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Witchcraft cleansing: Preying on the vulnerable

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MY earliest encounter with death must have been in 1972 in our village in Unyetu.

We had been woken to high pitch wailing sounds the previous morning.

By afternoon the wailing had faded.

The sombre mourning atmosphere gave way to a big adult party.

From afar we could see partying activities like the slaughtering of a beast and large cooking drums being moved to the makeshift outdoor kitchen.

The following day from a vantage hilltop position we observed the procession to the graveyard which was in the direction of our cattle kraals.

When the procession finally retreated from the graveyard, we noticed a new feature in the area; the belly soil mound and it needed no guessing that this was where the remains of Sekuru Murehwa had been disposed to.

That mound eventually gave way to a cement plaster rectangular structure whose patina today attests to its antiquity.

This is part of my memory of Mbuya Murehwa, our neighbour.

I knew her as Mbuya Murehwa then and she is still Mbuya Murehwa today.

I was in Grade One then and today I am old enough to be a grandfather.

My father, born 1936, played with one of her sons (not her eldest child) during the early 1970s.

Even with generous discounting, there is no way she could be younger than 90 years of age.

She is healthy, hardworking and always wearing a near permanent smile.

She is very articulate on politics and Methodism.

The spinal bend reminds us of her fragility and vulnerability.

The community has been kind to her through philanthropic acts.

On a recent visit to the village I found Unyetu’s humanity in tatters and Mbuya Murehwa exposed and abandoned.

A group of charlatans masquerading as witchhunters under the generic name Tsikamutanda has been wreaking havoc in Njanja, which incorporates Unyetu.

They go by names like ‘Beredzvuku’, ‘Berejena’, ‘Garwe’, ‘Gudo’.

In our village they were invited by the village head.

All adults from the village were gathered at Sabhuku’s homestead.

One by one the villagers went into the hut that was housing Tsikamutanda and his tools.

Almost every adult present, except those from Sabhuku’s homestead, had issues requiring cleansing.

Mbuya Murehwa was one of these.

She was alleged to be hounded by witching spirits, which required a herd of five cattle to cleanse.

Everyone was shocked by the accusations and the cleansing fee.

Sensing discord, Tsikamutanda quickly slashed the fee to one beast.

Others parted away with goats and chickens.

To date, several villagers have parted away with their cattle assets.

Interestingly, all the Tsikamutandas are male and most of their victims are women.

When this story was recounted to me during a recent visit to the village, I seethed with anger.

I saw the Tsikamutandas enjoying themselves, drinking, braaing and womanising at the local township.

Two cars were parked by their temporary lodgings.

I asked the local township-wise from the village whether they realised that this was a scam.

They had their suspicions, but had been taken aback by the alleged authority these Tsikamutandas claimed to have.

They were throwing around names of very powerful State offices to cow the villagers.

On further investigation, we established that all they had was a ZINATHA practising certificate for their leaders.

Tsikamutandas are a phenomenon that preys on people’s fears on witchcraft.

The Njanja case is a racket involving a sociologist from a local university.

He assists a few of the Sekurus to get ZINATHA practising certificates.

The Sekurus in turn recruit urban youths, who they use in manufacturing ‘goblins’, usually crudely made dolls, and planting these in targeted homesteads.

When Tsikamutanda later ‘discovers’ and destroys these goblins, the unsuspecting villagers are left in awe at this manifestation of spiritual power. People seeking cattle bargains were seen paying for these in advance ahead of a cleansing ceremony at some unfortunate village.

What is amazing is how the Tsikamutandas have been able to evade or make impotent the state protection net.

A headman who tried to censure and fine village heads who had invited Tsikamutandas nearly had his subjects turning against him for ‘protecting witches’.

The five chiefs of Njanja watched powerlessly and in disbelief as each ward lost dozens of cattle.

Local police worked overtime clearing the resultant cattle sales.

No arrests could be made as no one had lodged a complaint.

Conman and his victim were in agreement, this was no fosimeta.

Politicians were in a quandary as they did not want to risk becoming unpopular. The local Hwisiri, of which Mbuya Murehwa is part of the flock, has been conspicuous by their silence.

State and community structures have been powerless to stop this community disempowering scam.

What more for Mbuya Murehwa?

That symbol of good health, wisdom and a caring social system.

Today she is fragile, vulnerable, defamed and abandoned.

Society must take responsibility for this injustice.

The current decimation of the Njanja cattle herd is unmatched in recent memory. History tells us of related chicanery in Gutu district in the 1930s.

The Dutch Reformed church’s Alheit Mission imposed itself as a traditional court. The white missionaries and their African assistants would try cases including those of witchcraft nature and levy cattle fines.

The church’s cattle herd and wealth grew enormously as villagers’ cattle stock decreased.

Later in the 1950s and 1960s, there was national culling of the African cattle herd.

Compulsory cattle ridging and forced cattle sales were made under a loathsome piece of legislation, the Native Land Husbandry Act, which also undermined chiefs’ authority.

It was on this injustice that nationalist struggle was born.

We have won the elections on the empowerment ticket.

Shall we abandon those who look up to us like Mbuya Murehwa?

In Shona, cattle are also known as pfuma, a synonym for wealth.

Consequences for not acting are much higher than those of acting now.

If really we have witches in this country then let us assign ZINATHA, SIRDC and the State security apparatus to get to the bottom of the matter.

If a flying saucer is reported in the USA, the matter becomes a top secret matter for their scientists and security officials.

They seek intellectual control over these issues, not media hysteria over alleged witches crash landing as we saw in Budiriro.

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