveler’s help with the scorpion treatment, and perhaps, also, what prompted the former’s (alleged?) possible retaliation on not receiving it in full.

Local residents indicated to me that in recent efforts at economic and cultural revitalization, “ the ideal here is that the group, not the individual, is necessary for development and business. Ideally, at least, everyone should pool funds and share work….We live in community”. Most contemporary Tuareg leaders now urge their followers to abandon the old social stratified identities and unite on the basis of their Tamajaq language.

The effects of change are uneven. The play of ritual powers often brings to light inconsistencies, ambiguities, and disappointments with “modernist” schemes (Comaroff and Comaroff 1993). But I also contend that local residents, in invoking these powers, are not acting solely in response to a uniform experience of modernity. Sorcery is not new, but has a history. Hidden or ambiguous ritual practices, longstanding and recent, need to be analyzed in relation to both historical and current epistemological subjectivities and social relationships; for there are numerous contexts creating deep anxieties over access to both old and new forms of wealth. For example, many current concerns are connected to medicine shortages, health-care inequities, economic crisis, and failures of aid policies. But responses to these processes are also shaped by historic tensions between social categories. In part, sorcery suspicions and accusations evoke these memories, as expressed in local wisdom on sorcery.

Ark echaghel is neither new nor solely a response by “malcontents” (to borrow the Comaroffs’ term) to recent crises of modernity. Early Tuareg ethnographies also mention it (Blanguernon, 1955; Nicolaisen, 1961). Nor does ark echaghel belong to strictly “popular” or “para-” Islamic knowledge, rather than orthodox Islam—itself a problematic binary; for Islamic scholars are rumored to occasionally also practice this, though most protect against or cure sorcery instead. Also, recall that persons of diverse social backgrounds recognize several other specialized powers related to ark eghaghel.

Multiple rather than unitary or monolithic local ontologies and practices are evident in Tuareg attitudes regarding ark echaghel. Local subjectivities as well as infrastructures illuminate important additional responses to experiences of other modernities that are psychological and social, thereby informing interest in local traumas, “panic”, and psychotherapies (Good & Hinton, 2009) in intra- and trans-cultural encounters.

Ark echaghel is a considered an enormous force sufficient to kill a human, even from a distance. Many asserted to Nicolaisen (1961), and more recently to me, that sorcery is practiced to a larger degree by settled farming populations south of the Sahara, usually formerly-enslaved or tribute-paying clients of noble and more nomadic Tuareg.

Many former subordinates and people of ambiguous and/or marginalized status allegedly specialize in this malevolent power, but may also activate or de-activate it. During a bus trip, for example, a Tuareg friend and consultant from a rural area pointed out to me an oasis where residents, formerly enslaved, were alleged to specialize in a type of sorcerous force called ikarkawen, characterized by blood-sucking, and were able to cure, as well as cause it.

Some women on oases, formerly clients who owed noble elites in the pre-colonial system tribute in crops, allegedly use this power in situations of danger and competition. When a woman wishes the death of her rival, for example, she obtains the menstrual blood of her enemy, and goes to find a (rare but existent) Islamic scholar or marabout specializing in assisting sorcery; the latter wraps this blood inside a paper or a cloth on which he writes sacred words, then throws it all into a permanent body of water. Whenever this overflows, the blood of the rival will flow and she will die of a hemorrhage (Blanguernon, 1955:112; Nicolaisen, 1961:139). Hemorrhaging, notably, is a frequent, sometimes lethal complication among Tuareg women during and following childbirth (Rasmussen, 2006).

Psyche, culture, and society: toward a critical indigenous ontology

Personhood in local ontology

Enlightenment-influenced concepts of person tend to emphasize the psyche and body as individual self, “…conceived not as a socio-cultural construct peculiar to a particular time and place, but as a self-evident given of the human condition in general—as the central cosmological and ontological entity” (Binsbergen in Peek and Van Beek, 2014:359). An individualistic conception of the psyche and the body/mind dichotomy poses difficulty when confronted with diverse alternatives, but less dominant cultural philosophies. What is illusory, then? What is random? What is intended? Unintended?

