MASS MIGRATION

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 78, 29 September 1934, Page 16

MASS MIGRATION

A BEMOYAL OF WITCHES

ACTION IN AFRICA

One of. the'most remarkable removals of our time is about to.take place: a whole colony of witches is to be migrated to a placo whore they can do no'harm, says the "Children's Newspaper.''; It. is. the -Government of Kenya which is taking steps to overthrow the witches, one of the. chief barriers to happiness and civilisation-in its territory. ■• , . It has introduced legislation to. remove the entire clan of witch doctors from tho Lumbwa Native Reserve to a district beside Lako Victoria.. . The seven hundred members of this flan -will'be forbidden to leave this district, and if they do so they will be imprisoned. The authorities have_ found that much srinio and unrest in the Lumbwa Bescrve is duo to the evil influence of this clan, tho stealing of cattle and attacks on settlers being on the increase. When the witch doctors are settled in their new homo the Government will try to educate their children, widening their outlook so .that they will no longer believe that their fathers' have supernatural powers wh^eh have been transmitted to them. InZululand and South Africa generally the witch doctors, whose, most notorious practice was the smolling-out o£ such criminals as poisoners, have been suppressed. But in Central Africa their influence, still prevails, over millions of natives, holding many ot .the forest negroes, to tho practice of appalling nets, including cannibalism. The witch doctor is an expert in hypnotism, trances, and conjuring. With weird patterns on the skin.round his eyes, he is to be seen sitting--.by his little wooden hut with a magic circle surrounding the primitive implements of ; his strange trado. ■" ' ' . -He -is the representative of a type to ■be-found all over the world, the man who is slightly cleverer-than lus-neigh-bours anduses his cleverness to live at their expense by stirring up the fear all simple minds have for the unknown and the mysterious; . . ■ ' It is not many generations since Witches and wizards had "^extraordinary influence in the social ■Mo ot European countries accounted civilised. .The Church for ccntures fought against these men and women who relied on the superstition and ignorance of their neighbours to pursue their crimes. The} fook advantage of Christiamty by-clam-ing to be the ministers of Satan. One .of their practices was to secure some consecrated object and misuse its sup-posed-powers; for instance, they would steal- the consecrated water fro«l the font, so that orders were given that all fonts were to be padlocked. The staples lor these, padlocks are to be seen in many an old, English font today, and wo Jhave actually seen a font with its cover padlocked to it. X England cruel laws against witches we parsed in tho reigns of Elizabeth and James the First. Terrible stones •of this period are on record, and the strange thing is that the women so often gconfes 9 ged to supernatural powers which they believed, they possessed. There was an Agnes "Watd-house of Hat--fiewplveril in Essex who went about S awhi o spotted cat called Sathan which was supposed to change itself "confeTing her misdeeds she declared that when she Went to church (and she did so' regularly) she said tho Lords Prayer inLatin because Sathan would iot permit her to say * ™.f^ I*'. Then there was Ellen Smith -of Mai-; aon, who'was executed i«JSW>. A man; quarrelled with her, and nothing he ate afterwards would digest, that M aied.: Another man who refused alms to Ellen's sou was seized with a groat pain ;in his body. A rat ran up his chimney and fell down as a toad. Ike man'B friends seized the toad and burned it alive in the fire; the witnesses declared that this caused Ellen great pain. Her son confessed that^his mother kept three- spirits, one called •Great Dick in a wicker bottle, a second called Little Dick in aleather, bottle, and a third named Willet in.a wool- -■ With-the law offering money; rewards, to all; who exposed witchcraft it is not surprising that informers came forward. Matthew Hopkins, who had been trained in the law, became a witehfinder by-profession. His chief method was to give the old women no sleep or rest until they confessed to witchcraft, their'own confessions thus bringing them:to the flames. The law paid him 20s a head. He would tie the thumbs and toes of his victims and dump them in a pond; If they were innocent they were drowned, bnt if they wero guilty and floated they were burned or hanged. Public opinion supported'this smell-Jng-oht of witches, as it was called, but magistrates often saw the truth, and we find them petitioning Parliament in 1G45 to pardon a group of poor women. Still, the law,was in force for another 100 years. The last trial and execution of a witch in our island took placo in 1722, in Scotland, but only ten years earlier an English Judge secured tho Royal par-. donfor Jane Wenham, the last English- ] ■woman to be convicted. This case led to the repeal of one of the cruellest laws that have ever been on o\ir Statute • Book, closing one of the most extra- j ordinary, chapters of superstition in the history of .civilisation. J