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Isdore Guvamombe
ON a summer afternoon, soon after the rains had poured down heavily, we set off herding cattle as young boys.
In the aftermath of the downpour, bull-frogs welcomed the rains with songs in groggy voices, that would make them the worst musicians of all times.
A huge valley spread wide and far before Nyakaocha mountain; a mountain feared by many because of numerous fable stories, told as reality that sounded like fiction.
The mountains foot provided lush green pastures that cattle grazed, munched and munched, again and again, and again and again. Again!
There was a salt-lick too that the cattle enjoyed. A huge Muchakata tree stood superimposing by the edge of the salt-lick and on one of its branches was an eagle’s nest, where the air marshals had used twigs and branches to build a home.
On the mountain, there was this huge rock promontory facing to the east towards Mucheriwa business centre — then just two or three old stores — with peculiar white-washed walls. Their main aura was the smell of bat and rat urine from the ceilings. Well, dear reader, that is subject to another instalment.
We enjoyed especially the warmth of the rocks and their woozily fronts where we played games and practised hiking and slide downs, while watching over the cattle.
Cattle were easy to control once there, because they hardly wondered about, due to bounteous pastures.
Suddenly, we were attracted to some cave, whose entrance appeared polished smooth with use.
We are convinced something was using that entrance regularly. What it was we did not know.
There was some small movement inside. We hoped it was nothing, perhaps the wind getting in. Then the thing or things seemingly started moving nearer and nearer, unmistakeably moving now, then louder and louder.
I put my hand on the mouth, with awe as two hyena puppies came out. I watched without admiration. I watched with fear mixed with excitement. Den! Bang!
Every boy reacted differently. Suddenly mob mentality took over. We attacked the puppies with stones until they died. By that time, the silhouette sunset horizon was telling of sunset and we drove cattle home.
The story was about the puppies and the agreement was never to tell elders home.
The following morning Takawira, one of the boys, woke up very sick. He had a fever. He felt cold and shivered violently. He also hallucinated. After questioning by his granny, Takawira, announced the killing of the hyena puppies.
As the village went agog with the news of the killing of the puppies, his ailment was attributed to it. It was taboo, the elders said.
We are expected to die one by one. Our parents got afraid and each did everything, including the bizarre and the unthinkable.
Four old women in the village were immediately fingered out as the owners of the hyenas. The four, all old and wrinkled, wiry and with falling hair, were accused of witchcraft.
There was a frail but sizzling old woman in the village, known for her bad temper. Her face was wrinkled beyond imagination.
A combination of old age, black dresses she wore religiously and the snuffing made her look perfectly otherworldly. The bloodshot eyes looked like two evil holes, from where rivulets of fluid ran down the flabby cheeks.
Her feet were cracked, her skin tinder-dry and extremely dark. The hair was wiry. She was frail and spoke with a shrieking but authoritative voice. Legend had it that she was a trainer of witches.
Then there was one especially very light, with European nose and a contorted face, multiple wrinkles and bleary eyes. They said she was the leader.
They said the four gathered under a huge tree at the centre of the village to plan their nocturnal escapades. They said the four used hyenas as horses.
The legend went on that the hyenas galloped with the women on their backs and eventually also helped the women dig up graves. Everyone believed these stories.
The puppies we had killed were their future transport. But no one really dared face the four.
My mother, a devout Catholic that time, got several concoctions and applied them on me in various forms, including steaming to cast away the bad spell from the four.
She watched over as I slept for a few days.
I guess every woman with a child involved in the killing did the same or even more.
There was fear all over. Fear gripped the village and beyond but the four remained calm.
That calmness was interpreted as admission of guilty.
But as fate would have it, a nurse from the next village passed by and heard the story. She went to see Takawira and using her experienced eye said it was malaria and not witchcraft. She convinced his granny to take him to hospital.
Indeed, it was confirmed that he had developed cerebral malaria.
By that time the four old women in the village had become everyone’s enemy, for, every old woman in the village, becomes a witch with old age.
It is yet to be understood, how ugly faces and old age are associated with witchcraft. The mindset needs to change and accept that everyone gets old and wrinkled.
The belief in witchcraft is as old as humanity itself and many s time, innocent old people have been killed after being imputed witches.
It is yet to be proved that witchcraft comes with old age. But the whole remains strange and more fictitious than reality.
Online Reporter