Witchcraft and superstition in Africa
Guest post by Volker Seitz on the exhibition “Witches in Exile”
In 41 countries it is said that it is still everyday life that women in particular are persecuted as witches. The exhibition in Munich, Germany, is dedicated to the phenomenon using the example of the remote Northern Region in northern Ghana.
By Volker Seitz*
The exhibition is announced like this: Time and again, people are stigmatized and excluded for the supposed common good. Using Ghana as an example, the special exhibition Witches in Exile in the Five Continents Museum in Munich is dedicated to the belief in witchcraft, which primarily turns women into scapegoats. Envy and resentment, as well as accusations of being responsible for illnesses, deaths, droughts and other disasters, have turned these women into ostracized outsiders. Often in danger of death, they were exiled to so-called “witch camps”.
The German-French photographer Ann-Christine Woehrl shows these women in a haunting conceptual portrait series. The British, post-national artist Senam Okudzeto illustrates the broader context of the witch villages and the portraits in a multimedia installation.
Since I have been dealing with superstition for a long time, I would like to take note of one of my earlier articles – published elsewhere – in abridged form on the occasion of this exhibition. Unfortunately it is not out of date.
Belief in witches is deeply rooted in the traditions and mentality of many Africans. Beliefs in witches, sorcery and the fear of doing something wrong, which are widespread throughout Africa, lead to development blockages because they inhibit ambition. The neglect of the health and education systems slows down enlightenment and rational thinking, and thus ignorance and superstition continue. Accusations of witchcraft are related to superstition, magic and belief in the supernatural. Africans tend to blame invisible forces for personal bad luck and illness. When something negative happens, such as a mysterious illness, accident or other problem like for example a dry harvest, a cause is sought and usually found. There needs to be a culprit (usually a woman) – and what could be more obvious than witchcraft? Outsiders, cripples, even children or successful people are particularly at risk. The latter when they neglect their duty to share. Anyone who saves, invests, invests for the long term and wants to get promoted makes themselves suspicious among those who have fallen short.
It is often successful women who are denounced by relatives or business competitors. Others are branded as witches so that relatives can get their inheritance. These women have no choice but to leave their children and possessions behind and flee. Sometimes the women even have to move to remote witch villages, such as those in Ghana and Zambia. In Ghana, a fetish priest cuts the neck of a chicken. Then he throws it to the ground in a high arc. If the animal dies on its stomach, this is the final verdict of guilt. If the animal lands on its back, the woman is innocent. But even women who are acquitted rarely go back to their village. Because the suspicion haunts her for the rest of her life.
In view of their deep superstition, many less educated people in Africa are firmly convinced that Ebola, just like AIDS, is not transmitted by a virus but by a curse or witchcraft and can therefore only be defeated by a traditional healer. This is the main reason why the Ebola epidemic in West Africa could not be contained for a long time. Oncologist Freddy Gnangnon in Benin, West Africa, says that cancer patients, especially in rural areas, are stigmatized by neighbors because the disease is based on “the curse of the angry spirit.” People in West Africa associate illness and death with a lack of respect for the spirits of voodoo. Many people would therefore rather turn to the witcher than to the cancer specialist.
Magical items, fetishes, lucky charms
Many Africans wear gris-gris on their necks, arms, hair and/or in their pockets. Gris-gris are amulets, small magical objects, fetishes, lucky charms. Like some animistic rituals, they are part of everyday life for many. Marabouts also give rules for life, interpret the Koran, run Koranic schools, pray for the believers and consecrate amulets and lucky charms. The Tanzanian writer Aniceti Kitereza describes in his family saga “The Children of the Rainmakers”: “Kibuguma had the brew carried into the main room because he wanted to see if a fly would fall into it. If this had happened, the person who cooked it would definitely have died in a few days.” Insidious sorcerers, demons – it is believed in West Africa – steal the power of fertility, make testicles disappear and penises shrink. The destructive everyday life of horror makes many Africans hopeless. Often the accusations are arbitrary.
