222 Buchbesprechungen 
Norden von Mocambique“, sondern etwa in 
der Mitte an der Bahnlinie von Beira nach 
Salisbury. Die von den Kriges gemachte Zeit 
angabe für das Auftauchen der lelopo-Besessen 
heit bei den Lovedu (vor „30 Jahren“) ist vom 
Datum der Fertigstellung des Manuskripts 
(1939) oder dem der 1. Auflage (1943) an 
zurückzurechnen, nicht dem der 4. im Jahr 
1956 (Heintze, p. 157). 
Diese Kritik ist keine Einschränkung der 
eingangs gemachten Bewertung. Für die Kul 
turgeschichte haben sich vielleicht eine Reihe 
neuer Gesichtspunkte dadurch ergeben, daß 
zum ersten Male die Erscheinungen eines 
großen zusammenhängenden Gebiets so lük- 
kenlos, wie es die Literatur erlaubte, zusam 
mengestellt wurden. Für kulturhistorische 
Arbeiten dürfte es jedoch günstiger sein, wenn 
man eine kleinere Region, aber ein weiteres 
Spektrum von Erscheinungen auswählt, die 
verglichen werden können. 
G. Liesegang 
HILDA KUPER: 
A Witch in My Heart. A play set in Swazi 
land in the 1930s. With a Foreword by 
Max Gluckman. London: International 
African Institute, Oxford University Press. 
1970. 70 S. 
Hilda Kuper is one of the great field wor 
kers whose insight into the nature of the 
societies they have studied have given us those 
valuable monographs other people come along 
and construct their ephemeral theories upon: 
Once again she has given proof of her deep 
understanding of Swazi life and culture, but 
in a somewhat unprecedented manner. 
Here she presents a play dramatizing con 
flicts and tensions resulting from the anoma 
lous position of a barren wife in a poly- 
gynous household in the Swaziland of the 
nineteen-thirties. It shows how the actual 
individuals, who are members of a society 
with certain rules of behaviour and with 
definite beliefs about the causes of disease, 
death and misfortune, have to cope with the 
antagonisms engendered when death and mis 
fortune befall them. In this case, as probably 
in very many cases, the accusation of witch 
craft hurled at the barren but favourite wife 
of his son by the aged head of the family 
leads inexorably to the disintegration of the 
son’s polygynous family. This is partly also a 
result of the encroaching civilization of the 
“Whites“, as it provides the son with an 
admittedly unsatisfactory way of escape when 
his favourite wife is driven from the home 
of his ancestors as a proven witch. Indeed, 
she herself admits to being a witch in her 
heart in the end, although she is not aware of 
having consciously applied witchcraft stra 
tagems. In other words, this play shows what 
happens when the abstract rules generally 
formulated by social anthropologists actually 
come into play in the lives of the individual 
people directly concerned. 
When reading the book this reviewer 
thought that anthropology students might 
from it learn more about the actual situations 
individuals in foreign cultures and societies 
studied by social anthropologists find them 
selves in and the problems they are confronted 
with than by reading frequently extremely 
abstract accounts of the social organization 
usually met with in social anthropology. 
While the latter teem with technical terms 
like “homoeostatic model“ or “dysfunction“, 
whose meaning, to the beginner at least, 
must appear as in a glass darkly, Hilda Kuper 
gives the actual idiom in which problems such 
as accusations of witchcraft in Swazi society 
are or have to be dealt with. For many be 
ginners I think the Swazi idiom is more 
meaningful, easier to grasp and definitely far 
more impressive. Is it not more effective to 
say of a man finding difficulty in changing 
his old ways when faced for the first time 
with city life: “You are old bones and can’t 
be twisted!“ than to enunciate something like 
the following: “When in an acculturative 
situation of urbanisation individuals, who 
have experienced a prolonged period of encul- 
turation in a traditional rural and still fairly 
stable culture, frequently find it impossible 
to adjust successfully to the novel circum 
stances in an urban social environment?“ 
As it is very unlikely that this play will be 
produced in this country, this reviewer feels 
the time spent on reading it was time well 
spent, especially as the preface of 25 pages by 
the author provides a valuable introduction 
to Swazi society that greatly facilitates under 
standing of the plot. 
J. W. Raum