4 more signs that someone's got it in for you
on Notes from Quite Far (Cameroon), 15/May/2010 09:19, 34 days ago
You find a live goat in your toiletYour neighbour can't help smirking as she gives you back the hat she borrowedYou lose a limbYou never wear clothesThe hyena, it turns out, fell down a well. The monkey got her out. Then the hyena tried to eat the monkey, but luckily a lion came along and tricked the hyena back into the well. Both monkey and lion then went on their way, leaving the hyena to her fate.Not entirely sure how I’ll use that one down the market.Anyway, the theme of this post is magic. And I don’t mean that in a rubbish 80’s Paul Daniels “That’s Magic” sort of a way. I mean it in a weird, intriguing “oooohhh, magic is all around us” sort of a way.Magic and witchcraft are incredibly common in Cameroon. As foreigners, we don’t necessarily hear much about witchcraft – particularly not at first. But it is a common practice, and people are very aware of it even if not directly involved. Slowly but surely, without quite realising, you gain people’s trust. They start to speak to you about magic, and it can be really quite fascinating.So here are 5 anecdotes about magic and witchcraft I have heard recently.1.There is a crazy naked man in Maroua. He hasn’t worn clothes for at least a decade. He hangs out (quite literally) on the doorstep of a huge derelict building near my new office. Every afternoon he walks to the market and people let him take whatever he needs to eat, because if they refuse he urinates all over their stall.Here is his story…Once, the“Naked Man” was a fully-clothed, fully functioning member of Cameroonian society. Let’s call him Kevin. Now, Kevin had a steady job and a house and everything. But then one day he had an affair with his boss’s wife, we’ll call her Daisy. One day, Kevin’s boss (Nigel) walked in on Daisy and Kevin together, and was of course pretty pissed off about it. As Nigel watched Kevin hastily putting on his clothes, it occurred to him that Kevin’s suit allowed him to masquerade as an honourable member of society when in fact he was a scoundrel. Now, normally everyone involved might have settled this situation with a good old-fashioned punch-up (or alternatively, in the case of celebrities, sold their story to the Sun). But in Cameroon, there are other ways of settling disputes…That night, Nigel went to see a Marabou (witch doctor), and the Marabou put a spell on Kevin,“so that he would never again be able to hide his shame” or so the story goes. And since that day, the Naked Man’s “shame” (yes, that’s what we call it nowadays) has been very much on display.2.There is a tribe in Southern Cameroon where women can go through many hours, even days of labour, give birth, and feel nothing. Meanwhile, the expectant fathers sit at a remote distance, in complete agony, bearing the woman’s pain. Independent observers have apparently testified to this.3.A good friend of mine forbade his wife to lend a headscarf to a friend. His reason: He and his wife were very happy together and trying for a baby. The friend may have been jealous. If so, she could easily have taken the headscarf to a Marabou and paid him to curse it– in which case, after taking it back, he and his wife would have had trouble conceiving. He therefore instructed his wife either to keep the headscarf or to give it away.4.I asked a friend why so many people in Cameroon have withered limbs. Expecting to hear about polio or accidents, I was surprised to hear that the majority of the limb-less descend from a cursed Nigerian bloodline.5.A Cameroonian volunteer in a rural village found an owl in her latrine (outdoor hole-in-the-ground style toilet). For the rest of the day she was unable to concentrate on her work, constantly having to nip out and take or make calls in order to establish who should kill the owl and how. (Apparently putting an animal in someone’s latrine is a way of cursing them. You have to kill it in a certain way in order to break the curse.)There are loads of stories like this, but I won’t tell any more – partly because they’re completely crazy stories with no scientific, rational basis. And also partly because I don’t want to be too indiscrete – it might anger the spirits.