We, the followers of the immaculate and unimpeachable Professor Ms Abiti Joyce Befu, MG 66, and the Most Excellent Grand Achiever of All Time from all Corners of the World (Mega 1), are utterly shocked that people are dying because of rumours and accusations pertaining to witchcraft (when practiced by women) and wizardly (when practiced by men).
But why do witchcraft and wizardry continue to haunt Malawi? Do we dismiss them at the surface while deep down we believe in them?
Despite the laws criminalising and banning witchcraft and wizardry (Witchcraft Act,1911/2014) in 1911, many Malawians are still superstitious and believe in the existence and power of witchcraft and wizardly.
We have heard stories of men flying back from South Africa to Malawi to consummate their marriage. When the women fall pregnant and they are asked who is responsible for their pregnancy, she mentions her husband, m’maso muli gwa. The husband is asked about his wife’s condition. He says yes, m’maso muli gwa, he is responsible as he comes every night to enjoy his married life.
We have heard men locking up their wives’ private parts and any man who attempts to breach the fences does not get out (kumatirirana). Other stories tell of business persons losing their sales money to their rivals; farmers losing crop harvests to their neighbours; fisher folks losing their catch to their rivals (chitaka or kukawana); or catching nothing, yet when another fisher casts the nets in the same area he catches in abundance.
We have heard about long distance drivers parking their buses in remote areas and sleeping in the buses but they wake up in the graveyard or cemetery. Some drivers have reported failing to pass through certain parts of the road despite pressing hard on the accelerator.
Even the educated, the big bosses, bwanas, have to invite their sing’angas to cleanse the offices before they can occupy them. Football and netball teams have to camp in the graveyard the night before the match and enter the pitch in reverse.
These stories are pervasive. For them to be told by people from different corners in our societies, it means these experiences have a foundation. There should be studies to understand the sources. Elsewhere (the University of Exeter, UK, for example, where the subject studied at PhD level as Magic and Occult Science), witchcraft and wizardly are studied systematically.
The findings of such studies, at PhD level, should inform the introduction of the subject in schools. Knowledge is power. Society must know, evidentially, whether witchcraft and wizardry are fake or real.
Elsewhere, studies have found that witchcraft and wizardry are for the practitioner a source of power and dominance and for the victims, unfortunately, they continue to be powerless, ripped off, lose money and land. Witchcraft and wizardly are elements in the lived hegemonic domination. They are, in short, a source of poverty resulting from powerlessness.
People fail to invest in their villages for fear of witchcraft and wizardry; they fail to retire in their villages for fear of witchcraft and wizardry, preferring to continue their miserable lives in urban centres.
By the way, Malawi would benefit a lot from the study of witchcraft and wizardly. Take, for example, the men who travel from South Africa to Malawi and back every night. If the law allowed them, they would teach Malawians how they do that and transport would be made easy. No fuel. No need for cars. Zero.
But we dismiss witchcraft and wizardly and law criminalises them as a non-existent science. In public we all say they do not exist yet in private, political candidates, sportsmen and women, civil servants, have been consulting witches and wizards (afiti, oombedza ndi seketela).