“It’s mostly about envy and resentment that prevent social advancement and punish the capable ones,” writes the Swiss ethnologist David Signer in his fascinating book “The Economics of Witchcraft or Why There Are No Skyscrapers in Africa.” Anyone convicted by the traditional witcher hunters is banished from the community. Not long ago, women working in mines were considered witches, says Thérèse Lukenge, Minister of Gender, Arts and Culture of the Province of Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo. “Equipped with unwholesome power, she could make the ores disappear.” She herself, Lukenge, was minister for the mines at the time – and she was forbidden from entering them. Today women have the same rights to work in mines as men. They defied the legend, which dates back to the 18th century. In parts of Madagascar, twins are considered bewitched.
David Signer writes in the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung (New Zurich Newspaper) Online: “In many African belief systems, people do not just consist of body and soul… People in the Ivory Coast believe that the shadow lies between body and soul… Sometimes you also face the shadow as a mirror image. In many African cultures, twins are either lucky or unlucky. This often goes hand in hand with the idea that they have no shadow, since one twin is, in a sense, already a shadow or mirror image of the other.
Albinos live dangerous lives
South African television and radio presenter Trevor Noah writes in his bestselling book Colorblind: “A few years ago there was a famous incident during an Orlando Pirates football match. Somehow a cat got into the stadium, ran through the crowd and out onto the field in the middle of the game. A security guard saw the cat and did what any sensible black man would do. He said to himself, ‘The cat is a witch.’ So he caught the cat – live on television – and stomped on it and beat it to death with his sjambok, a hard leather whip also known as a hippopotamus whip. The incident made headlines across the country. The white people were completely over the moon. That was really absolute madness. The security guard was arrested and tried and convicted of animal cruelty… Black people were just confused. They didn’t think what the security guard had done was bad at all. They thought, ‘The cat was clearly a witch. How else would a cat know how to get onto a football field? She was sent to hex one of the two teams. The man had to kill the cat, he was protecting the players.’ In South Africa, black people have dogs.”
African media have recently reported ritual killings in Nigeria, Gabon, Burundi and Tanzania. (In people with albinism, the production of the pigment melanin is impaired and their skin is particularly light.) Some fathers leave their families because they believe that their wives have cheated on them with a white man. The bones of albinos are believed to have magical effects. They are said to bring happiness, power and wealth. That’s why albinos live dangerously. Between 1998 and 2015, the human rights organization “Under the Same Sun” (UTSS) counted 140 killings, 219 mutilations and other attacks on albinos in 25 African countries. For the Yoruba people living in Nigeria and Benin, albinos are under the protection of the god Obtala. Officially there is no discrimination in Cameroon either. Albinos can make it to the highest offices there. Isaac Mwaura was elected to parliament in Kenya despite his pigmentation disorder. (Those who have power are legitimized and temporarily protected by power.) Mwaura founded the Albinism Society of Kenya, which provides practical help to albinos with sunscreen, glasses and head coverings. In Malawi, the Association of People with albinism in Malawi (APAM) is fighting for the rights of the 10,000 albinos in Malawi. In his novel “Group Photo on the Banks of the River”, Hammer Publisher 2011, the Congolese writer Emmanuel Dongola quotes a local radio report: “Albinos in Tanzania fear for their lives. At least 40 albinos have been murdered in Tanzania in the past twelve months. People kill albinos and use parts of the victims’ bodies – hair, arms, legs, genitals and blood – in magical rituals intended to bring wealth and eternal youth to their clients. The prospectors claim that all you have to do is pour albino blood on a mine to find nuggets of gold. Fishermen believe that all you have to do is place an albino’s severed arm or leg in the water to catch big fish with a belly full of gold.
Fashion world celebrates albinos
While people with albinism suffer discrimination and health problems, some are celebrated in the fashion world. There the “different appearance” (“atypical”) is staged. In South Africa, France and the USA, numerous albinos have made extraordinary careers in haute couture. The most successful South African mannequin, former prosecutor Thando Hopa, was featured not only on the cover of Marie Claire South Africa in August 2017, but also in the latest Pirelli calendar. For the French cosmetics company Vichy, she is the “face” of sun protection products. African-American Diandra Forrest is also a star and the first woman with albinism to be signed by a major modeling agency.
