Fieridish Witch-Doctors

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 922, 15 March 1930, Page 18

Fieridish Witch-Doctors

Circle of Death Revealed

HEMARKABLE stories of East African witch doctors and of a number of mysterious deaths in Tanganyika are told in the current number of the “Empire Review." These deaths have been found to have been due to the activities of a j secret society of medicine men and witch doctors known as the “Baswezi,” or “They-who-are-irresistible.” They meet in secret in the forests, j and life is of little account in protecti ing the mysteries of their orgies from prying eyes. Quite recently, three inoffensive natives, who were trekking from one kraal to another, blundered into the black circle of fetish ritual, and were massacred. Baboon Devil | Though many could have named the fetish men, the fear of being bewitched by some frightful form of magic thwarted attempts to bring the murderers to book.

One night a man, his wife and daughters were awakened by a howling scream of a baboon which echoed through their hut. Two days later a number of his cattle died, and lie went through the forest to discover the haunts of the witch doctors. The next day he became ill and fought against death while the baboon devil howled all the time through the rafters. The story came to the cars of the district magistrate. It was found that a cunningly concealed gourd, fitted with hollow reeds, had been fixed in the roof of the man’s hut. This gave forth demoniacal wails whenever the wind blew. The water-hole where his cattle drank had been poisoned; poisoned thorns had been scattered In the dust before his hut to cause his illness. The shrine of the baboon-devil was blown up with dynamite and the witchdoctors, ter a flogging with a rhinowhip, were sent to a long term of imprisonment.