‘Wives of the Gods’: Debating Fiasidi and the Politics of Meaning

force within the cosmological landscape, a danger to anyone’s well-being and described as an evil spirit (gbɔgbɔvɔ). In this sense, they are commonly referred to in daily conversations as “our friends” or gbɔgbɔ (spirit), alongside other unknown gbɔgbɔvɔ, as a way to discuss adzetɔ covertly and without attracting their attention. However, adzetɔwo are also described as being a quality of a person, the spirit of adze located in a person, often unknowingly. Adzetɔwo are understood as being able to leave their bodies at night, their spirit entering their victims’ dreams at which point they do their most harm. While adzetɔwo are often spoken about abstractly and as wandering the landscape in search of victims, peoples’ experiences with adzetɔwo are embedded in their social relations and the conflicts that may occur within these relations. Studies of witchcraft in Africa generally have demonstrated it to be the “dark side of kinship” (Geschiere & Fisiy 1994, p. 325; Geschiere 1997), intimately connected to kin relations and partly a consequence of the tension between members in relation to wealth. For example, Meyer notes about the Peki-Ewe that, “the Ewe understood witchcraft as a life-destroying activity undertaken by a jealous person envying richer family members; traditionally, the best remedy against the threat of witchcraft was to share one’s riches with one’s (poorer) relatives” (Meyer 1996, p. 216; cf Meyer 1995, p. 238; Meyer 1992). In addition to poor relatives, the paternal aunt and the elderly are often suspected of being witches, particularly in situations where children are ill or die (Meyer 2001, p. 108; Meyer 1992, p.118). Meyer’s informants, associated with Ewe Pentecostal movements in Peki, posit a distinction between witchcraft in kinship structures, understood to be a symptom of jealousy in relation to wealth inequalities, and the commercialisation of adzetɔ, where people seek out the ability to use witchcraft in order to accumulate wealth (1992, p. 118; cf Geschiere 1997). In contrast, Klikortɔwo do not make this distinction or