Poison & a Witchdoctor

On Wednesday afternoon and evening, Andy and I realised that our gardener/housekeeper, Claude had gone out and not let anyone know the reason. By late evening he was still not back. He got back about 7am on Thursday morning with news that his wife was ill.

Somebody had come to call him to take his wife to the doctor as she was ill. The doctor apparently examined ("looked" was the word used) her and told Claude to take his wife to the traditional healer as his wife had been poisoned. My immediate question was whether it was food poisoning. It was patiently explained that Claude's wife had been "poisoned" by somebody i.e. a by supernatural means. Claude couldn't explain how the doctor determined that it was something for the witchdoctor and not the medical profession.

The traditional healer is actually also referred to as the witchdoctor here and this particular one had space where he could admit patients who needed more attention. Claude's wife went on a treatment of various herbs and "other things" that witchdoctors use.

This was quite interesting having worked in Northern-KwaZulu Natal (South Africa) where there is a very large number of traditional healers, both herbalists and black magic witchdoctors. Andy proceeded to explain that for example if one had a fracture this could be treated by the witchdoctor.

This would entail a visual examination of the location of the fracture followed by the witchdoctor putting something like a short stick on that injury. His advice would then to be to return home as by the next day at a set time, your fracture would have healed - this being due to him rubbing the little stick between his hands during that period. I am told that this treatment works!

The witchdoctors are much more active in daily life than we are sometimes led to believe and obviously also yield a lot of power over a persons decision to do something or not. Definitely something else worth being aware and sensitive of when dealing with staff in future.