Witchcraft or Spiritual Power among Bajju Christians

Abstract

The Bajju in Northern Nigeria believe in an inherent inherited capacity for the use of spiritual power, also termed witchcraft, that results in illnesses, misfortune, evil, and death in the physical realm. This article explores this system, including indications that an individual is practicing witchcraft and the assumptions behind this conceptual system. It is a system that some Bajju Christians are seeking to Christianize by asserting that it is an evil spirit or evil spirits that can enter a person whose own spirit then leaves his or her body to meet with other spirits in the spiritual realm, resulting in dire consequences for someone in the physical realm. Thus, witchcraft is used to explain evil even among Christians. I suggest that a more biblical understanding of evil, rooted in a mother tongue translation of the Bible, is needed to prepare Christians to take responsibility for their own behavior and to properly attribute evil to Satan, the father of lies.