60 years ago: Witchcraft ritual murders continue in Africa

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.
Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Deuteronomy 18:10-12

Witch doctors wouldn't proliferate unless people believed that they were deriving physical and/or spiritual benefits from them. The negative consequences, however, outweigh whatever benefits may result. As C.S. Lewis said, "The Devil will be happy to cure your chilblains if in return he can be permitted to give you cancer."

The article below was published on page 20 of The Edmonton Journal on August 7, 1958. Directly adjoining it was an article by John Barbour of Associated Press about U.S. plans to shoot a rocket to the Moon (in 1958, such an event was still in the future). It's unacceptable, according to modern standards of political correctness and multiculturalism, to say that a culture that produced Moon rockets was superior to a culture that produced witch doctors. Instead, the former must now import large numbers of the latter, because "diversity is our strength," with the various cultures regarded as being of equal merit. Basutoland is now known as Lesotho.

As reported by J.K. Chilwell of North American Newspaper Alliance (bold in original):

Johannesburg--A member of the Nigerian parliament, Vincent Awgu Nwankwo, has been charged with 111 ritual and other murders.

In Basutoland, at the other end of Africa, 22 natives recently were hanged for medicine murders.

In South Africa, portly, middle-aged Khotso Sethuntsa went to town with a suitcase of money and paid £2,400 in £10 and £100 notes for a 1958 car. Mr. Sethuntsa is a leading medicine man of the Transkei tribe--who may or may not use bits of human beings in his "cures."

Witchcraft--which has its devotees among plenty of white men in the black continent--has defied the "civilizers." Much of it is harmless.

The ritual murder side is not.

WITCH DOCTOR UNIVERSITY

In Johannesburg, the witch doctors have formed their own "university" to prevent charlatans, as they term them, from entering the honorable profession of the dingakas.

It is even possible for modern medicine to learn some lessons from this "University." The dingakas know the ages-old herbal remedies for various African complaints. There are scientific reasons why some of them work.

The theory has even been put forward that the presence of a witch doctor can aid his 20th-century brother, the medical practitioner. For a witch doctor can put an ignorant patient in a receptive psychological mood to make the best of a modern cure.

LEADS TO MURDER

Witch-doctorism, however, leads to murder.

Natives hold a strong belief in the medicine of witch doctors. Medicine from a lion's flesh is regarded as strong. The most powerful of all, however, is made from human flesh.

To obtain this flesh, a murder must be committed. The victim of an accident or of a disease is not suitable, say the medicine men.

Ritual murder is always planned, and the murder always is committed by more than one person.

The witch doctors arrange for the remains to be found and for it to appear as if death was accidental.

How to stamp out ritual murder is a matter engaging the attention of all governments from Ghana to South Africa, from Liberia to Abyssinia. The terrible practice brings death to hundreds of Africans every year.

It will be a long battle, as it is mainly one of education.

It took Europe and America long years to eradicate beliefs in black magic, and in vampires, wolfmen and other bogeymen. Such beliefs--and worse--still seize the minds of millions of Africans.