Bewitched
I am in the earliest, tentative stages of looking at writing a book (how's that for a sentence that hedges its bets?) and spent the past week up in northern Ghana doing some research. Two years ago, when I was working with Journalists for Human Rights, we visited a camp for women accused of witchcraft about three hours outside of Tamale. We literally flew in and flew out. It took us two days to reach the camp and we were only there for about three hours before we had to push on.
While we were there, we met Hawa Mahama, an 80-ish year old woman (age being a fluid and not-so-important concept) who had lived at the Gambaga camp for 12 years. She was banished from her home village by her brother, who accused her of being a witch after her nephew woke from a dream in which he saw her trying to kill him.
Her story haunts me. When people ask me about the kinds of stories I write, I always think of Hawa, the emaciated, nearly-blind woman we met at the witch camp, who was cursed a witch in a ritualistic sacrifice involving the enigmatic chief and a charmed chicken.
It is difficult from a Western perspective to understand the African belief in spirits and sorcery and witchcraft without sounding belittling or condescending, without resorting to stereotypes or cliches. It is difficult to articulate what makes the African people -- and I say Africans because in the research I've managed so far, there is a strong belief in witchcraft in virtually every corner of the continent -- what makes the African people so in tune with the forces around them. The best explanation I've had comes from two different people: firstly, that for most Africans, the world exists in two spheres, the seen and the unseen. And secondly, the African mind philosophizes in the concrete and needs an explanation as to "why" something happened. When no concrete explanation can be found, the spiritual will do.
In the past few days, I've visited an earth shrine, where the chief consults a shrine dedicated to the ancestors to determine whether a man or woman has witchcraft. He brews a concoction that dissolves their power. It's his job to monitor the mood of the spirits and to make sure the ancestors have been remembered and honoured in an appropriate way. After much joshing about my husband and my bride price, I was invited back in February to help with the bi-annual sacrifice.
The next day, I visited Nyani witchcamp with a Catholic catechist who works closely with the community to meet their basic human needs. It is taboo in this particular village to "chase" people, so it has over the centuries, developed a reputation as a sanctuary. There are nearly 600 people living at the "camp" -- essentially a village unto itself -- who have been accused of witchcraft. Again, they consult with a fetish priest who takes them to the shrine and puts the question to the ancestors. If they confirm the person has witchcraft, a concoction is brewed that not only robs them of their powers, it makes those powers somehow reverse, so if they practice witchcraft again, they die.
(The family of the fetish priest told me they are paying for their own kindness. While people can seek sanctuary in Nyani, the land is stretched beyond its capacity and there is virtually no industry and too many elderly people who require food and care, but have neither the strength nor the money to pay for it. When I asked what they needed the next time I visit, the boys thought for a moment and then asked for a football.)
One of the women I interviewed was there because her husband's other wife accused her of witchcraft. One woman was there because her son felt she must have worked the black magic that killed his son. Another man said he came to the camp looking for something to break his witch powers -- which he did not know he had until people started blaming him for the death of his nephew.
Because I am thinking about writing about witchcraft in Ghana in increasingly modern times -- its causes and implications, its limitations on development, its tension with women's rights and empowerment, its manifestations in "spirit children" and urban settings and charismatic Christian circles -- I went north to visit the four witch camps dotted around Tamale, as well as interview some of the players who work with the women and their accusers.
That meant meeting Simon Ngota, a social worker who spent nearly 20 years working with the blind on agricultural projects before moving to Gambaga to work with women accused of witchcraft. He has been in Gambaga for more than 12 years and through his thoughtful interventions, more than 315 women have returned home to their villages.
This is an astounding figure and an astounding accomplishment to a "problem" that has no easy solution.
In his little blue office, decorated with anti-lynching posters, are three big placards of fading photographs. One was a close-up shot of Hawa and as we talked more and more about Simon's strategies for working with communities and convincing women to go home, I asked about this woman, calling her by name, much to Simon's delight.
Her village was the first that Simon visited when he took up the post at Gambaga. There were six women at the camp from that village, a clear sign that all was not right in the village. He took off his shoes and knelt before the chief and explained that dreams are natural and sometimes deaths are natural and while we might not always be able to explain why someone got malaria or why a child died too soon, it isn't always witchcraft that's to blame.
The chief would not be swayed. No matter how often Simon visited and no matter how hard he tried, the chief still called the women wicked and refuse to hear of them returning to the village. They cause disharmony, he said, and scare the young men into leaving for Kumasi and once they're gone, there's no one left to farm.
But Hawa is now home. She left more than a year ago, her things packed into the back of the battere Operation Go Home pick-up.
What happened? The chief died, and with him the stigma and memory of a long-ago dream that cursed a woman and robbed her of 12 years with her children and grandchildren.
