Settlement, wealth inequality and witchcraft

Witchcraft beliefs, or the idea that certain individuals can use magic to harm others, have been widespread historically and remain prevalent in many regions, but their socioecological correlates and potential functions remain unclear. Accusations of harmful magic commonly occur where witchcraft beliefs are socially salient and may provide a means of imposing costs on competitors in contexts of resource competition. We created a global dataset on the presence or absence of witchcraft beliefs in small-scale societies ( n = 242) and combined this with socioecological variables from Murdock's Ethnographic Atlas (EA). Using phylogenetic comparative methods, we tested whether witchcraft beliefs are associated with socioecological conditions, particularly those relating to resource competition and conflict. Witchcraft beliefs were less common in mobile hunter-gatherer societies than in sedentary agricultural societies, consistent with the possibility that mobility provides opportunities to mitigate conflict through physical separation. Beliefs were also more common in societies with class divisions than in relatively egalitarian societies, but declined in societies characterised by complex stratification, suggesting a nonlinear relationship between social inequality and witchcraft beliefs. We found no association between witchcraft beliefs and environmental uncertainty, while phylogenetic covariation suggests that cultural history also contributes to their distribution. However, variation remained among relatively egalitarian societies. These findings suggest that both socioecological pressures and cultural history contribute to the distribution of witchcraft beliefs.