It may be difficult for modern-day Western cultures to fathom, but in Western Kenya, beliefs in ghosts and witches are very real. And sometimes they have deadly consequences.Initial reaction: Holy shit! What the fuck is going on here? And then a moment of reflection upon a later quote:
In late May, news outlets in Kenya told the story of 15 people, mostly elderly women, who were murdered in a witch hunt near the town of Kisii. The killings shocked the nation.
Villagers said more than 100 people gathered machetes and knives and stormed the village of Kegogi after midnight.
"They started banging on the doors, they broke into the house and then they killed our grandmother inside," says Justus Bosire. "The mob was screaming and we panicked. We ran away and they came to our house and burned it to the ground."
"I believe there is witchcraft and the witches kill," Magoma says while building a chapel. His fellow workers concur: Witches exist and can put spells on people.
Ooooohhhhh. It's native Kenyan pagan beliefs that have been flipped on their fucking head by Christian missionaries, and in this post-colonial, post-modern world - where, in this case, the world isn't even modern yet - no one knows heads or tails because everything is going to shit and they gave us a Bible and that's at least tangible and the Bible says:
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live....so since bad shit is happening and even though according to our new-found beliefs only God has those powers, we need to blame it on someone: kill the witches!
- Exodus 22:18 (King James Version)
"modern-day Western cultures" is a relative term. The folks in Salem considered themselves such.
Thank you, Jesus.
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