Do you believe in witchcraft

Thandekile Moyo

THE whole of last week social media was abuzz with the story of tikoloshes (goblins) that apparently have been terrorising Cowdray Park residents for the past few weeks. The story goes that these violent tikoloshes were raping women, pelting residents with stones and breaking window panes.

Personally, I do not identify with all things mythical so my first reaction was it was all a joke. Imagine my shock when I saw pictures of the crowds that had swelled around of the house from which these creatures were to be exorcised. I then brushed it off as curiosity. I thought well, if allegations like that ever arose in my neighbourhood I would probably go and watch too. So I followed the story, also out of curiosity.

As the story developed it emerged that the residents of Cowdray Park had put together an alleged $600 to pay the first trio of prophets that attempted to rid Cowdray Park of the goblins. $600? That to me is a huge amount. A society that claims to be struggling economically, managed to raise an entire $600 to pay some spiritualists to kill goblins? How bizzare!

Where are all those benefactors when community boreholes break down? Where are they when potholes need repairing? The same people that cry to the Government and NGOs for financial aid managed to raise that much money all on their own? And all for “witch-hunting”? It is simply unbelievable!

Back to the story, the first set of prophets fled from the scene as the goblins started pelting them with stones. I saw a picture of one prophet in long robes who seemed to be bleeding around the head and neck area. He was quite a site with his bloodied white robes. These guys had failed! So the community decided to hire a renowned tikoloshe slayer called Siziba.

It is said that Siziba told the people to hold an all-night vigil as he would only be able to catch the tikoloshes the next morning.
I don’t know whether or not Siziba was paid for the job. My imagination tells me maybe there was a collection basket that did the rounds at the all night vigil. Maybe the community raised another $600, well, whatever the case, Siziba was ready for the job.

The next morning he disappeared, leaving all of us who were following the story on Mduduzi Mathuthu’s Twitter page anxious as we thought he had reneged on the deal. Some were terrified that it could mean the tikoloshis were too powerful for Siziba, others were angry for they believed Siziba was a con man who had kept people up all night for nothing.

But alas! Siziba returned. With a back-up of six more goblin slayers if I am not mistaken. They had with them a large bottle of Jameson whisky, a bottle of vodka and a litre of Chibuku opaque beer. I wondered what that was for. Maybe to curb the fear. I don’t know. What was clear was the fact that Siziba was a man of his word and he meant business.

The crew went to work and during the ceremony Mathuthu kept us posted with gripping pictures of first a dead chicken that had apparently fallen down and died “all on it’s own” (yazifela). The mystery of what had killed the chicken left us all in shock.

He posted a picture of a wall that is said to have just tumbled down from nowhere! All of a sudden the “durawall” had just disintegrated and fallen apart. The tikoloshis really seemed to be putting up a good and bitter fight.

After a long struggle. Siziba and his people jubilantly displayed one of the goblins to the huge watching crowd. In the crowd were probably all of Cowdray Park, newspaper reporters, radio stations and I suspect ZTV had someone on the ground too.

The tikoloshe looked strange. It looked like a misshapen doll smaller than a tennis ball. It had eyes and it was just hideous.
What disappointed most was that it was not ominous at all. In fact, it wasn’t even alive! No actually, it had never ever even been a living thing. Those in the know about tikoloshe issues said it was a “symbol” of the real thing. Hours later. Siziba and his people captured Qobola. The last tikoloshe standing. The first one was called Mike by the way.

Siziba then announced to everyone that the problem was gone and Cowdray Park would for the first time in a long time, know peaceful sleep again. One of the tikoloshes had been found in the home of some woman who vehemently denied ownership of the thing.

This story left me feeling all sorts of ways. Firstly, who were all those people in the large crowd? Is that how bad our unemployment problem is in the country? So bad that for days in a row there many people who managed to watch the tikoloshi drama unfold? This just broke my heart because there were people of all ages at the scene.

Secondly, what if this was all one huge set up? How can we be sure that the prophets did not plan the whole thing as we have heard alleged in past similar incidents. If they had, imagine just how unfair this all is on the people in whose houses the tokoloshis were “found”? Imagine the trauma those people will face, maybe to the point of having to move from Cowdray Park. What about the damaged windows and wall? Imagine all the money that will be spent repairing those things.

Finally, I was amazed by just how proactive the people were in solving this problem. They managed to pool funds together and collectively deal with the situation. This shows just how easy it is to actually develop our communities for ourselves so as to raise our standards of living. Surely if in just a few days they could raise $600 to catch a tikoloshi then in a month they can raise $10 000 to build two extra classrooms at the local school and in a year they can raise $50 000 to stock their local clinic pharmacy and more for community boreholes.

Our people are in trouble. Our Government needs to be serious about researching and demystifying witchcraft because clearly the majority of our people believe in the science of dark magic. This needs to be done so we know what to believe and what to rubbish. Activities of spiritualists must also be monitored, they must be controlled. We can’t have people preying on innocent communities and using their beliefs against them. We also need to urgently start creating employment. We honestly can’t be a nation of tikoloshi watchers. Please give us work to do, we are idle!