WITCH DOCTORS
AN AFRICAN PROBLEM
Mr. I-\ H. Holland, Fellow of tho Boyal Anthropological Institute, representing Northern Ehodesia at the International Congress of Anthropological arid Ethnological Sciences, spoke of witchcraft in Africa recently.
"Hitherto," ho said, "wo havo studied the problem, from the wrong side, troubled by what shocked our Western twentieth century ideas. Tho one material aspect, hitherto ignored by our Legislature, is that practically the whole population in Africa believes that every one can bo, and at any moment may bo, bewitched. To help those millions 'of people we have, done less than nothing, for, denying them help, wo have made the only help they know a crime.
"There is a wide gap between witch killing which we call murder and the executions which vce carry out on those who in native eyes are innocent and praiseworthy folk. I am convinced that that gulf can be bridged, and that in the great majority of tribes natives will co-operate with wonderful enthusiasm in finding a way out, but such a solution is impossible so long |as we hold, on our present. course.
"All our Courts and properly-consti-tuted Native Courts should be authorised to try persons accused of witchcraft, in open court, and as a sequel to that we should be ruthless on irregular trials. All bona fide witcli doctors should be registered and their assistance sought in stamping out the unqualified practitioner."
WITCH DOCTORS
Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 78, 29 September 1934, Page 13
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Evening Post. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in