Bewitching Zulu Women: Umhayizo, Gender, and Witchcraft in KwaZulu-Natal

Document Abstract / Summary Overview

Abstract Umhayizo, a form of bewitchment of young women supposedly caused by the use of love medicines, has been reported in south-eastern Africa, especially in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal, for more than a century. Co-authored by an historian and an anthropologist, ‘Bewitching Zulu Women’ begins with an ethnographic description of an incident of umhayizo in 2000 and then brings together avariety of sources and perspectives on umhayizo including late-nineteenth-century evidence of umhayizo from missionary accounts of the use of love medicines; archival documents which reflect increasing African ambivalence about the use of love medicines; accounts and explanations of umhayizo by ethnographers, anthropologists and psychologists from the 1950s; and recent observations of and treatments for umhayizo in rural KwaZulu-Natal. We argue that it is important to pay attention to the specificities of the phenomenon of umhayizo so as to understand how it might be placed in the context of gender politics, including the gendered use of love medicines, and of the control of women’s sexuality both in the past, and now, at a time when HIV/AIDS ravages this region.