Miriam Webster Dictionary describes superstition as a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.
In Cameroon, close to 50% of the population have incision marks on their bodies. These marks are even found on babies as young as 3 months. Usually it is often said to be for protection against evil spirits or all sorts of bad omens. To show how rampant this practice is, persons without incision marks in Cameroon are considered as “whites”
The practice is usually carried out by a witch doctor or a clairvoyant who seeminglycommunicates with the spirit world and administer certain unorthodox treatment on their client usually in exchange of money, fowls, goats, and other animals.
In Africa and Cameroon in particular there is nothing like “natural death”. Even when the people know the truth about the origin of the death of their loved ones they still pretend and point accusing fingers at some old family member whom they say is taking the life of other so as to “live longer.”
In Fiehluna Assungwa’s book titled Fiehluna’s journey, she paints a very pathetic picture of a lady who was accused of killing a young man in the village and was banished from the village for witch craft. She was rejected by her family members and sent away from the village into the bush with nothing never to return to her village where she had lived all her life and had children.
Here is an extract of the book:
Cries distract me from my thoughts a few days later – again I am examining my painful breasts. I know immediately from the weeping what must have happened. Somebody has died. The deceased lives very far away. My friend and I have to walk for almost eight kilometres before we get to the house. It is a man in his mid-twenties; he is lying in bed with white cotton in his nostrils. A woman tells us that he suddenly complained of a headache two days ago and now he is dead. Everybody is crying, more and more people are coming and pushing themselves into the room where the body is lying. An hour later, almost half of the village has gathered in the house of this young man. My friend beckons me, pointing at one man who is pushing his way in. “That is the clairvoyant,” she whispers. “Do you know him?” I ask surprised. “What does he want here?” “Sure, everyone knows him,” my friend replies. “He comes to every funeral. He’s here to find out who killed or what killed this man.” “Who killed him? You mean this man was murdered?” 79 “No one dies of a natural death at this age. There are so many wicked people around us who feed on human blood,” she adds, and I open wide my eyes and stare at her. “The clairvoyant is actually here to find the offender,” she explains. “It is thanks to people like him that the number of wicked people in this country keeps reducing every day. He will exile the guilty as soon as he or she has been found.” “What?!” I exclaim. My friend is about to answer when the clairvoyant suddenly raises his voice and everyone is quiet. He takes out an object from his bag and walks to the deceased. Those standing close to the corpse take a step back. The clairvoyant starts talking to the corpse. I’m so nervous that I’m afraid to even breathe. You can hear the voice of the clairvoyant and the whole crowd is so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. The clairvoyant suddenly ends his one to one talk with the corpse and he turns to the motionless crowd staring at him with their mouths wide-open. He walks back and forth. “This woman is responsible for his death!” he yells, pointing at a lady of about fifty years old. “You killed him! You’re a witch! The Gods have shown me your face. Don’t deny it!” he adds. The old lady starts crying, lamenting and protesting her innocence. Nobody considers the fact that this woman has four children with thirteen grandchildren. 80 “I’m not a witch!” she cries desperately. “God knows that I’m innocent. I have no idea what the clairvoyant is saying. Please don’t hurt me, I haven’t killed anybody!” “Old woman!” the clairvoyant says with a portentous voice. “The Gods never lie! And you know it. Stand by your actions; you will be punished just like every other witch! I give you three days to leave this village! Never try to come back here. If you do so, you will be burnt alive! You will be escorted out of this village in three days!”
People live in absolute fear, fear of what their nearest neighbor will do to them, fear of what the village people might be planning against them, fear of being initiated in a cult, fear that someone may use their under wears and harm them mystically.
Still in this book Fiehluna’s Journey, the author talks of an experience she had with herself made sanitary pad which gave her sleepless nights.