Studies by African-based scholars argue that widespread concepts of personhood in African contexts arise from an understanding that a person cannot be separated from others, such as the family, community, and spiritual worlds (Adjei, 2019; Neequaye, 2020; Nwoye, 2006), Local African philosophers and social scientists disagree on this issue, suggesting the difficulties of overgeneralizing on indigenous ontologies, however well-intended. Some argue that the person is regarded as “communal (collectively fused), in the sense of interdependence and belongingness” (Adjei, 2019:490). Others (Kaphagawani in Karp & Masolo, 2005: 66–83) argue for more nuanced African personhood, i.e., that this is more relational than communal, and variable according to context. There is some agreement that a human only becomes a person through certain achievements related to different stages or life and/or to certain social ties. Among Tuareg, one’s mind (character, Tam. tesney) is widely considered porous to outside influences such as change of character upon travel, both geographic and spiritual, as in trance possession and dreaming (Rasmussen, 1995,2015,2022). Thus the boundary between psyche and world is permeable (Luhrmann, 2020:149, cited by Otto & van Roekel, 2022–207).

Intentionality

Given these concepts of causation and person, in the foregoing “scorpion” sorcery case, how and why was intentionality addressed and construed (or not) in judging moral personhood and causation of evil (in obligations met or unmet)? How did intentionality emerge during the sorcery case and its subsequent relevant interaction between the traveler, the marabout, myself the anthropologist, the smith (who was in the aftermath, a person referred to, rather than a person present) —and what else was revealed, not revealed? Intentionality has been regarded as central to processes of semiosis and language (Deely, 2007, 2010; Duranti, 2015), as well as cognitive, philosophical, and cultural mores and social practices (Blum, 2007; Fajans, 1997; M. Rosaldo, 1984; Shore, 1982). Valuable studies have shown that the concept of intentionality varies from society to society. Not all societies share the prevalent U.S. fascination (mandate) with understanding intent of others. In the foregoing sorcery case, as shown, factors such as social positioning, causation/agency, and personhood shaped how directly one expressed intention, emergent in intersectional cultural encounters and relationships. The marabout emphatically asserted some things, and left other things unstated or open-ended. The smith/artisan used a moral test non-verbally to ascertain generosity and/or wealth, and later presented (if in fact he placed the insects inside the sack) an iconic morality “folktale”, represented (at least in the marabout’s interpretation) by the animals. Understanding intent, in other words, needs to be grounded not solely in language and individual psyche, but also social context and indigenous ontology.

Critical insights and issues raised in study of local/indigenous ontologies

Some anthropologists have recently directed research away from solely-visible human practices towards a cognitive focus centered on ontologies—understandings of interconnections of all creations in the universe (Deloria, 1997, 2012; Kohn, 2013; Lawres & Sanger, 2022; Peek and Van Beek, 2014; Todd, 2016). But as the present analysis shows, while sometimes less visible, ontologies can still also be iconic, as in the “sorcerous” Tuareg leather sack, in that they have a reciprocal and constitutive relationship with more observable cultural structures and practices. For example, because ontologies provide an understanding of a lived world, social/cultural and psychic structures draw on this foundation to provide mores and sociohistorical contexts for interacting with the world. Philosopher James Feibleman (1951) referred to culture as a form of “applied ontology because of this inherent relationship” (Lawres & Sanger, 2022:7).

There is no single unified approach or agreement in the Ontological Turn (OT) (Alberti, 2016; Kohn, 2013). A few earlier pioneering studies include those by Levi-Strauss (1962) and Radin (2002). These works, as well as valuable indigenous critiques from local scholars and intellectuals (Deloria, 1997,2012; Neeqwaye 2020; Nwoye, 2006; Todd, 2016), have prompted some anthropologists to try to move beyond the bounds of western-centric thought in terms of how people relate to their worlds and their environments. This focus can provide one means of de-colonizing the discipline with more indigenous voices and concepts (for example, African philosophers) in anthropological discourse. Yet it remains difficult to escape one’s own analytical framework. When local (indigenous) views are expressed, they often come through only selected interlocutors—for example, local philosophers and intellectuals educated in Europe and North American academia, thereby requiring several “hoops” of cultural and linguistic translation. I hope to avoid or minimize authoritatively “repackaging” indigenous/local cultural knowledge selectively. I have pondered and reflected critically on diverse streams of knowledge and subject positionings in Tuareg society. I do not advocate so-called “death of the author” approaches, however, or entirely relinquish ethnographic authority. Some insights also emerge in distance from the familiar. There may be alternatives to either extreme—of “death of the author” or more conventional ethnographic authority—by juxtaposing ethnographic analysis with local exegeses, debate, alternative interpretations, and giving them equal epistemological value.

