EVERY WITCH WAY

Black magic is illegal in Zambia, says

Hugh Russell, but there's a lot of juju about.

The results can be embarrassingly painful

Lusaka THE Zambia Copperbelt police chief Graphael Musumba didn't give the name of his suspect, but well all recognise him when we see him: he'll be walking very carefully, with his legs far apart.

What we do know about the suspect is: he is 26, and last week he was in the small town of Luansha in northern Zambia. There he stole a shopping bag from an old woman. It contained dressmaking material. He then caught a bus to the bigger town of Ndola, some 20 kilometres away, and went to an open-air market to try to sell the material_ Here he was recognised as a notorious thief by a member of the local Neighbourhood Watch committee. (Yes, we have them too.) Our suspect was unable to say how he obtained the material that he was trying to sell, and was taken to the police station, where interrogation began. And then, says police chief Musumba, the suspect's testicles began to swell.

Don't jump to conclusions. This was not, I emphasise, the result of rigorous police examination with rubber truncheons, or other such methods. No, the testicles just began to swell.

Soon, reports police chief Musumba, the testicles were each as big as an orange. And he's talking Zambian oranges, you understand. Great big Jaffas. None of your tiddly little tangerines or satsumas. The suspect knew immediately what was happening to him, and why. He had been 'witched' — presumably by his victim, the old lady who had lost her shopping bag.

According to Musumba. he pleaded with the police to take him back to Luansha so that he could return the goods and have the spell removed. But the police pointed out that they had no idea who the woman was or where she lived. Instead, they took the suspect to hospital, where doctors removed his underpants and his condition was examined. By now the testicles were apparently so big that after the examination the suspect was unable to put his underpants back on.

Police chief Musumba commented to the press that this was a salutary lesson for all who are in the habit of stealing, and he advised them to desist from such acts. And that's as far as this story goes. But it is a typical, if eye-watering, example of how witchcraft continues to permeate our society, and not only in the rural and remote areas, such as that which Aidan Hartley writes about so vividly in 'Wild life'. Even in towns and cities, where computer repair shops abound and the night is made hideous by the calls of mobile phones, witchcraft is alive and kicking — indeed, in this case kicking its victims between the legs.

For the outsider, it usually surfaces in the reports of minor domestic court cases. The law is pretty firm on witchcraft. It's a crime to practise witchcraft, or to accuse another person of practising witchcraft; and claiming that you've been the victim of witchcraft is no excuse either. But the words 'juju' and 'black magic' still crop up in the headlines.

A 23-year-old housewife in Mufulira recently claimed in court that her husband had used magic charms to 'bewitch her womanhood', thus causing her to lose all sexual feelings. One suspects that this charm may be more commonly used in reverse, but no one's complaining.

A Lusaka man admitted in court that he had taken his wife to a witch doctor to establish whether or not she was a prostitute. The witch doctor said she wasn't, but the husband still wanted a divorce.

And an army chaplain, no less, had a squabble with the wife of one of his men, called her a 'witch' and found himself in court on a charge of defamation. He was ordered to pay the lady four million kwacha — about 000.

Darker deeds, including murder, have often been linked to witchcraft, or the suspicion of it. Take this grim but apparently frequent occurrence: when someone has died unexpectedly, or in mysterious circumstances, a crowd of mourners and onlookers will gather outside the home of the deceased. The coffin is then carried solemnly out and through the crowd. If he (or she) who caused the death is present, the coffin will swing around on the shoulders of its bearers and point at the guilty party, who is then advised to run for his life.

I have spoken to rational and educated people who have assured me that they have seen the coffin literally wrest itself from the grasp of those carrying it, in order to point at someone. It is not something I like to think about, especially late at night.

The physical signs of witchcraft are much as you might expect. Bunches of roots come into it, herbs, dead animals. ... The sensible foreman of a local factory came out of his house one morning to find a dead chicken placed in his path. He firmly stepped around it and went to the police, who came and collected it, and, knowing the parlous state of police finances, undoubtedly ate it.

Witchcraft occasionally extends itself into official life. The Zambian police chief in charge of an area bordering neighbouring Botswana recently received a letter from his opposite number in Botswana. Apparently Zambian criminals had been crossing the border into Botswana, committing burglaries and escaping back to Zambia. But, said the letter, Botswana police strongly suspected that the criminals were using black magic to evade arrest.

Special military units had been put on guard at crossing points used by the criminals, but amazingly no one was seen. Yet the burglaries continued. The Botswana police chief could only conclude that the thieves were using magic to make themselves invisible. Instead of laughing, or pointing out that perhaps it would help if the guards stayed awake, the Zambian police chief suggested a cross-border conference to discuss the matter.

I'm not laughing much, either. When we recently moved into our present house, I dug out some European-style wind chimes, and nailed them up above the door. As they began to tinkle in the breeze, I realised that two of our builders were watching them, fascinated.

'What is that for?' one of them finally asked.

I said it was just to make a nice noise, and he lost interest. A neighbour, overhearing, said I'd missed a trick. What I should have done, he explained, was to say that the chimes were my magic. And that if anyone came into my yard to steal, then his testicles would swell up so much that he would be unable to put on his underpants.