Abstract
The AIDS epidemic has become anchored not only in the historic and contemporary experience of Zimbabweans but also in their shared thought
patterns. A familiar pattern is the suspicion of sorcery. Because sorcery
beliefs have worldwide distribution, they are crucial in understanding
perceptions of and reactions to misfortune, illness, and death.1 Diseases
tend to elicit sorcery beliefs, which may play a minor role in some societies, but are inseparable from virtually all systems of disease etiology.2 In
regions inundated by HIV/AIDS, we can expect that people will refer to
sorcery beliefs as they try to understand the epidemic. My Zimbabwean
study illustrates this dynamic.