This book brings unique insight and prize-winning analysis to an extraordinary story - that of a witch-hunt and 'ninja' craze that swept a region of Java, Indonesia, in 1998. Nicholas Herriman shows how killings occur when neighbours, family members and friends believe that one among them is a sorcerer. Using first-hand accounts, Herriman provides a detailed context and history of these events and analyses their development in terms of the interplay of local culture and dynamics (gossip, suspicion of sorcerers, violence) and national institutions (the state, political parties, NGOs and the press).
