The more common method-particularly post-Christian invasion-is considered more effective, quite a bit easier, and familiar to anyone who knows the Christian theology of possession: vigorous prayer. As legend goes, this method is very difficult, as the transformed adze is agile and extremely dangerous. Some believe that the only way to defeat an adze is to force it out of its host and into a quasi-human form, a hunchbacked creature with talons and jet-black skin, and then kill it. While there is little that can be done to fight the adze, there may be a few ways to free someone from its possession. “The adze was a widespread spiritual problem,” she says, “adze attacks were steady and relentless.” 1850–Present, says she encountered many women accused of being possessed by the adze. Anthropologist Meera Venkatachalam, who documented her decade of fieldwork among the Ewe people in Slavery, Memory and Religion in Southeastern Ghana, c. A woman who appears envious of her husband’s other wives, a woman who is infertile, or a woman with an uneven temperament are all thought to be possessed by an adze. Just as Western women throughout history have been viewed as more susceptible to evil (from Eve to the Salem Witch Trials to Hilary Clinton), in Ewe culture, the adze are said to possess women more frequently than men. I hope you understand.” “I’ve had a bad dream the night after I agreed to talk to you about the Adze.” Unfortunately I will not be able to move ahead with it. “I’ve been trying to pray about it since I’m a Christian to get some directions from God. “I’ve had a bad dream the night after I agreed to talk to you about the Adze,” he wrote in an email. One member of the Ewe tribe who agreed to give insight into the adze canceled just hours before his interview. The adze, therefore, began to merge with and resemble something more akin to the Devil. “The Ewe Christians kept their old faith and fears and put the Christian Good on top,” Levack writes. Levack of the University of Texas at Austin, author of New Perspectives on Witchcraft, Magic, and Demonology: Witchcraft in the Modern World, as the Ewe people were exposed to the teachings of missionaries, they did not forgo their traditional religion of Vodun-which means “spirit” in Ewe and is the source of the various Vodou or Voodoo traditions in the Americas-for Christianity. If an individual showed signs of jealousy, mental illness, bad luck, addiction, marriage problems, or the inability to conceive a child-just to name a few-adze possession was often considered the culprit.Īccording to historian Brian P. In the 19th century, after Christian missionaries from Europe established colonies in the region, the adze evolved into a scapegoat for a range of other evils-personal, cosmic, biological. Gerhard Pettersson / EyeEm / Getty Images Historians believe the adze originated as an explanation of and warning against malaria and other insect-borne diseases that the Ewe people felt powerless against. Archaeological evidence shows that the Ewe people settled the coast of West Africa, in the tropical region of what is now Ghana and Togo, around the 13th century. There’s no record of when the lore of the adze first began. Witches in this culture are real, not mythical.” (He did not respond to further requests for comment.) When asked about the adze, one Ewe professor based in the United States replied, “I’ve come across adze, but only as a witch. The adze will either drain the person of life, or possess them, consigning them to madness or misery-if not both. As legend goes, there’s no potion, spell, or weapon that can ward one off, and no cure for the bitten. The adze prey on men and women, but enjoy the blood of children most of all.įor centuries, the Ewe people of West Africa have lived in fear of the adze. They fly to the bodies of the sleeping, appearing as mosquitos, beetles, fireflies, or simply balls of light. Atlas Obscura and Epic Magazine have teamed up for Monster Mythology, an ongoing series about things that go bump in the night around the world-their origins, their evolution, their modern cultural relevance.Īs night settles across Togo and Ghana, the adze, it is said, slips through keyholes, under windows, around doors.
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