Case file · Witch trials
'Sorcerers of Dobu'
Anthropologist Reo Fortune's 'Sorcerers of Dobu' (1932) described an island society in Milne Bay where nearly every illness and death was attributed to sorcery or witchcraft.
1932 CE · -9.75, 150.86 · status: official
The account
Fortune recorded secret spells owned by individuals for gardening, disease and love. Ruth Benedict's 'Patterns of Culture' (1934) made Dobu a famous, if simplified, example.
The sceptical view
Later researchers argued Fortune and Benedict exaggerated Dobuan suspicion; the study is ethnography of belief.