WITCHES IN AFRICA

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1933, Page 3

WITCHES IN AFRICA

MAGIC-RIDDEN FOLK.

PROBLEM FOR WHITE MAN.

Witchcraft in Africa can not be laughed down. It is not so many ‘generations since the white man himselLsaw witches riding through the air on broomsticks, stirring up trouble, bringing disease and death. The witches in whom scientists and religious leaders believed' as late as the eighteenth century still , ply their Satanic craft in Africa. // ' ' Recently, - the Governor of Kenya commuted the'. death sentence of sixty Akarnba natives convicted of the murder of a woman reported to be a witch. Some years ago a witch doctor was convicted of having killed 209 witches by immersion. Like cases come. frequently before the courts, writes Frank Melland in the London Times, but they are only an infinitesimal proportion of the. whole number of cases that occur and are not brought to trial. The Bantu races believe in survival after death, and in reincarnation in the new-born, writes Mr. Melland. That is their religion. They also believe in witches. This is not part of their reWitches are- an abomination, and to the Bantu there is nothing inconsisterit between “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” because a witch is not a human being.Sickness breaks out in the village,- a woman dies in childbirth, an elder s son is killed by 'a crocodile. A man seemingly in good health dies after a short illness. Mutterings become active discontent, and the chief is anxious. A witch doctor arrives in the nick of time, as he has carefully arranged to do. He goes ' through his rigmarole, arid finally seizes upon old Nakulukananga, whose daughter died in childbirth, and who reared her grandchild from infancy without milk. The villagers fall upon her, stone her, and end her suffering with a spear. NOT NECESSARILY KNAVE. The witch doctor, says Mr. Melland, is not* necessarily a knave or an imposter. He often believes that he possesses the powers ascribed to him. Yet all this/ chicanery or skill "would, avail nothing if the black man were not so blinded by superstition that he falls an easy victim to his fears. And, says Mr. Melland seriously: “This is a matter we shall never deal with by dubbing it ridiculous and . Our attitude toward the whole problemhas hitherto been wrong, and our law is wrong. It is absurd to expect- native chiefs and headmen (who are themselves often witch-doctors) to administer the present law fairly and truly when it is so contrary to their beliefs. “We confine ourselves to prosecuting those who are fighting what they believe to be the most evil and unnatural curse that afflicts mankind, and who do but hold the belief that was held by B.acon, Raleigh, Lord Coke, Cranmer, Knox, Calvin, Wesley, and many other men of intellect and culture.” Witchcraft is still a terrible reality to the natives of Africa. “Livingstone and Gordon roused England to the horrors of slavery in Africa,” Mr. Melland writes; “but England remains deaf and blind, to this mental slavery from which every native suffer?, and which leads to far more deaths than , appear in any chronicle. The actual killing of witches is bad enough, and’ the scale of killings is big enough, but that is of less moment than the obsession .of the belief in black magic. , -

“Until we can study this psychologically and eradicate it, we shall never accomplish much in/Africa. This is a job for anthropologists and psychologists rather than for lawyers, and it should be undertaken at once, or our planning and our new-born ideals are doomed at least to partial failure and dangerous delay. first step, ja to

the law; until that is done nothing , else avails; for the law as it stands. stereoir. y types an attitude that appears preposterous to the natives; but' once done we can proceed by ( education ,t? temper, and ultimately to ; eradicate. ;tW<p all-pervading dread; and then Africa will move forward and ' begin. to. find ; herself.” ■■