AFRICAN WITCH DOCTORS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1261, 20 June 1914, Page 4

AFRICAN WITCH DOCTORS.

TERRIBLE SUPERSTITION. A terrible story of native superstition was told at the Lyndenburg Circuit Court recentij'', when a witch doctor, who was greatly feared by the natives in the neighbourhood of Pilgrim’s Rest, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, while two other natives, convicted ot culpable homicide, were each sentenced to seven years’ bard labour. The victim was a youth of 18 years. This dark affair rose out of a beer-drinking bout. Masheelwana, the witch doctor, threw bones in accordance with the native custom, and declared that there would be no rain. Sixpence, the murdered boy, who knew something of the art, said that Masheelwana was wrong, and pointed to a particular bone, which indicated rain. Masheelwana resented this interference, and later Sixpence was found in a gorge, stripped naked, terribly mutilated, and in a dying condition.

The evidence of various witnesses disclosed ghastly customs. One said that in the olden days a girl had to be paid to the father as compensation for the killing of a male. Others stated that it was the custom ot “ doctors ” in that part of the country to use portions of the human body as medicine. The rain doctors used portions of the body of a person of the tribe who had died. Even if it was their own child the doctors cut up the corpse. They would go where children played on the veldt, put on a skin and frighten them. When the children ran away the doctor would catch one and kill him for the purpose of using portions of his body.