Witchcraft

19). .
             The reason for this bias against women can be explained by the Nupe's lifestyle and their backward sense of normality of social roles. Nadel (1952) states: .
             The economic position of the Nupe wives, many of whom are successful itinerant traders, is generally much better then that of their peasant husbands. Thus husbands are often heavily in debt to their wives, and the latter assume many of the financial responsibilities which should rightly belong to the men as fathers and family heads, such as finding bride-price for sons, paying for the children's educations, bearing the expenses of family fests, and the like. This reversal of the institutionalized roles is openly resented by the men, who are, however, helpless and unable to redress the situation. (p.21) .
             In their need for control and the frustrations of being considered the lower of the two sexes, the Nupe man can only find superiority on the "fantasy-realm- where "the main collective weapon against witchcraft lies in the activities of a male secret society which, by threats and torture, cleanses' villages of witchcraft [and] the men alone have the secret power of defeating female witchcraft- (Nadel, 1952p. 19). This way, even though their power is held only in the "fantasy realm-, the victims accused of witchcraft are held accountable on a real, tangible plane where the man is finally victorious over the woman.
             An example of this is the case where a Nupe man's body was found in a river, but instead of assuming he may have drowned, they blamed an elderly woman with whom the man had spent a great deal of time (Nadel, 1952). The Nupe thought of this kind of relationship as "something like a protégé of that woman or son of the house' [a term] applied to any individual who seeks the patronage of some influential older person and becomes dependent upon his patron's advice and material help- (Nadel, 1952 p.