Poison
One of the few advantages of flying the Caravan as a single pilot is that on occasion a passenger can ride in the copilot seat and I can have an interesting conversation via the intercom.
A few weeks ago, I flew an African NGO worker from Isiro to Bafwasende, a trip of about an hour, and we spoke of his observations of culture in the Congo. He's been here for about two years.
He said about 85 per cent of the people here believe in witchcraft. The proportion is much lower in the city and near universal in the countryside. This belief is so strong that almost all deaths are attributed to witching. A blood vessel bursts and you were witched; cholera gets you and it was a hex; you get run over by a truck and that spell was surprisingly effective. Heart attacks, complications from colds, pneumonia, it all gets a blamed on a spell.
The chilling thing about this is that the people who do the hexing often aren't content to let the supernatural do its work, they help it along with poisons. The poisons are widely available, though not openly advertised, from the people who are hired to cast the spells. They can be introduced to the victim in food or through physical contact. The slayer will coat his hand with poison and shake hands with the victim, immediately after which he will wash his hand and hope the victim doesn't (this is a very good argument for rigid adherence to the rules of hygiene). Or, they will place the killing stuff on a surface they know the victim will touch.
The poisons can kill directly or just help an already sickly person along the road. They are very difficult to detect as a cause of death. Most of them come from forest plants and there is a lot of forest and a lot of lethal plants. The cops aren't all that eager to investigate because they are afraid they will meet the same fate.
One of the reasons the village huts and houses all look almost exactly the same in the Congo is people are afraid to outdo their neighbor for fear of being witched. Guys will set up their manioc fields 5-8 kilometers from their houses and keep the location secret. If someoned finds out where the field is and if it is a good crop, they could be targeted. Company politics is a sporty game in the countryside when you can enlist the help of a witch/poisoner.
These practices are not very common in the cities but endemic in the countryside. Village life is not the sleepy idyll we would imagine. Death through treachery is a real thing and you must watch your back always.
So, that is what we talked about on our trip from Isiro to Bafwasende. After dropping the worker off I flew back to Kisangani and as I looked at the villages below, I thought to myself "I wonder who is poisoning who?"
Then I remembered that two of our local staff had been let go for theft the week before. Guess who had provided the final bit of evidence that led to their dismissal? No symptoms yet but I am washing my hands a lot.
(Aunt Therese: should I say "who is poisoning who" or "whom is poisoning whom"?)
A few weeks ago, I flew an African NGO worker from Isiro to Bafwasende, a trip of about an hour, and we spoke of his observations of culture in the Congo. He's been here for about two years.
He said about 85 per cent of the people here believe in witchcraft. The proportion is much lower in the city and near universal in the countryside. This belief is so strong that almost all deaths are attributed to witching. A blood vessel bursts and you were witched; cholera gets you and it was a hex; you get run over by a truck and that spell was surprisingly effective. Heart attacks, complications from colds, pneumonia, it all gets a blamed on a spell.
The chilling thing about this is that the people who do the hexing often aren't content to let the supernatural do its work, they help it along with poisons. The poisons are widely available, though not openly advertised, from the people who are hired to cast the spells. They can be introduced to the victim in food or through physical contact. The slayer will coat his hand with poison and shake hands with the victim, immediately after which he will wash his hand and hope the victim doesn't (this is a very good argument for rigid adherence to the rules of hygiene). Or, they will place the killing stuff on a surface they know the victim will touch.
The poisons can kill directly or just help an already sickly person along the road. They are very difficult to detect as a cause of death. Most of them come from forest plants and there is a lot of forest and a lot of lethal plants. The cops aren't all that eager to investigate because they are afraid they will meet the same fate.
One of the reasons the village huts and houses all look almost exactly the same in the Congo is people are afraid to outdo their neighbor for fear of being witched. Guys will set up their manioc fields 5-8 kilometers from their houses and keep the location secret. If someoned finds out where the field is and if it is a good crop, they could be targeted. Company politics is a sporty game in the countryside when you can enlist the help of a witch/poisoner.
These practices are not very common in the cities but endemic in the countryside. Village life is not the sleepy idyll we would imagine. Death through treachery is a real thing and you must watch your back always.
So, that is what we talked about on our trip from Isiro to Bafwasende. After dropping the worker off I flew back to Kisangani and as I looked at the villages below, I thought to myself "I wonder who is poisoning who?"
Then I remembered that two of our local staff had been let go for theft the week before. Guess who had provided the final bit of evidence that led to their dismissal? No symptoms yet but I am washing my hands a lot.
(Aunt Therese: should I say "who is poisoning who" or "whom is poisoning whom"?)
posted by Carl at 12:50 AM
1 Comments:
My Auntie says it should be
"who is poisoning whom."
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