| Abstract: | Historical comparison of oracles in west Africa, mainly during the nineteenth century, shows how divination practices may alter. In the cases explored here, reputation, range of users, economic growth, and political influence interacted as these oracles developed; some at sites with internal and overseas trade access became complex, large-scale operations. But by about 1900, colonialists felt threatened by their secular and their spiritual power and smashed them physically, though not spiritually. Contextualized comparison shows that the many people who were involved as oracle organizers and supplicants must have had different motivations and interests. Some methodological implications of the findings are considered. As in many powerful secular organizations, access to insider knowledge was blocked, but oracular reputation was important, and the oracles had competitors. Success derived partly from collecting intelligence, with simultaneous advertisement that emphasized the mysterious power of their operations. |
