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Stranger than Fiction With Tendai Chara
GOKWE, which is located in the Midlands Province, has always been inundated with mysterious occurrences, weird tales, myths and unexplained phenomena.
Cases involving witchcraft have been brought before Chief Njelele, the paramount chief of this dry and perennially hot region.
Marriage and land disputes, infidelity and adultery cases are often solved in ways that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding.
In 2018, three children aged two, three and five died one after the other within a space of three days. They were from the same family in Mhokore Village.
This occurred after a local man had threatened that three members of the family would die in mysterious circumstances to compensate his three chickens that had been accidentally killed by one of them.
In another case related to witchcraft, a pregnant woman from Sidojiwe Village reportedly went into labour and gave birth to a frog-like creature.
After a spate of such mysterious incidents, Chief Njelele instructed two village heads to conduct a cleansing ceremony.
But in an incident which defies logic, an eagle reportedly swooped and picked up a full grown dog from one of the village heads’ homestead — where the cleansing ceremony was supposed to be carried out.
This happened in full view of the villagers who had been patiently waiting for the cleansing ceremony to begin, resulting in its abandonment.
The list of reported paranormal occurrences in Gokwe is endless.
This is the same place which is also home to the mysterious Mapfungautsi Mountain range.
Each year, an unexplained natural phenomenon takes place on this plateau. When the rainy season is approaching, smoke is often seen billowing from the mountain range and locals witness what appears to be a raging fire. This only happens at night.
However, on close inspection the following day, locals notice that there will be no sign that there would have been a fire. Vegetation on the mountain range will be untouched.
This unexplained phenomenon — which draws some similarities with the biblical burning bush — a miraculous sight in which Prophet Moses saw a bush which was on fire but was not burning, has earned the mountain range the name Mapfungautsi (the smoking mountain).
The “smoke-without-fire” phenomenon is, however, not only confined to Gokwe.
Such unusual “fires” are common in most parts of the country, with the mountains in which the strange happenings are seen being sacred. Traditionalists attribute the unusual fires to the spiritual realm.
Mapfungautsi and other sacred mountains dotted across the country have proven that when taken literary, the phrase “there is no smoke without fire” can be false after all.
World’s mysterious fires
Turkey’s “Eternal Flame”
A so-called “eternal flame” flickers out of a crack in the Earth at Turkey’s Yanartas National Park. Recent studies attribute flames like these to the mysterious production of deep-earth methane without organic matter.
Azerbaijan’s “Land of Fire”
In the 13th century, when Marco Polo visited the then Persian city of Baku, he mentioned numerous mysterious flames that could be found all over the region at various places of the Aberon Peninsula. These fires gave Azerbaijan the moniker “Land of Fire.” Even five centuries after Marco Polo, French writer Alexandre Dumas witnessed natural flames in a mysterious fire temple.
Of the natural fires that burn today in Azerbaijan, Yanar Da is arguably the most impressive. A 10 metre long wall of fire that never extinguishes is burning continuously on the edge of the hill, which naturally is at its most spectacular at night, when tourists and locals alike view the fire from a nearby teahouse. Local lore states that it was a shepherd that accidentally ignited the fire in the 1950s by tossing a cigarette, and that it has burnt ever since.
Germany’s “Burning Mountain”
At Germany’s Brennender Berg, Burning Mountain in German, the coal has been on fire since 1688.
Legend has it a shepherd set the initial blaze, but spontaneous combustion may be a more likely cause. How the mountain was first set ablaze is a mystery. A lightning strike, forest fire, spontaneous combustion, or even aboriginal burning practices could have been the initial spark. — Online sources.
Online Reporter