Disturbing Practices

For those of you who have been following the blog you know that I have from time to time commented on the widespread belief of witchcraft here in Malawi. The following story is disturbing so stop reading now if you are sensitive to such stories. When the story is about crashed “witch airplanes” the stories have a certain ethnographical appeal but last week our day guard at our home was relating how his neighbourhood was very worried due to witch activity the night before. Human body parts are considered to be especially powerful additions to the casting of spells and sometimes graves are desecrated to find these parts. But Grant was worried as witches or those being paid by them had come to his neighbourhood the night before and killed three people. One person had their eyes removed, one their teeth and the other his genitals. Grant and his neighbours are understandably upset but catching perpetrators is often next to impossible here. Hopefully, due to the horror and concern of everyone the perpetrators will not be able to repeat this acts, but as the newspapers here show, they will just move on to another area.
Being in Malawi has definitely caused me to have a different view towards some cultural practices. I have always been fascinated by so-called superstitions held by different cultures and often they are harmless only in that they may not reveal the true nature of reality. But when superstitions cause the kind of acts that occur here and elsewhere in Africa I find it much harder to maintain a neutral position towards the cultural practices of others. When we were in Tanzania over Christmas one of the big stories in their newspapers was the rash of murders of albinos who are considered especially powerful ingredients in spells. An undercover journalist went to medicine men and witch doctors looking for spells that needed albino parts and only two of the 18 or so turned her down. The rest all offered to get it done for price tags around $2000. What was interesting was that all of them diagnosed her with a different condition and all of them prescribed a different cure. When they talked about her family life, her career and her background none of them gave correct answers towards her specific family details and none of them picked up on the fact that she was an undercover journalist.
Often the churches reinforce these beliefs by convincing their parishioners that the witches are real agents of the devil, not that they are conmen as the investigative journalist discovered in Tanzania. In Zambia the Catholic Church is trying to combat the belief in and use of witches. They employ a former witchdoctor who knows all of the tricks and goes to parishes explaining how he used to completely fool his clients in order to get as much money as possible out of him. He relates how the tricks are passed down from one practitioner to another and none of them actually believe they are witches, it is all about making money for themselves.The other damaging side of the coin is the use of mediums to determine who is at fault for a loss of crops, the loss of a child or some other misfortune. These witchfinders will ask the client various questions and will then determine who it is that put the spell on them. Often this is a member of the same village or even can be a fellow family member. The community then will turn their back on this individual and they often can become a pariah for life unless they make certain ritual amends that are accepted by the community. Paradoxically in a society that has a great respect for elders, if you live too old it is considered unnatural and that you must be getting life from others. Therefore if babies or children die (which is common in Malawi due to the state of health care) the first person you may blame is that really old grandfather or mother that you have. Needless to say this cultural belief leads to fractured and broken communities and relationships.