Northern Province ‘witches’, banished from their communities, huddle together in a tiny village where they eke out a meagre and lonely existence, writes Fumane Diseko
A dust road near Pietersburg leads to Helena, an arid and lonely village hidden behind thorn trees. Shacks made in a rush when people first settled have never been improved and reflect the resignation of its inhabitants to their fate.
Locals prefer to call the village by the more descriptive name Kwabaloing , meaning “at the witches”. It reflects the status of its inhabitants as social outcasts in a region where superstition still reigns supreme; where often the pointing out of a villager as a “witch” is tantamount to a death sentence.
The alternative to facing the accuser’s wrath is to seek sanctuary in Helena. A depressed people, the “witches” of Helena live a shadow existence devoid of the pleasures of ordinary existence.
Makoeng Makoeya, a middle-aged and maternal woman, carries hidden scars from her past. She and her family appear to be the only people in Helena for whom life continues: they are plastering one of their huts.
Makoeya cautiously reveals trickles of information, not certain about how to tell her tale. She was among the first to settle in Helena. After her mother was accused of witchcraft, the whole family had to leave her home village of Moletje in 1990.
During a brief return trip to fetch the family’s possessions from Moletje, they learnt that they were no longer welcome — the trip cost the lives of four relatives.
Makoeya’s father and aunt were stoned to death; her mother and sister were doused with petrol and burnt alive. The rest of the family, including herself, were brutally assaulted.
Another inhibitant of Kwabaloing, pensioner Abraham Maharala, is distressed by the fact that he will miss the planting season if he does not return to his home village of Matlala, not far from Helena, this year.
Maharala, unlike some of his neighbours, does not have reservations about telling his story. He blames his situation on the “jealousy of women” and suspects his second wife and his concubine are to blame for the expulsion of his family from Matlala.
The trouble began with the arrival of a new radio. There was so great a rejoicing that his children began to dance stjwetla — a dance where the participants take their clothes off and dance naked.
Maharala claims to have slept through his children’s merrymaking after a drinking bout, but says the kgotla, or village court, later accused him of dancing naked with his children in a witchcraft ritual.
Dismissing their accusations, he went to work in the fields as usual. But when he returned home in the evening, his rondavels had been demolished and his family’s belongings thrown out.
The villagers gathered, burnt some of the family possessions and chased him and his family from the village. Maharala took his attackers to court, where they were ordered to pay him R5 000, with which he bought corrugated iron sheets to build a shack in Helena.
Maharala detests Helena: it is difficult to get water, the land is dry and transport is kilometres away. Any attempt to plant crops is futile because of the smothering heat and little rain. There is hardly any food and a scorched crop of sorghum standing in his yard does not fail to remind him of that.
His relatives are still staying in Matlala, where he is determined to return after he has “rested his heart”. But his wife is adamant she will not return: she cannot forget how the villagers chased them out and destroyed their property.
The vegetation in the area is sparse and dry. Famished dogs and goats wander aimlessly about the village, cowering from the sun under the scanty shade of thorn trees.
After asking for money to buy a beer, Maharala leaves his plate of yellow pap and mopane worms and saunters off with his wife to the village cafe belonging to Makoeya, where they share a Castle lager.
Others look on suspiciously, not keen to tell their own stories. As Maharala saunters off, his neighbour remarks: “Where does Maharala think he is going to go? He will be murdered if he dares to return to Matlola.”
The family of Johannes Mpai knows all about it.
Elizabeth Cholo, one of Mpai’s daughters, looks much older than her 38 years. She and her eight children and her relatives cling to the sanctuary erected for them by Matlala police outside the village police station.
They had to abandon their homes and possessions when they were rescued from a village mob and they now live in tatty military tents in an area too dry to support crops.
Their troubles began when Mpai, a respected ngaka of the Matlala community, was called in after a woman in the village was struck by lightning. He was one of eight dingaka asked to divine the perpetrator of the “lightning murder”. Among the eight was Mpai’s major rival.
Six diviners, including Mpai, found that the death was not deliberate. But Mpai’s rival disagreed and accused Mpai of causing the lightning death. A mob of villagers — apparently including Mpai’s own son, Samuel — believed the rival and killed Mpai.
The rest of Mpai’s family were accused of witchcraft and ostracised by the villagers. The local shopowner refused to sell anything to them. The villagers would not let them collect water. To survive, the family had to travel long distances to get daily necessities.
Then things went from bad to worse. A member of the mob that killed Mpai died in a car accident while running away from police. Villagers accused the Mpai family, condemned them to death and locked them into their yard to prevent them from escaping.
Fortunately, police rescued them, but none can go
home. Their home is now in their own personal limbo — a collection of tents under police protection.
And now, since the police conducted a workshop in the village to explain scientifically the way lightning works, the Mpai family have been living in hope of being allowed to return to their home.