Witchcraft is one of the oldest professions on earth. Africa, in all likelihood, stood at the origins of this dark and cruel cult, and Africa remains its stronghold to this day. Devils and werewolves, amulets and spells of medieval Europe, superstitions and "evil eye" that exist to this day, came from the Black continent thousands of years ago.
Witchcraft never lost its grip on the African. Wherever you go - from Algeria to Cape Town or from Dakar to Zanzibar - you can find blacks everywhere, who still have a fear of jinn and demons, sorcerers and spellcasters, "ngogwe" and "tokolosh". In many tribes, death is almost always considered the result of the enemy's magic spells.
Millions of people still believe that a mother during childbirth can give birth to God only one child, one living soul. Gemini is considered a soul split in half. They are bewitched, and the demon can easily inhabit each of them, since each is a "container without a soul." Until recently, the killing of twins was widespread in Africa.
Africans exist in a world inhabited by spirits. And day and night, the spirits watch them jealously, and an African who violates the traditions of his tribe is immediately punished by a whole horde of spirits.
This is the essence of the great African religion, a religion shared by millions, regardless of whether they are listed as Catholics, Muslims or pagans.
The convert uses his new religion to protect himself from witchcraft, often using verses of the Koran as incantations.
Christian missionaries compose special prayers and sermons for those who feel bewitched.
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Whites, with long experience of life in tropical Africa flooded with sorcerers, often say: "There is still more to witchcraft than is visible to the eye."
The primitive tribes, of course, knew the methods of murder and suicide, still plainly unknown to white science.
One such death was recorded by Sir H. R. Palmer, region commander in Nigeria. While driving around one of the districts he wards, he heard that a young native from the Jukun tribe, claiming the role of leader, was facing death. Palmer took the young man into his servant. Two years later, by this time Palmer had moved to the north of the country, to Maiduguri. And so the servant informed him that his mother was seriously ill and that he must certainly return home to Ibi.
Palmer remembered his enemies and sent a telegram to an official in Ibi asking for information about the situation. The official replied that everything was fine with the mother, but the leader fell ill. And Palmer forbade the servant to go.
However, a month later, the servant still insisted on his own and, having said goodbye to the owner, went to Ibi. Palmer recalls that at the time of parting, the young man was in perfect health. However, thirty minutes later, the servant had a seizure and passed away.
Palmer, convinced that the cause of death was witchcraft, asked Dr. WES Digby to perform an autopsy. He fulfilled the request, but did not find any traces of poison or any other reasons that led to such a sad outcome. There was only one explanation - the young man died of fear caused by hypnosis.
Sometimes a sorcerer can cause death by self-hypnosis. To do this, you need to get a part of the victim's body - the cut off hair and nail - then let the victim know that he has these objects and intends to use them with the aim of causing death. In the world of self-hypnosis, the victim herself participates in this sinister process, participation is provided by her deep faith in the witchcraft power of healers.
In the days of Moshesh, the greatest of the Basuto leaders, witchcraft of this kind were punishable by death. Moshesh undoubtedly managed to curb the local villains-sorcerers, but their black craft never died. Until very recently, ritual killings were widespread in Africa, the purpose of which was to take possession of some part of the victim's body in order to use it later as a magical healing agent.
Police Lieutenant M. S. van Staaten of Basutoland, who investigated one such murder shortly after World War II, made a rather strange discovery.
He discovered a local remedy called maime, a kind of chloroform that the assassins used to guide the victim quietly and calmly to the scene of their murder.
It was enough for the "maima" to smell or take a sip. Further, the victim behaved like an obedient automaton, and was not able to offer the slightest resistance.
However, this mysterious remedy remained a mystery until the trial of Manapo Coenejo and three other criminals who were tried in 1946 for ritual murder. All four were sentenced to be hanged.
Very, very often white scientists are confused by substances widespread among the local population. Professor J. M. Watt of the University of the Witwatersrand described a case where the bark, used by the Zulus as a murder weapon, was examined for its poison.
Laboratory experts boiled it in water, but the extract was found to be inactive. And only when the killer himself was called to help, the secret was revealed. He said that the bark should be administered in powder form. Professor Watt also points out that it took five years to identify the tree from which the bark was removed. It was a species unknown to botanists until then.
Suicide, in the sense that whites understand it, is practically unknown to the West African tribes. But many natives have the ability to summon death, and science still has only a very vague idea of this phenomenon. However, there are so many examples on this score that there is no need to doubt the reality of this phenomenon.
The crew of a flotilla of boats that once sailed up the Nile to take Gordon to Khartoum included several rowers from the Kru tribe. At first, they worked conscientiously. However, they soon yearned for the shores of their native West Africa and told their employers: "Let's go home." They lay down on the bottom of the boats and soon died.