In this Tuareg case, the smith/artisan and the Islamic scholar, while opposing each other in many respects given the latter’s disapproval of the former’s action as anti-social, are both local intellectuals and philosophers who offer rich perspectives on causation in a context of mutual trauma, even panic (immediate for the traveler, longer-term for many Tuareg residents). Local philosophers often express many ways of viewing and understanding problems of evil and causation (Olsen and Van Beek, 2016; Parkin, 1985). Humans are not always the primary agents of causation or intention in making meanings (Lawres & Sanger, 2022:7). For example, Philippe Descola (2013[2005]) and Eduardo Kohn (2013) revive the classic anthropological topic of animism, as I revive the classic anthropological topic of sorcery here, by reframing it as a topic of ontology. In some local ontological understandings, humans and other creations (plants, animals, spirits) share similar inner essences with different outward physical bodies or physicalities. These inner essences enable relations between humans and animals to develop and be maintained over time, and provide the basis for their shared sentience and agency, notwithstanding the possibility of negative and dangerous, even malevolent, intention and agency.

Conclusion and coda

The foregoing scorpion instigation in effect constituted an inversion of positive moral agency, prompting deep moral reflection in its aftermath of diagnosis and treatment. Local philosophers such as the smith/artisan and the marabout also often framed the acquisition of knowledge in moral terms, though the expression and effect/consequence of this was conveyed to the sorcery target in very material terms (the insects), paralleling the genre of animal tales whose characters enact a moral commentary. Knowing can be powerfully revealed by non-human entities. But all knowledge, while open to some alternative interpretation, is value-laden, and must be managed carefully; hence this conclusion is a cautious, tentative one, leaving unresolved some aspects of the “mystery” of whether or not a “real” scorpion “really stung a “real” child.

Instructive here for understanding psychotherapy is a brief comparison of the social psychology of sorcery to that of divination, a practice also offering psychotherapeutic counselling. Unlike divination in much of continental and diasporic Africa (Peek and Van Beek, 2014:350), sorcery is not officially institutionalized, but covert. Tuareg sorcery, as shown, is associated with hidden actions or sentiments and anti-social evil in its intentionality, but in its consequences (expression and psycho-social counselling treatment), like divination, sorcery brings hidden actions or sentiments to the surface and thereby transcends its immediate traumatic consequence. Yet the sorcerer, unlike the diviner, is often marginal, as for example widely-held local stereotypes that former marginals and subordinates, (smith/artisans and descendants of client and enslaved peoples), are more likely to practice sorcery and be more skilled at it, as a form of informal unofficial power despite rumored occasional collaboration of a few “bad” marabouts. Perhaps this stereotyping was also a projection of elites’ and others’ psychological guilt or fear from tense histories brought to their social relationships. Perhaps ambiguous moral intent was also attributed to the traveler/customer, as outside intruder into a region still experiencing precarity, and as such, was feared as also capable of anti-social actions, and needed to be tested.

Sorcery therefore persists—whether insights from psychological and social/cultural anthropology entirely resolve its “mysteries” empirically or not— because it produces powerful local meanings and even “truth” in the sense of relational personhood and moral commentary, even though deception or error cannot be discovered definitively. The instigator of sorcery determines what is appropriate to the target’s predicament and actions (or inactions). Sorcery, notwithstanding its ambiguous or malevolent intention, has the positive effect of negotiating existential crises. Unlike divination, it does not resolve intracommunity conflict, but rather expresses it. In causing distress, sorcery prompts an individual to seek to mitigate inner psychic conflict and distress and perhaps, also try to make social amends, acting relationally. In other words, the traveler in the foregoing “scorpion” sorcery case was in effect drawn into personhood in relational rather than individual terms, as instructed by the pedagogical incident (albeit unconsciously).

This analysis has hopefully contributed to scholarship on the interplay between transcultural psycho-social and anthropological studies, by showing how sorcery bridges the psychic and the cultural in local ontological wisdom and social practice. These considerations hopefully also raise questions and suggest further directions to pursue in studies of how people cope with danger, panic/trauma, and uncertainty psychologically and religiously, when the psyche is embedded in sociality and personhood is predominantly relational, though not necessarily always harmoniously communal. Indeed, uncertainty in intersectional positioning can enhance understanding of the constructed, contestable, and contentious character of knowledge (Rabinow and Samemian-Dawash 2015), and can illuminate both differences and similarities between western biomedical and non-western forms of psychotherapy. Tuareg ark echaghel offers rich insights for alternative streams of analysis of psyche-society relationships, which hopefully foreground local theories of culture, society, and psyche in relation to concepts of moral person and agency/causation, and suggest avenues to pursue in “de-colonizing” a seemingly “exotic” topic.