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ix Preface The genesis of this book can be traced back to the tragic incident of 02 October 1990, which divided my village and eventually robbed it of some of its young men and women. While at school on that day, we learnt of the sad news that one of our female colleagues had passed away. Her lifeless body was found hanging from the roof of her parents’ house. She left behind no sign, not even a written note, which could provide an explanation for her sudden death. The days that followed were characterised by organised meetings in the evenings in which some youths tried to make sense of the untimely departure of one of them. Rumour began to spread that witchcraft was to blame for her death: an old woman – a fellow villager and the grandmother of my friend and schoolmate – had cast a spell on the deceased which caused her to hang herself, so it was said. On the evening of Saturday, 06 October 1990, a group of youths snatched the accused old woman from a night vigil, took her outside the yard and stabbed her several times. They then dragged her body to a nearby river where it was doused with petrol before it was set alight. What followed was the swift arrest of many young men and women from my village. Some were released while others stood trial, accused of plotting and carrying out the murder. The case was heard in a court in Thohoyandou, roughly 40 kilometres away from my village. It was of great interest to me as the accused were youths, most of whom I had played and went to school with. I therefore attended the case from beginning to end. When the case was concluded, I lost seven fellow villagers, friends and colleagues – all between the age of 19 and 33 – to prison. In addition to the murder case, I also attended, on a Wednesday, a case involving an old man of around 60 years who was accused of threatening to strike with lightning a fellow villager. By so doing, the old man had contravened the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957 which made it an offence for a person to pretend to exercise x supernatural powers or to impute the cause of certain occurrences to another person. During the proceedings, it was made clear to the old man that his crime was his claim to have access to supernatural powers which he threatened to use to harm a fellow villager. To the surprise of everyone in the courtroom, the old man admitted to the crime and argued that his was not an empty threat but rather a serious warning, which if not heeded, he intended to put to practice. The old man requested anyone in the courtroom to volunteer to be used as an object of a lightning strike. He was shown a tree to strike instead. The old man rejected this stating that his skills and medicines were not to be wasted on the non-livings. He insisted that a human being should be availed for this mission and promised that the procedure would not take more than an hour. However, the demonstration could not be done as no volunteer came forth. The old man was fined R500. The above cases helped revive lingering questions I had relating to tragic events in my village, often attributed to this occult force: How was it possible that witchcraft could be so prevalent and violent in my society? Why was it that so many people; old and young, literate and illiterate, rural and urban, police and court officials, Christian and otherwise believe in such ‘superstition’? What drove educated young men and women to kill in the name of witchcraft? Is the belief in witchcraft held in other societies, and are the consequences similar? Why do some people claim to have access to the use of witchcraft? Is it even possible that one could possess such power? Why is it that, on that Wednesday, no one in the courtroom volunteered to be an object of the experiment on a possible humanmade lightning strike? The above questions about this occult force were the ghosts that haunted me throughout the years. These were the ghosts that had not been laid to rest in 1996 when the Ralushai Commission published its report on the inquiry into witchcraft violence and ritual murders in the Northern Province (now Limpopo) of South Africa. The violence and murders were committed largely in...

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