Once again the Dongola quoted above with two examples from “Group Photo on the Banks of the River”: “A pastor of the Erweckungskirche (Revival Church) and two dozen of his followers hunted children in the streets of Kinshasa, denounced them as ‘witch children’ and cruelly mistreated them. Such boys, ages five to fourteen, are often accused of being responsible for their parents’ illness and poverty. Persecuted, beaten, even tortured, they flee their homes and seek refuge in the streets, where they are often chased away. During interrogation, the pastor stated that his action was based on a revelation from the Holy Spirit, who told him that his six-year-old nephew was responsible for the sudden death of his brother, the infertility of his wife and the long celibacy of his sister. The boy was not fed for three days, beaten, and threatened with being crucified with white-hot nails like Jesus Christ. Finally he confessed that he was actually a witcher, that he used a stalk and a cock’s feather as a plane to travel at night, that he had not only ‘eaten’ his uncle but three other people, and that two of his accomplices were living on the street, hence the hunt triggered by the pastor.”
“She was a mother of six children; Her drama began when her three youngest children died within four years of each other, two from malaria and one from sickle cell anemia. Her husband’s family blamed her for the children’s deaths, accused her of being a witch, and chased her out of the house. The worst thing for her was that her children now avoided her for fear that she would ‘eat’ them too. She had tears in her eyes as she told you this story. And as always happens in a village when someone is accused of witchcraft: a gang of youths led by one of her sons set fire to her house at night with the intention of burning her alive. Luckily she had made it to the edge of the forest when the arsonists noticed that she had escaped through the small window on the back wall while everyone was waiting outside the house to stone her if she escaped the flames. They pursued her like a pack of dogs pursued game, but she knew the forest better than her young sons.”
In her book “Escape”, Ugandan lawyer Winnie Adukule quotes Charity Ahumuza, who deals with human rights violations: “We have reports of horrific mass rapes in Congo, Burundi, South Sudan and Rwanda. What is often not known about this topic is that anyone who survives a rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, is considered a pariah. Tradition and religion hold the victim responsible for the crime and contemptible. The girls and women are considered ‘tainted’, the social status of the father and the husband to whom they ‘belong’ is ‘damaged’ after the rape. To restore his honor, the man must disown his wife or the father must disown his daughter… Do you know how many rapists were punished in the Congo? … A few men may have been arrested, some even prosecuted, but those convicted can be counted on one hand and few actually remain in prison. A little bribe and the case is forgotten.”
“Witch” as a tourist attraction
Violent attacks against non-locals occurred in four regions in Malawi, triggered by deep-rooted superstition. So far, nine people have been suspected of being “vampires” (bloodsuckers) and have been lynched. In Mozambique, there have been targeted, deadly attacks on bald men because bald men are considered rich. According to media reports, the organs were sold to traditional healers in Malawi and Tanzania. According to Zambezia provincial police spokesman Miguel Caetana, they are said to be used in rituals that promise wealth. The Zambian Rungano Nyoni took on the topic and made the feature film “I am not a witch” in 2017 with support from Great Britain and France. After a minor incident in her village, the eight-year-old orphan Shula is accused of witchcraft and found guilty. She is banished to a witch camp in the desert. Shula is tied to a large tree with a ribbon and is told that she will turn into a goat if she cuts her bonds. The film is about sorcery, superstition and male dominance, as men decide which woman is a “witch” and a nefarious official parades the “witch” Shula as a tourist attraction.
(The text was first published in German on AFRICAlive and translated into English by Rebecca Hillauer. Volker Seitz, former ambassador, author of the bestseller “Afrika wird armregiert” / Africa is governed into poverty, dtv, 11th edition 2021)
Guest posts do not automatically reflect the opinion of the blog owner.
In Papua New Guinea, a Swiss nun supports the victims of savage witch hunts. Read my text here and/or listen to my radio report here.