“I think really hard about what to do, and I get an idea. There are some girls in my school who use pieces of cloth in the place of a sanitary pad. I get up and look for my old bed sheet that I saw a few days ago. Angelina said then that I should throw it away. It was very old and torn. I kept it! As soon as I find it, I tear it and make my sanitary pad out of it. It feels funny but still better than nothing. There was just this one time that it didn’t work. It gave me sleepless nights and bouts of fear. I was on my way to buy food. When I got just in front of Abota Hotel, I could feel the pad sliding down to my feet. This is the same hotel where I lost my shoe sole recently. I can’t stand there, patting myself to avoid this pad from dropping. The street is full of men who normally stare at me curiously. I’m so nervous, my heart is beating fast and I walk as quickly as I can. The pad drops. I don’t look at it, I 104 don`t turn back to look at the men, I just leave. The pad has disappeared when I come back from school. I’m really scared now, because I’ve heard that some voodoo healers use used sanitary pads to harm young girls. Most Cameroonians believe this to be true. These horrible thoughts make me start to pray and beg God not to let this happen to me. I’m unable to do anything else for days. I’m just sad, until I`m sure that nothing will happen to me again.”
In Cameroon every misfortune is superstitious as a result many people have died of mere cold because they spent all their money on witch doctors instead of going to seek treatment in the hospital. Some others when they are sick mix the medical treatment prescribed at the hospital with all sorts of concoctions and incisions from these witch doctors. Fiehluna Assungwa does not leave out this other aspect in her book.
“Mike’s condition is not getting better. My father comes to the hospital. “Grandma, wait here. Angelina and I have to leave now with Mike. If someone asks you where we are, tell them that we have gone out for a walk. I’ll not sit here and watch my son die,” he announces. “There is another option, I’ll 48 grab it now rather than when it’s too late.” Father looks at Mike worried. Mike has now been hospitalized for a week and his condition is getting worse. He constantly throws up and he’s in a lot of pain. He looks wasted. He reminds me of the pictures of children who are starving. He has slimmed down to a skeleton. It’s awful. “Understood,” I reply. They are back two hours later and nobody missed them. Dr Aku comes in the evening and asks Angelina to help undress Mike for a check-up. She sees small cuts on Mike’s body and becomes furious. She knows these kinds of cuts; they are on the ribs, painted with black powder. She takes a deep breath and looks angrily at Angelina. “What’s that?” she snorts. “What have you done to your child?” “I`m sorry doctor this has nothing to do with you, it’s just our tradition,” Angelina apologises, but cannot convince the doctor who is losing her patience. “Do you want me to administer treatment to your son or not? You know that we do not accept patients with such traditional healing methods in this hospital. As long as your child is being treated by us, you should not take him to any of these traditional healers. I’ve told you before. Would you rather have these voodoo doctors treat your son or me? Have them, as you wish! But if so, then please take your son and leave my hospital now! Immediately! I’m discharging 49 your son now! You’ll now have the full responsibility for your son’s health. I won’t let you take me for a fool!” Dr Aku yells and rushes out of the ward. Angelina tries to stop her but she won’t listen. Angelina is so desperate that she quickly calls my father who immediately comes and apologizes to Dr Aku again and again, even begging her not to abandon Mike. The doctor finally accepts father’s apology and continues treatment on Mike. A few days later, Mike gets well and can come back home. I’m not sure if the treatment of Dr Aku at the hospital cured him, or the voodoo doctor. All that matters to me now is that Mike has recovered, it doesn’t matter how that happened.”
Grab a copy of book “Fiehluna’s journey” by visiting the website:
SOCIAL ACTIONS AGAINST SUPERSTITION
Several persons have been banished from their homes, towns and villages because of some superstitious beliefs. They find themselves in places where they have to begin life from scratch as though they fell from the sky.
Majority of these victims suffer from different psychosocial traumas as a result of the stigma. They have been abandoned to themselves by their communities and families and most of them have been assisted to start life over with a small business or trade and even a job by some associations and NGOs. The Moonshine Foundation is one of such. We work hand in gloves with such persons to see how to integrate them in society and this is because we believe there is no scientific parameter for measuring witchcraft and whether they are guilty or not they still deserve to live.
Learn more about the Moonshine foundation by clicking this link: https://www.moonshinefoundation.de/index-en.htm.
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Fiehluna Assungwa
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