How Did Spirits Become Witchcraft in Fiji?

Pentecostal campaigns transformed older spirit relationships into stories of demonic attack, deepening fear and village conflict.

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Older Beliefs About Spirits and Ancestral Power
Pentecostal Conversion and Spiritual Warfare
Village Conflict, Suspicion and Social Harm

Introduction

In many parts of Fiji, ancestral spirits were not traditionally understood as the same thing as witchcraft or demonic forces. They formed part of a wider moral and social world in which the dead, the living and the land remained connected. The major shift came much later, as Pentecostal and charismatic churches expanded from the late twentieth century onwards. Their emphasis on spiritual warfare increasingly reinterpreted older spirit beliefs as evidence of demonic activity, curses or witchcraft. This was not simply a theological debate. In some villages it changed how people understood illness, family history and misfortune, creating new suspicions and sometimes deep social conflict. Rather than replacing older beliefs, Pentecostal teachings often transformed them into a new framework in which ancestral spirits became dangerous spiritual enemies rather than respected parts of community life.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

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Older Beliefs About Spirits and Ancestral Power

Before widespread Christian influence, indigenous Fijian understandings of the spiritual world were complex and varied across regions. Ancestors, spirits associated with particular places and other supernatural beings could protect families, enforce customary obligations or explain unexpected events. Encounters with spirits were not automatically regarded as evil. Instead, they reflected continuing relationships between communities, ancestors and the landscape.

These beliefs survived well after nineteenth-century missionary conversion. Even within predominantly Christian villages, many people continued to recognise stories of ancestral presence, sacred places and inherited spiritual knowledge. The long-established Methodist Church often accommodated aspects of this cultural heritage rather than treating every traditional belief as incompatible with Christianity. This produced a religious landscape in which Christian worship and older understandings of spiritual power frequently coexisted.[Western Sydney University]researchers.westernsydney.edu.auWestern Sydney UniversityGhost, spirits and Christian denominational politics: a case from Fiji - Western Sydney University…

An important point is that possessing ancestral knowledge did not traditionally make a family suspect. Certain lineages were recognised as custodians of specialised ritual knowledge or healing practices. Such knowledge could carry responsibilities and social status as well as risk, but it was not automatically equated with harmful magic.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

Pentecostal Conversion and Spiritual Warfare

The most significant change came with the rapid expansion of Pentecostal churches after Fiji’s independence. Pentecostal preaching placed great emphasis on spiritual warfare: the idea that Christians are engaged in a constant struggle against Satan, demons and occult forces.

Anthropologist Lynda Newland argues that this theological framework fundamentally altered how many villagers interpreted older beliefs. Practices that had previously been viewed as ancestral traditions or customary knowledge were increasingly described as demonic, cursed or forms of witchcraft. Families believed to possess inherited ritual knowledge became especially vulnerable to suspicion because their history was reinterpreted as evidence of an ongoing spiritual curse.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

This transformation did not necessarily mean that belief in spirits declined. Instead, belief often intensified while changing its meaning. Rather than denying the existence of ancestral spirits, Pentecostal teaching frequently accepted their reality but identified them as deceptive demonic beings requiring deliverance through prayer and conversion. As a result, older cosmologies were not erased; they were reorganised into a Christian narrative of spiritual conflict.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

The consequences extended beyond theology. Illness, infertility, repeated accidents or unexplained deaths could now be interpreted as signs of inherited spiritual pollution instead of unfortunate events or ancestral obligations. Pentecostal pastors and believers often presented conversion, exorcism or intensive prayer as the only effective remedy.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

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Why Spirit Beliefs Became Witchcraft Accusations

The mechanism behind this change was not simply increased fear of the supernatural. Several overlapping developments encouraged the reinterpretation.

A new religious vocabulary. Pentecostal churches introduced a universal language of demons, curses and spiritual warfare that could absorb existing local beliefs into a single moral framework.

Competition between churches. Pentecostal congregations frequently distinguished themselves from the established Methodist Church by portraying traditional practices that Methodists had tolerated as spiritually dangerous. Religious competition therefore encouraged sharper boundaries over what counted as acceptable Christianity.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

Inherited suspicion. Because spiritual knowledge was often associated with particular families, accusations could become hereditary. Descendants might be viewed as carrying ancestral curses even when they had never practised traditional rituals themselves.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

Modern explanations for misfortune. Rather than abandoning supernatural explanations, Pentecostal theology provided new ways to explain persistent illness, economic hardship or family tragedy. Misfortune became evidence of hidden spiritual attack requiring religious intervention.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

Research shows that these changing interpretations sometimes produced serious local tensions rather than remaining abstract religious disagreements.

Newland documents villages where Pentecostal conversion divided communities along family and denominational lines. On Beqa Island, religious disagreements became so severe that village unity fractured. In another case from Naitasiri, conflict escalated into violence as competing understandings of spiritual power collided. These disputes were not simply arguments about doctrine. They affected leadership, kinship obligations and everyday relationships between neighbours.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

Families associated with traditional knowledge could become isolated because neighbours feared that contact with them carried spiritual danger. Objects connected with older ritual practices might be destroyed or removed during campaigns of spiritual cleansing. The language of curses and deliverance also changed how people interpreted ordinary illness or personal setbacks, increasing pressure to identify hidden spiritual causes within the community.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

Importantly, these developments were uneven across Fiji. Many villages continued to combine Christianity with respect for cultural traditions, while others embraced Pentecostal interpretations much more strongly. Anthropologists therefore caution against treating Fiji as having a single national pattern of belief.[University of St Andrews Research Portal]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…

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Why This Matters for Understanding Fear in Fiji

The shift from ancestral spirits to witchcraft threats illustrates how collective fears can emerge through religious change rather than through the survival of ancient beliefs alone.

Older Fijian traditions recognised powerful spiritual beings, but those beings were not automatically viewed as agents of evil. Pentecostal spiritual warfare introduced a different interpretive framework in which many inherited relationships with ancestors became signs of demonic influence. The result was a new form of suspicion directed not at strangers but sometimes at one’s own relatives and neighbours.

For historians and anthropologists, this episode demonstrates that fears of witchcraft are not fixed cultural inheritances. They can be reshaped by changing religious movements, competition between churches and new ways of explaining suffering. In Fiji, the language of spiritual warfare transformed existing beliefs into new narratives of danger, helping to explain why ancestral spirits, once seen as part of the moral landscape, increasingly came to be regarded in some communities as evidence of witchcraft and spiritual threat.[st-andrews.ac.uk]research-portal.st-andrews.ac.ukUniversity of St Andrews Research PortalTurning the Spirits into Witchcraft: Pentecostalism in Fijian Villages - University of St Andrews…