Witchcraft and Sorcery in Rhodesia

J. R. Crawford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138500495
• eBook ISBN: 9781351009225
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Anthropology

Originally published in 1967, this book is a study of witchcraft and sorcery among the Shona, Ndebele and Kalanga peoples of Zimbabwe. It analyses in their social context verbatim evidence and confessions from a comprehensive series of judicial records. It provides the first systematic demonstration of the importance and the exstent to which such sources can be used to make a detailed analysis of the character and range of beliefs and motives. The main emphasis is on witchcraft and sorcery beliefs, the nature of accusations, confessions and divination, btoh traditional and as practised by members of the Pentecostal Church.

PART I

EVIDENCE AND CONFESSIONS OF WIZARDRY

I SHALL here discuss briefly the nature of the evidence concerning wizardry beliefs which may be adduced before a court of law and which has formed the main source of information used in this book and will then give a fairly full account of certain cases where people confessed to being witches, on occasion, in lengthy and detailed statements. The mythological and other matters referred to in these cases will serve to introduce Shona witchcraft beliefs. These cases also raise the interesting problem as to why people should make a confession of witchcraft which, from its nature, cannot be objectively valid and which can attract only odium upon the person concerned. Some of the texts are strikingly reminiscent of analogous confessions in mediaeval and post-mediaeval Europe. It was these cases which first led me to take an interest in Shona witchcraft.

The Shona make a distinction between sorcery and witchcraft although they use the same word for both (uroyi). It will suffice at this stage to say that witchcraft is essentially a psychic act and is, objectively speaking, impossible, while sorcery, which involves the use of spells, medicines and ritual to harm others, while no doubt ineffective in achieving its object, can be attempted by anyone.

Shona witchcraft and sorcery beliefs will be described more fully in Part II. An effort will be made to show the function of these beliefs, whether as a theory of causation or otherwise, and also to show why these beliefs are socially relevant. The distinction between sorcery and witchcraft will be considered and the reason why the Shona have two very similar types of belief to account for misfortune where, on the face of it, one is adequate. Witchcraft beliefs form part of the cosmological ideas of the Shona and, because of this, it is necessary to see such beliefs against the background of religious and other ideas of the Shona. Religious beliefs are relevant not only because witchcraft beliefs are, in some aspects, an inversion of Shona religious beliefs, but also because Shona religious beliefs provide alternative explanations for the cause of misfortune. Attention will then be focused on the mythology of witchcraft, on how a person is believed to acquire the powers of a witch and on how it is believed such persons act and the perversions which characterize them. Thereafter follows a brief description of the manner in which one can seek to avoid the attentions of wizards.

The allegation of wizardry forms the subject of Part III. Althought this part is concerned mainly with the Eastern Shona, use is made for comparative purposes of material from the Ndebele, Kalanga and other groups. I have attempted, so far as the data allow, to show the part that wizardry allegations play in the functioning of Shona society and to seek an explanation in the structure of that society for the fact that wizardry allegations are more frequent against certain persons, and certain categories of persons, than against others. A large number of allegations of wizardry that become the concern of the courts follow upon the divination of a professional diviner and an account is, accordingly, given of their methods and techniques. Wizardry can be revealed not only by a diviner but by supernatural intervention in dreams and in other ways. Although the poison ordeal is, among the Shona, largely a thing of the past, some material has been gathered from court records on this and other forms of the ordeal. The cases studied show that, increasingly, the prophets of the Pentecostal Churches are taking the place of the traditional diviners and of the ordeal and, therefore, the nature of these churches will be discussed in some detail and texts will be quoted in which various persons describe the manner in which prophets divine wizardry. Reasons will be sought for the increasingly important role which the Pentecostal Churches play in the life of the Shona.

In Part IV which is, admittedly, somewhat inadequate because of the difficulty in obtaining information, an attempt will be made to describe the consequences of allegations of wizardry and of the attitudes of both the person accused and of other persons towards him. If action is taken against a wizard it need not be physical action, for the Shona believe in the efficacy of various forms of vengeance magic. Where the relatives of a person accused of witchcraft accept that she is a witch, and often they do not, it may be possible, if she is willing to be cured, to cure her of witchcraft.