While we were there, we met Hawa Mahama, an 80-ish year old woman (age being a fluid and not-so-important concept) who had lived at the Gambaga camp for 12 years. She was banished from her home village by her brother, who accused her of being a witch after her nephew woke from a dream in which he saw her trying to kill him.
Her story haunts me. When people ask me about the kinds of stories I write, I always think of Hawa, the emaciated, nearly-blind woman we met at the witch camp, who was cursed a witch in a ritualistic sacrifice involving the enigmatic chief and a charmed chicken.
It is difficult from a Western perspective to understand the African belief in spirits and sorcery and witchcraft without sounding belittling or condescending, without resorting to stereotypes or cliches. It is difficult to articulate what makes the African people -- and I say Africans because in the research I've managed so far, there is a strong belief in witchcraft in virtually every corner of the continent -- what makes the African people so in tune with the forces around them. The best explanation I've had comes from two different people: firstly, that for most Africans, the world exists in two spheres, the seen and the unseen. And secondly, the African mind philosophizes in the concrete and needs an explanation as to "why" something happened. When no concrete explanation can be found, the spiritual will do.
In the past few days, I've visited an earth shrine, where the chief consults a shrine dedicated to the ancestors to determine whether a man or woman has witchcraft. He brews a concoction that dissolves their power. It's his job to monitor the mood of the spirits and to make sure the ancestors have been remembered and honoured in an appropriate way. After much joshing about my husband and my bride price, I was invited back in February to help with the bi-annual sacrifice.
The next day, I visited Nyani witchcamp with a Catholic catechist who works closely with the community to meet their basic human needs. It is taboo in this particular village to "chase" people, so it has over the centuries, developed a reputation as a sanctuary. There are nearly 600 people living at the "camp" -- essentially a village unto itself -- who have been accused of witchcraft. Again, they consult with a fetish priest who takes them to the shrine and puts the question to the ancestors. If they confirm the person has witchcraft, a concoction is brewed that not only robs them of their powers, it makes those powers somehow reverse, so if they practice witchcraft again, they die.
(The family of the fetish priest told me they are paying for their own kindness. While people can seek sanctuary in Nyani, the land is stretched beyond its capacity and there is virtually no industry and too many elderly people who require food and care, but have neither the strength nor the money to pay for it. When I asked what they needed the next time I visit, the boys thought for a moment and then asked for a football.)
One of the women I interviewed was there because her husband's other wife accused her of witchcraft. One woman was there because her son felt she must have worked the black magic that killed his son. Another man said he came to the camp looking for something to break his witch powers -- which he did not know he had until people started blaming him for the death of his nephew.
Because I am thinking about writing about witchcraft in Ghana in increasingly modern times -- its causes and implications, its limitations on development, its tension with women's rights and empowerment, its manifestations in "spirit children" and urban settings and charismatic Christian circles -- I went north to visit the four witch camps dotted around Tamale, as well as interview some of the players who work with the women and their accusers.
That meant meeting Simon Ngota, a social worker who spent nearly 20 years working with the blind on agricultural projects before moving to Gambaga to work with women accused of witchcraft. He has been in Gambaga for more than 12 years and through his thoughtful interventions, more than 315 women have returned home to their villages.
This is an astounding figure and an astounding accomplishment to a "problem" that has no easy solution.
In his little blue office, decorated with anti-lynching posters, are three big placards of fading photographs. One was a close-up shot of Hawa and as we talked more and more about Simon's strategies for working with communities and convincing women to go home, I asked about this woman, calling her by name, much to Simon's delight.
Her village was the first that Simon visited when he took up the post at Gambaga. There were six women at the camp from that village, a clear sign that all was not right in the village. He took off his shoes and knelt before the chief and explained that dreams are natural and sometimes deaths are natural and while we might not always be able to explain why someone got malaria or why a child died too soon, it isn't always witchcraft that's to blame.
The chief would not be swayed. No matter how often Simon visited and no matter how hard he tried, the chief still called the women wicked and refuse to hear of them returning to the village. They cause disharmony, he said, and scare the young men into leaving for Kumasi and once they're gone, there's no one left to farm.
But Hawa is now home. She left more than a year ago, her things packed into the back of the battere Operation Go Home pick-up.
What happened? The chief died, and with him the stigma and memory of a long-ago dream that cursed a woman and robbed her of 12 years with her children and grandchildren.
posted by Palmer in Africa at 2:04 PM
2 Comments:
Wow, that is truly harsh, to be banished from your home because someone had a dream about you! That makes me count my blessings for the society in which we live. It's not perfect but we don't drive people out over someone else's dreams.
Andrew
To Love, Honor and Dismay
Such beautiful pictures Karen, and I hope you write this book. But you're not going to start until you've been to see the marabout, right? And got your book-writing gri-gri. Otherwise someone might bewitch it.
Go girl.
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