Shot by a Witch Gun
Wednesday, August 19, 2009 at 11:00AM There aren’t many medical mysteries in Sierra Leone.
If a medical doctor can’t diagnose an ailment or if a patient can’t afford to see a doctor, he or she usually comes to one conclusion about the cause of the pain and suffering: they must have been shot by a witch gun. The illness could be typhoid or schizophrenia, but the symptoms are often attributed to some form of black magic.
A belief in witchcraft and the powers of traditional healers prevails in the culture of Sierra Leone. Sierra Leoneans make casual references in conversation to the truth of witchcraft, whether they are an uneducated person living in a small, rural village or a university-educated researcher living in Freetown.
One reporter, Esther, who worked with my colleague Chris, warned him not to shake the hands of too many people in a large crowd. She said people might try and give him some black magic. One of my reporters in Bo, named Peter, told me wives casts spells on their husbands, often to keep them from straying from the marriage. Another woman told me it’s possible to have someone killed through witchcraft.
Strange behaviour or crippling illnesses, everyone tells me, usually means someone has been shot by a witch gun, which can’t be seen by the naked eye. Mental illness is most often attributed to witchcraft, because its symptoms are so difficult to understand. A traditional healer claims to be able cure people of their ailments and charges a hefty fee for his services. Patients pay with money, chickens or palm oil and are usually given herbs as treatment.
But treating an infectious disease as a curse or spell has fatal consequences for many. A reporter working with my colleague, Sulakshana, died in June from typhoid after she saw a traditional healer instead of a medical doctor. She left behind two young children.
Of course, Sierra Leoneans looking for conventional medical treatment are largely out of luck. Eighty or so government doctors treat a country with a population of six million people. Unlicensed doctors abound, but their prices are higher and their qualifications not exactly verifiable. Traditional healers are easier to access. Villagers are often afraid to visit hospitals if they’ve never been before, concerned they won’t be coming back. There’s also the issue of paying for gas or a vehicle to get to the hospital.
But an established belief in witchcraft has only led to devastating discrimination in countries like Nigeria. A belief in the practice has led many Nigerian communities to abandon small children, claiming they are witches sent by the devil. The children, sometimes as young as two or three, are accused of bringing misfortune upon a village, after crops die or food goes bad. They’re beaten, tied to trees and left to die. Preachers make money off these circumstances, offering to remove the curse from the children for large sums of money collected from the desperate parents. Charities in Nigeria that take in children abandoned are overwhelmed with the demand for their services.
I don’t disagree with people when they tell me about witchcraft. Instead I ask questions so that I can understand it better. But I asked one woman if someone could put black magic on me. She laughed for three or four minutes. “No,” she said. “You’re white. They can’t get you.”
Reader Comments (6)
I guess that means you're only susceptible to white magic? :-D
According to the kids, if something bad happened, even years later, to someone present on that day, people would say "ah ha" with the knowing look that that poor person must have responsible for the problem years earlier at the school.
However, I was not immune from black magic or so I was told. There was a stray chicken in the village that used to come into the house and eat the grains of rice in the store room. I said once that if that chicken continued to eat the rice, that we would cook the chicken in our stew. The kids said, "No, no, you cannot do that. If you do, someone will put a hex on you." We never ate the chicken and while I have had my share of ups and downs over the last 40 years, I seemed to have dodged that bullet. Thanks again for your post.
Merle: It's interesting Sierra Leoneans still put such emphasis on a power "outside of themselves." I find the attribution to religious powers comes into play when something good happens. Much like if someone suffers later in life (for reportedly damaging a school), I find people here attribute any success or good fortune to the work of god. A journalist I work with just put together an amazing series on domestic violence in rural communities and when I praised him for his efforts, he thanked God for his success. I told him jokingly that he shouldn't give God all the credit, as he didn't research the story.
It was in Sierra Leone that I first realized what it was to be distinctly Western--the belief that one could affect one's own circumstances and future through action. We really are, to a certain extent, products of our culture as your journalism colleague's comments show.
Stay well.