CHAPTER I

EVIDENCE OF WIZARDRY BELIEFS IN CRIMINAL CASES

BELIEFS in wizardry may be relevant in a criminal prosecution in a number of ways. It may be the beliefs of the person accused which are on trial, as where a person is prosecuted for indicating a ‘witch’ in contravention of section 3 of the Witchcraft Suppression Act (Chapter 50). Where a person is prosecuted for fraud, in contravention of section 9 of the Act, it is the beliefs of the complainant which are relevant for it was those beliefs which enabled the accused to obtain money or some other advantage from the complainant. The same may be true of rape cases in which a doctor-diviner makes use of his patients’ gullibility to ensure acquiescence. A trial of a diviner may be a trial of the beliefs of both the diviner and of his clients, and may include the beliefs of the person indicated as a ‘witch’, as a charge may be brought both under section 3 of the Act, because a ‘witch’ was indicated, and under section 9 of the Act, because the diviner accepted payment for his services. Both counts would, however, usually be treated as one when it comes to sentence.

Beliefs in wizardry and magic are also relevant to the case where the beliefs serve to explain the actions of the person accused or of other persons whose conduct is at issue. Thus, such beliefs may be adduced as a mitigating factor as they were in the case of R v Kani (p. 166) which was a murder trial where a man was accused of killing a relative because he thought that she was a ‘witch’; or they may be adduced as an aggravating circumstance as in the case of R v Garayi (p. 210) where evidence was led that a chief assaulted the complainant because he thought he was a ‘witch’, it being the duty of the chief to prevent such assaults.

The traditional concepts of morality and the attitude of the courts diverge most strongly in cases brought under the Witchcraft Suppression Act. For example, a person accused under section 3 of the Act imputing to another person the use of non-natural means in causing harm, normally regards himself in the light of a person who has done a service to the community. The person deserving of punishment is, in his eyes, the person indicated as a ‘witch’. The Act aims at suppressing the activities of diviners, a class of person which the Rhodesian African regards as beneficial to the welfare of the community; the Act leaves unpunished the ‘witch’ who, in his opinion, belongs to a class which should be treated with the utmost rigour of the law.

In cases of violence and other common law offences the attitude of the African public and of the courts does not usually differ as greatly as it does where cases are brought under this Act. A court will here usually regard an intent to practise sorcery as being the worst of motives for committing a crime, and a genuinely held belief that a person has been bewitched, as a mitigating factor. Thus in the case of R v William the accused, who committed a murder in order to obtain human flesh as medicine for gambling, was sentenced to death by the High Court sitting at Umtali (2/10/57). It is unlikely that any court would hold there were any mitigating circumstances in a case such as this which would justify the imposition of a sentence less than death and none were found here. William would have been regarded as a sorcerer by the African population. On the other hand in R v Dawu (p. 45) where the accused was charged with killing the child of a person whom she thought was a witch and had killed her own child, the belief in witchcraft was regarded by the court as a mitigating factor and Dawu was sentenced by the High Court sitting at Fort Victoria to only two years’ imprisonment (2/8/60). Belief in witchcraft cannot, however, constitute a defence to the charge. Thus a person charged with murdering another whom he thought to be a witch cannot plead his belief as a defence. Under customary law if the person was ‘known’ to be a witch the killing would, presumably, not have been unlawful.

It is not only where wizardry beliefs are strictly relevant to the case in hand that they may come before the courts. Sometimes the evidence given may be, on the face of it, very much against the interests of the person giving it. In such cases the motive in leading the evidence is usually one personal to the person concerned. The evidence is, in fact, not given for the benefit of the court but for the gallery. These cases are, perhaps, the most interesting of all, although they form a small minority of the cases examined. If the evidence were entirely irrelevant it would be excluded by the court, so this sort of evidence is usually of doubtful relevance rather than entirely irrelevant. An example of such a case is Mazwita’s case (p. 49). Here the accused could merely have admitted to poisoning the deceased, if they had wanted to admit to the crime. There was no necessity for them to give an account of the manner in which they flew through the air and of the familiars they possessed. This type of case, and the problem of the confession of witchcraft to the court, will be discussed in greater detail in the following pages.

