The Amazwi Villager

Written by Bongekile Mhlanga

I was busy preparing to come to work on 2 July 2008 when I heard a knock at my door. I peered through the window and saw a tall young man standing there. He told me he needed to talk to me urgently. When I opened the door, I recognized him as a young boy from the Nkuna family, from Tintswalo Village in Acornhoek. The boy began talking hysterically. “We’ve got a problem, a big problem. An old man, Mgoji Mathebula, is stuck in my family’s yard. He is wearing nothing but a cloth around his waist,” he said.

When I got to the scene, community members were already there, looking at the old man in bewilderment. He was not talking or moving. He held his hands together as if in prayer. Only his eyes moved. One of the family members, Louis Nkuna, said that their neighbour woke them up at four o’clock in the morning to tell them about their unexpected visitor. The old man was sitting on one part of the stoop, holding his iron rod, in the Nkuna family yard. All the people there believed that the old man was guilty of being a witch. Some were talking in low voices, saying that he should be ashamed.

According to black South African culture, when somebody gets stuck or paralysed like this old man had, it means that the person is trying to bewitch the family. He can’t get out because the family might have used muthi, a powerful prayer or traditional medicine to protect themselves. In this case, the Nkuna family attends the International Pentecostal Church (IPCC), considered one of the most powerful churches in South Africa, as far as prayer is concerned. The members of this church believe in divine power and believe that no one has the power to bewitch them.

Nkuna explained to me, “We called the Community Development Forum, and they told us that they are tired of this old man’s stories. He’s been stuck in seven other houses. And when he was asked what he wanted with one of the families he got stuck in, he told them that he was looking for his baboons he left there,” said Nkuna. Meanwhile the police were called, and they took the old man back to his home. “Yes, we found the old man in somebody’s yard, and we took him to his family. The family claims the old man is mentally ill,” said Inspector Joseph Mogakane.

I left the scene with a few photographs and the questions that were on everybody’s mind: was the old man indeed bewitching the family or was he mentally ill, and what would stop him from doing this again?