Evans-Pritchard, Sir E E

Evans-Pritchard, Sir E(dward) E(van)

(born Sept. 21, 1902, Crowborough, Sussex, Eng.—died Sept. 11, 1973, Oxford, Oxfordshire) British social anthropologist. The most influential British social anthropologist since Bronislaw Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, Evans-Pritchard succeeded the latter at Oxford University (1946), where he served as mentor to a generation of students. His studies of African systems of belief, witchcraft, religion, politics, and oral tradition remain foundational to the study of African societies and non-Western systems of thought. Among his major works are Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (1937), The Nuer (1940), and (with Meyer Fortes) African Political Systems (1940).