CHAPTER II

THE PROBLEM OF THE CONFESSION OF WITCHCRAFT

I SHALL, now and then, have occasion to make use of confessions of witchcraft made by persons either in court or during the course of investigations into the commission of criminal offences. Of cases containing records of such confessions three are so important that it is necessary to give a full account of them. They are cases in which a certain amount of repetition of evidence is unavoidable since the nature and extent of the corroboration of one witness’s account by another is of the very greatest importance. It must not be assumed that such cases come often before the courts; they do not, but they are of value not only for the study of witchcraft beliefs in Rhodesia but also for the understanding of the records of those cases in Europe during the Middle Ages and elsewhere where similar confessions of witchcraft have been made. In the cases of R v Dawu, R v Mazwita and Others and R v Rosi, which are of this type, there is no need to reproduce the purely formal evidence, that of the investigating officer that he arrested the accused, saw the body and drew a plan; the evidence of the Government Medical Officer that he conducted a post-mortem, etc; but otherwise I have endeavoured to give a fairly full account of the evidence.

R v Dawu. The accused in this case, an African woman, was found guilty by the High Court sitting at Fort Victoria on the 2nd of August, 1960. The following extracts are, however, taken from the record of the preparatory examination held at Nuanetsi on the 25th of March, 1960 for, as so often happens, the High Court record was not transcribed. Dawu was charged with the murder of Shani, the child of a woman called Muhlava. Dawu had had a child whom she believed had been killed by Muhlava, although when the body of the child was examined at post-mortem no sign of any injury was found. The motive for the crime was apparently revenge. The ‘warned and cautioned’ statement of the accused explained how the murder came about. Dawu told the police:

‘I was pregnant by my husband and had a baby which died recently. When I gave birth to the child she was unable to suck and I brought her to the kraal of my parents. The child was still not able to suck at my parent’s kraal and I was made to state the name of my boy friends with whom I had had sexual intercourse. This took place in the kraal of my husband’s parents and I voluntarily told native woman Maswirira —the mother of my husband—about this child because I wanted my child to be well. Native female Muhlava told me that I should not mention out the names of all my lovers because this was my first born and it was better for the first born to die. Muhlava then took a razor blade and cut me on my right breast and put muti (medicine) into the cuts (indicates several small healed marks on the bottom of the right breast). She then told me not to mention her name to other people as she had done this for me. I came to Muhlava’s shelter in the lands and I slept there. On the following morning Muhlava said she was going to report the death of my child to chief Neshuro. Muhlava went to chief Neshuro before the sun rose and left me asleep with my young sister Wami. When I remained asleep … I woke up Wami and told her to go and get some fire. She went and got up. Before Wami returned from the place where she got the fire I got up and took that stick (a pole for stamping maize) and struck Shani twice with it. Shani was sleeping at the time when I hit her on the back of her neck. I saw that my child was dead and my heart was sore. I struck Shani that she might also be dead. I killed Shani because it was Muhlava the mother of Shani who had killed my child also. Because I killed Shani we can all cry together. Muhlava told me it was better for the first born to die. She tried to take the child from me but I refused. She conquered me and took the child from my arms. She held it by the legs and struck its head once against the ground. The child was alive when she did this and this caused it to die. She then handed it back to me. In addition to this Muhlava told me that she did not have her first born, meaning that her first born had died and mine should also die. This happened when Muhlava and I were being two alone on Sunday at the kraal of my husband’s parents … After I had killed Muhlava’s child I told her I had done it and it was all finished and no one could say that either of us should pay something to the other.’

