Witches are people believed to possess invisible powers, that nobody can explain, to do harm to others. This power is said to be in the heart of one so accused and it is not quite certain whether he knows of it himself. To prove that one is a witch or wizard the root of a certain herb (pwave) is mixed with water in a bowl and given to one to drink of it. If he does not vomit he is said to be a witch, but if he does he is not a witch.

Aje may be virgins (wundia), matrons (adelebɔ), or old women (arugbo). All of them can change themselves into small birds and fly to a meeting place in the bush, where they kill men by sucking their blood. Only the old women cry out when they fly about as birds. Ordinary people cannot recognize witches in everyday life. There is a medicine, however, which when applied to the eyes gives one the power to see witches. A person whose eyes have thus been opened will be surprised to see witches sitting in Church or beside his friends. The medicine also enables one to recognize which people can turn themselves into witches. There are medicines to protect oneself from the attentions of witches. Witches have to find a way into a man and cannot affect any one who is strong and healthy. Witches meet in companies, but in secret, for they will not admit that they are witches.

A witch is a spirit which is believed to fall into a person and to make him altogether a slave so that he does whatever the spirit wants him to do. This spirit lives mainly in old women and women in general, but is also found in men. In a man it is stronger than in a woman. It is like fire and so it is seen at night like a collection of live coals. It likes to stay in trees and particularly in coconut trees, and is but seldom seen on the ground. When it flies along or alights on a tree, it is constantly scattering fire sparks in thick showers.

In Ewe, adzé, in eastern dialects azé, is a witch spirit, and adzétɔ a person possessed by a witch. To this word corresponds Yoruba adzé, and Ekoi ndze with the same meaning. According to the Ewe, a witch (spirit or person)is a being which takes its abode in persons, for preference in women. At night it or he (she) leaves its human body, as a snake casts its skin, and walks about emitting fire from its eyes, mouth, or nose; it likes to walk with its head on the ground or, when upright, with its feet turned backward. It kills people by sucking their blood at night or by taking away their shadow (‘soul’) at noon-time.

Witches are spirits which can change themselves into the forms of many things, e.g. quadrupeds, snakes, and trees. A witch in action can be seen as a glowing lantern which at intervals sparks like a burning fire. A witch glows from midnight until early morning. A witch can glow on a tree on the edge of a town or even on a shady tree in the street of a town.

The art is not confined solely to women, but men also can practice it and such a man is called a wizard; and if two such wizards live in a town they can ruin this town, therefore wizards generally inhabit a town singly. A wizard in a town is the ‘chief’ of the witches of that town, and when they meet he assigns the night's duty to them. Children also are concerned in the art.