Why universities must study witchcraft seriously

University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. University of Arkansas in the United States of America. Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States of America.  University of Canterbury in New Zealand. University of Waikato in New Zealand. What is common about these universities?  They are great universities. They all offer courses in witchcraft.

In some cases, witchcraft is taught alongside magic, the occult, spirituality, and religion.  The University of Exeter in the United Kingdom now offers a Master’s degree in Witchcraft (Ufiti) and the Occult (kuombeza, maula).

In most jurisdictions, witchcraft is condemned. In the witchcraft acts of states that graduated from British uninvited colonialism, witchcraft is forbidden. Anyone calling another a witch or wizard or accusing any person of being a witch (mfiti yaikazi) or wizard (mfiti yaimuna) may be jailed.  As our leader of delegation, the great Genuine Prof Dr Joyce, MG 33 and MEGA-1, says, the reason for such a harsh law is to prevent people from taking the law into their hands and killing innocent people, often poor old men and women.

Yet we all know and have heard stories about witches and wizards. Some have even experienced it. Take testimonies from many United Transport Malawi (UTM) bus drivers who drove to the remotest of Malawi and ended up waking up from graveyards in the morning. The drivers would park their buses and sleep, no, take a nap right in their buses. In the morning, they would find themselves away from their buses.  

Sounds fictitious. Yes, it does. But why are UTM bus drivers’ testimonies of incidents that took place in Mchinji, Lilongwe, Karonga, Nkhata Bay, Mulanje, Chikwawa, Nsanje, Chitipa, Machinga, Zomba and other places so persuasively similar? Created by myth? Fake news?

A person is bitten by a cobra in Cape Town ,South Africa,  and his relations in Tete, Mozambique are administered curative herbs. And the cobra-bitten person gets fine.  Fiction as well? Perhaps but people are testifying to the experience.

A woman falls pregnant in Edingeni, Mzimba. Villagers accuse her of infidelity. The woman swears to God Almighty that her husband comes every night from the Copperbelt in Zambia where he works in the mines. Every night. Usiku ulibose bakwiza bafumu bane, she swears. Villagers do not believe her.

They ask the husband who answers in the positive. He is responsible for the pregnancy.  Question: If the husband says he is responsible for his wife’s pregnancy, who are you to dispute that unless you want to declare that you are responsible.

And this story about two men travelling on foot from Phodogoma in Phalombe to Chapananga in Chikwawa in the evening. Tired. One plucks a leaf from a nearby tree. He asks his travel-mate to place his foot on one half of the leaf. The leaf-plucker places his foot on the other half. The leaf-plucker commands his mate to close his eyes. Next minute he wishes his mate good night. They are in Chapananga, almost 150 kilometres from Phodogoma.

Remember this man who carried his 200 mature heads of cattle in a handkerchief and got onto a UTM bus; which bus could not get uphill because it was overloaded?  The story is that the driver of the bus, his conductor and inspector asked passengers to get out one by one and get in again one by one. Except the latest addition. With all the earlier passengers aboard, the bus could get uphill. When the cattle carrier-man joined the passengers again, the bus could not get uphill. Then he was asked to drop his handkerchief down, outside the bus.

The bus was able to get uphill. He was asked to get out but get only his handkerchief in the bus. The bus could not move uphill. Later the man revealed he was carrying all his 200 heads of cattle in his handkerchief.

These stories sound incredulous. Don’t they? But how does witchcraft work? Why is it believed? What is the link between belief in miracles and witchcraft?  Why do self-declared intelligent people with genuine non-Jerusalem University doctorates, invite witchdoctors to sanitise their offices before occupation? These and more questions have prompted universities around the world to start offering course and full degrees in witchcraft, mostly under aegis of indigenous knowledge (IK).

Universities in Malawi must also study the witchcraft phenomenon.  If the witch aircraft (ndege za afiti), some which have crashed in Chiradzulu, Dedza, Likoma and elsewhere, do fly their operators and occupants, should we not study them with the aim of improving transportation in the world?