Neil Williams MADUMO: A MAN BEWITCHED by Adam Ashforth (David Philip) Madumo: A Man Bewitched is a true story. This well-written book streamlines the experiences gained by Adam Ashforth when he lived in Soweto. Ashforth, a Princeton professor, has stayed in Mapetla, Soweto, intermittently since 1990. He has been accepted by the people there. One of those people is Madumo, whom Ashforth describes thus: “Madumo was strolling down the street towards us, his shoulders hunched against the winter chill as it cut through his tattered blue Giants shirt.” Madumo is in difficulty:forced from his home as a result of his relatives’ perceptions of his actions. As his brother Prince puts it: “‘I’ll tell you why I hate him,’ he said, spitting the words like hard, bitter seeds into the room. ‘One, he has never worked. Why doesn’t he look after himself? Me, I don’t have any education, but I’m a man.'” The geometry of place and history collide in a theme that colours the book: Soweto is an apartheid landscape that keeps evil alive. In the description of Prince’s hatred, Ashforth projects the organic image of life, seeds, into the urban environment of an architecture built to contain human beings at the level of submission. Survival is virtue for Prince, but for Madumo, who has indulged in witchcraft, survival has only compounded his difficulty. He says: “‘But that was not the worst. The other thing they were saying was that I had killed my mother. They said my father was collaborating with our elder brother and I was one of the conspirators; that I had made an inside job. “‘They say my father gave my elder brother a herb that he then gave to me because I was very close to our mother. So they said I was the one who knew where to pour the herb in her food where it will be effective to kill her. To kill our mother.” The reality of the book shifts, with a movement between past and present, tradition and modernity. Madumo and Ashforth the storyteller are bound together by the development of the story and the development of their lives. The past constantly shapes the present. Ashforth tells the story of the journey Madumo undertakes to free himself of the circumstances that have brought him to a back room behind a shebeen in Mapetla. Madumo’s moves from hopelessness to the fact that since he has forgotten his ancestors, so they are no longer able protect him from the evil that roams the world and is controlled by witchcraft. Madumo goes to an inyanga:”Mr Zondi impressed him deeply. On his first visit, the inyanga agreed to consult with Madumo’s ancestors and told him to return the next day with six candles – red, blue, white, yellow, green, and orange – and R20 to open the way. The next day, Madumo came with his candles and cash – the money serving, this first time, more as a formal expression of respect for the inyanga’s ancestors than as a payment for service. Mr Zondi accepted the money and lit six candles. Then he burnt some herb called imphepho in a saucer, called upon his ancestors, and revealed to Madumo the hidden dimensions of his sorry plight.” This is the beginning of a series of visits that seek to rid Madumo of his misfortune. Ashforth is sceptical about this, but accepts the belief system that guides his friend. His writing makes Madumo’s journey assume its own dimension, and the reader gains access to the world Madumo lives in. Ashforth cannot answer the question of what is true, but reveals the course of beliefs in a mutable Africa. Neil Williams is the author of Just a Little Strech of Road (Ravan)