witch doctor

Witch doctors from Lassa, Borno State, Nigeria.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪtʃ ˌdɒktə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪtʃ ˌdɑktɚ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: witch doc‧tor

witch doctor (plural witch doctors)

1. A person who is believed to ward off witchcraft and heal through magical powers; a shaman.
   • 1718, Francis Hutchinson, An Historical Essay Concerning Wichcraft:

     […] but the said Dorothy Durent, having been with a Witch-Doctor, acknowledges upon Oath, that by his Advice, she hang'd up her Child's Blanket in the Chimney, found a toad in it at Night, had put it into the Fire, and held it there tho' it made a great and horrible Noise […]

   • 1820, John C. Knowlson, The complete cow-leech, or cattle doctor, volume 8, page 104:

     Some people are so foolish as to go to a witch-doctor when they have Cows in this complaint: — they give him some money, and he tells them some frivolous tale, such as that some person that wishes them bad luck, or looks upon them with an evil eye […]

   • 1893, South African Law Journal, volume 10, page 219:

     At that consultation, according to the habit of a witch-doctor, he divined and announced the occasion of their attendance, and indicated the complainant, Mdungazwe, as the wizard who had caused Ranise to suffer.

   • 1958, David Seville, "Witch Doctor"

     I told the witch doctor I was in love with you / And then the witch doctor he told me what to do

   • 1971, Jilek W.G., “From Crazy Witch Doctor to Auxiliary Psychotherapist – The Changing Image of the Medicine Man”, in Psychopathology, volume 4, number 4, page 200:

     Review of the literature cited in the bibliography of the present paper left this author with the impression that there is indeed a very widespread institution variously labelled by Western observers with epithets such as medicine-man, shaman, witch-doctor, native healer, or with indigenous terms such as angakok (Eskimo), or mganga (Swahili).

   • 1991, Sudhir Kakar, Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry Into India and Its Healing Traditions:

     In much of popular Western literature, the non-Western professional who attends to the relief of distress and alleviation of anxiety in his society is known by many names, none of them exactly respectful. He is a medicine man or a witch doctor, native healer or voodoo sorcerer — the "quack," so to speak, never the "doctor."

   • 1993, Hama Tuma, The Case of the Socialist Witchdoctor and Other Stories, page 36:

     The man being led into the Cage did not strike me as a witchdoctor. Slim and tall, he was a middle-aged man with a fuzzy Afro which made him look even younger.

• witchdoctor

• healer

• medicine man, medicine woman

• witch-doctoring
• witch-doctory
• witch-doctress

• witch doctor on Wikipedia.Wikipedia