A new perspective, an important conceptual departure from the traditional world view, expressing the basic ethnic of the Harrist Church of the Ivory Coast, has important behavioural implications for its members. It allows a young man to feel that if he had the means, he should be able to build himself a concrete house without the fear, shared by young men in the past, of being ‘suppressed’ by his elders. The basic conceptual change is in the locus of responsibility for one’s fate. Whereas in the past the individual who became ill or experienced other misfortunes sought to find out which relative or neighbour was harming him, he now seeks the fault in himself. A result of the culture contact between Europeans and Africans was that sources of wealth, and consequently power, were made available to the young rather than to their elders. This threatened the structure and cohesion of the family. The ensuing conflicts were representative for the more general antagonisms in the society. In the complex interaction between traditional and modern social forces, the witchcraft complex provides new ways of comprehending and managing the conflicts and complexities of contemporary reality. Notes.