Muhlava’s evidence was as follows:

‘I reside at Chidava kraal under chief Neshuro. I am the third wife of the dead kraal head Chidava. I am the third wife and I have six children by my husband but only three are still living. The last one to die was the deceased Shani, the other two died from natural causes. I have no belief that the first child should die or be put to death. I know the accused, she is the daughter of my husband’s second wife.

Before my menstrual periods began I visited a certain woman whose name was Tsatsawani in order that she might instruct me in midwifery and sex matters in general. This lasted for about a month. At the end of the course some beer was brewed to mark the end of the course. On that day Tsatsawani took me down to the river and there cooked some porridge and put into it little things which looked like small black stones. It was all to do with witchcraft. I slept in Tsatsawani’s room and later that night I saw a light in the doorway. There was a fire outside the door and I went outside. There I saw two things but I do not know what they were. On the following day I was sick. Tsatsawani said that this was a sign that we should do witchcraft together. This is all at the end of my course. I then went home to my kraal. I was at this time a member of the Zionist church. I was also sick. I went to the church and asked about my sickness. I testified as to what I had seen on the night at the end of the course with Tsatsawani. I was told that I was a witch. I believed this. Some months after this I married Chidava. My first born was Machanja. At about six months he became ill, he cried, and eventually the boy passed away. I went with my husband to find out the cause of this death to Tsumele, a witch doctor. Tsumele said that the child had been bewitched by the people of the country.

I know a native woman by the name of Chirunga (i.e. Tsatsawani), she is a witch. We go about at night bewitching people. We have gone out five times. The accused came to my huts one day and said she wanted to be friendly with me. Later she came again and we went to the fields and there I made certain incisions on the accused on the hips. I applied some magic to these cuts, some white medicine. This is the same stuff that Tsatsawani had given me some years previously. The accused was at this time quite a young girl, she was not married and was still living with her parents. I explained to Dawu, the accused, that this meant she was now a witch. I explained that we should go about at night bewitching people. Once I went out with Chirunga and the accused to see my husband. They both came to my hut, that is the accused and Chirunga. They came riding hyenas at night. We all went to my husband’s hut. They came with me in order to bewitch my husband Chidava. This was also to teach the accused. I cannot explain the reason for this, it only comes to us in a dream. We poured some maheo or sweet beer into Chidava’s mouth, there was bewitching medicine in it. We then sprinkled some more medicine on his body. We then left and went to bed. The accused and Chirunga then took their hyenas and rode away into the night. Three days later my husband died. A little later my two friends, the accused and Chirunga, came at night on hyenas and we all went to the place where the body was buried. We exhumed the body of my husband, we skinned the body, we cut a piece of meat and took it to my hut. We reinterred the body in the grave. At the hut we cooked the meat and ate it, it was good. We departed then. Some time later we three went to visit Meke, the brother of Chidava. We all rode hyenas. Near the kraal we talked amongst ourselves and decided to kill Meke. We went into the village and we found him sleeping. We each of us laid hands on him. The next morning Meke was ill. The kraal head then came to us and said that we should not bewitch the man Meke so we relented and Meke lived. After this the accused married and went to live in Maranda’s area. Quite recently myself and the mother of the accused were attending a beer drink. A report was made to us by Maswirira. Two days later 1 went to visit the accused in chief Maranda’s area. I went at night on a hyena’s back. I stood outside the hut where the accused was sleeping. The infant was in the accused’s arms. I got hold of the legs of the infant and the accused the arms. We pulled the baby and later I rode off on my hyena. I wanted the child to bewitch the child. We wanted to bewitch the child—I cannot tell the reason because it only came to us as if we were dreaming. We fought over the child. We wanted to bewitch the child so it would die. We wanted to ea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Illustrations
• Introduction
• Part I: Evidence and Confessions of Wizardry
• Part II: The Nature of Wizardry Beliefs (with particular reference to the Shona)
• Part III: The Allegation of Wizardry
• Part IV: The Consequences of the Allegation of Wizardry
• II. The Witchcraft Suppression Act (Chapter 50)
• III. African Nganga Association of Southern Rhodesia Constitution
• Bibliography
• Index