Another case was described by Sir Hesketh Bell, who undertook a punitive expedition in northern Nigeria against the cannibal tribes. Forty prisoners were taken, they were sent to Minna, to prison. Every day one of the prisoners died. The prison doctor reported that they were dying "of their own free will." Bell had to free the survivors and send them home.
Throughout West Africa, you can find people with an inexplicable power over animals. Perhaps some old-timers of the coast also remember the priest "ju-ju" from the Cross River, who summoned hippos from the swamp by blowing a reed pipe. He never fed them. Others also tried to blow the pipe, but to no avail, but the animals obeyed the old man's call without question.
In general, this trick has been known for a long time. Back in 1887, on the Gold Coast, Admiral Sir Henry Kepel met an old witch who could summon crocodiles from the river. She was a decrepit and completely blind woman, but when she stood under a tree, humming something, surrounded by live chickens, crocodiles crawled out of the water and took a treat from the tip of a stick.
Captain F. W. Butt-Thomspson, a longtime army officer in West Africa, also studied magic. He told me that he saw a woman in Sierra Leone swimming among crocodiles and playing with them. She was doing another trick - she dived into the river completely naked and soon emerged from the water hung with beads from head to toe.
This officer, the author of renowned works on African magic and sorcery, described other stunning tricks. So one sorcerer, a member of a secret Nigerian society, poured water from a calabash into his mouth, and then spat it out along with a dozen live fish.
Sierra Leone police once managed to hijack a primitive submarine imitating a live alligator. The nose was carved in the shape of an alligator's head, and the ship was propelled by short oars in the form of animal paws. The structure was virtually watertight thanks to the skinned skin, the grooves of which were sealed with beeswax. The team consisted of six people, one of its members was called a "hunter", he sat on the bow next to the "jaws" in order to have time to grab a victim standing somewhere near the shore and drag it under the water.
This structure was built in the strictest secrecy, it is also assumed that a human sacrifice was made when it was launched. When this man-made "alligator" floated down the river, only his head was visible on the surface.
Now let's talk about the famous leopard people, stories about which flooded the colonial press at the beginning of the last century.
Between 1907 and 1912, killer leopards became so common that a special trial was organized. Over four hundred people were arrested, including several leaders. Those arrested were kept in a hard labor prison under the protection of the West African border forces.
One of the leaders was accused of killing his son. Another victim's mother was to act as a witness. But in each individual case, the accused insisted that the killings were committed by leopards, not people; Griffiths also noted that leopard traps were set up just a few yards from the courtroom, and two predators were shot a mile away.
Overcoming chilling fear, several witnesses spoke of the initiation ceremony, how they were pricked with special needles, with the remaining scars reminiscent of accidental cuts and scrapes common to bush. Members of society recognized each other by rolling their eyes in a special way. They also described the bag of the "borfim", which contained pieces of a human body, the blood of a rooster, and a few grains of rice.
The oath to society was pronounced by putting a hand on this bag, and in order for it to retain its magical properties - enrichment and protection - it was necessary from time to time to lubricate it with human blood and fat. On this occasion, the society "sounded a general gathering" at which a "leopard" was elected, who must kill a new victim in order to "feed" the "borfima".
After greasing the bag, the body of the deceased was dismembered into parts, which were divided among the members of the society. It was believed that if any of the members breaks the oath to "Borfim", he will not only lose his earthly life, but also his life after the grave.
The last time a violent explosion of social activity was observed in Nigeria in the Kalabar district in 1945-1947. The bodies of more than fifty victims were found in various places, all of them had their jugular veins open. For many years in this country did not hear about the society of leopards - and now the terrible primitive cult reappeared.
Paw prints of a predator were found next to the mutilated body of each of the victims. And again, the police were unable to distinguish between the victim, who fell from the claws of the beast, from the victim of the "people-leopards". Three white officers and about two hundred African constables fought against members of the secret society. Big rewards were promised for the heads of the killers, and a curfew was imposed. The villagers were instructed not to leave the huts after four in the evening, since all the murders usually took place at dusk.
And yet the "leopards" overtook their victims even in the immediate vicinity of the police patrols and, it seems, made one of the constables their accomplice. Some of those killed had no heart or lungs. The other bodies looked like they were actually being gnawed by a beast. Many small children were among the dead.
Hundreds of arrests were made, eventually eighteen people were sentenced to death by hanging. At first, it was assumed that the executions would be public, to prove to the people that the "people-leopards" are not supernatural beings. However, then the authorities decided that only the leaders of local tribes could be present at the executions.
A truly strange and creepy story. Whites, who have lived in West Africa for a long time, assured me in all seriousness that at the ceremony of dedication, a "blood" bond is really established between each new member of society and a real leopard. When this person died, the beast was also found dead and vice versa.