ular granary fell on that particular person. The first port of call is always witchcraft because ‘If there had been no witchcraft, people would have been sitting under the granary and it would not have fallen on them, or it would have collapsed but the people would not have been sheltering under it at the time. Witchcraft explains the coincidence of these two happenings.’ To the Azande people it is perfectly rational to suspect witches are responsible for these acts, as they believe that witchcraft existing is a self-evident truth. They do not question if witchcraft but rather how. A Western scientist would consider the non-existence of witchcraft to be a self-evident truth and therefore conclude something different, that the death was an accident. E. Mansell Pattison believes that the difference is not a question of rationality but rather ‘…our differing construction of what reality is.’ ; the self evident truths we hold, and it would seem these are not as objective as we like to think they are.It is also important to look at the language we use when describing certain things. As I mentioned before there is little difference between magic and religion however by us labelling one ‘magic’ we are already influencing our own perceptions. Magic in the west is very much a part of fantasy. It is common knowledge that magic shows are just tricks of the eye and manipulation of situations. In fact a magician’s sole purpose is to trick the audience. When we label a people’s practice as magic we are almost informing people that these practices are no more than tricks themselves. The same can be said when we talk about shamans and doctors. One will use Western medicine and one will not, but are they really that different? I believe they are either doctors, or both shamans. Sometimes our language can represent people unfairly.We also have to be aware that things which are unfamilia...
