SWAZILAND-CULTURE: The Wrath Of The Gods Or A Scientific Phenomenon?

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

Dec 3 2001 (IPS) - Scientific evidence may show that lightning is created by a build up of electrical charges in storm clouds and dissipated through unpredictable connections to ground surface objects, but this is not enough to dissuade many people in the traditional kingdom of Swaziland that bewitchment is not involved.

A rash of deaths caused by lightning accompanying early summer storms has inspired beliefs that the incidents cannot be coincidental.

“We took an informal survey for our public opinion column, and not one person said the lightning deaths we’ve been having around the country are due strictly to natural phenomenon,” says Martin Dlamini, editor of the Times of Swaziland newspaper. “The people seemed to understand the scientific principal behind lightning, but they ask who is directing the storms?”

Nomsa Mdluli, an Mbabane housewife and mother of three children, voiced a typical suspicion among those surveyed by the newspaper after 20 people were struck and killed by lightning in a three week period, generating banner newspaper headlines: “It is too much to believe that all these people can suddenly die of lighting. Somebody is behind it.”

“Swazis do not believe that any death is the result of natural causes,” says psychiatrist Dr. Thandie Malepe of the National Psychiatric Centre in Manzini. “A person can die of a virus, but people will wonder who cast a spell that sent that particular virus to that particular person in the first place. It is like a car whose potential for destruction is inert until someone gets behind a wheel and uses the vehicle to run over a rival.”

This deeply felt cultural belief has always been with Swazis, according to historian JSM Matsebula. Through the 19th century, whenever a Swazi king died, several members of his court were put to death because it was felt that someone had to be responsible for the monarch’s demise.

It did not matter, Matsebula wrote, whether the officials were guilty or innocent, the ancestral spirits demanded that some sort of retribution be enacted. It was believed that the ancestors would then punish the assassins.

“The belief is almost religious, having to do with vengeful ancestral spirits, rather than coming just from ignorance, and this must be understood, particularly when there are so many strange deaths at once,” says David Tsabeze, a graduate student of sociology at the University of Swaziland.

As the first fierce storms of the southern hemisphere’s summer swept into Swaziland, ordinary people and some local officials were struck and killed by lightning. All were out of doors in unprotected areas like fields, or were walking along roadsides. These locations made them prime targets for lightning strikes.

But the apparent capriciousness of the strikes, which would kill one person while leaving another person nearby unaffected, raised superstitious beliefs that the bolts were directed by malevolent forces. Like Zeus hurling bolts from Olympus, witches or people casting evil spells were thought to be the guiding hands.

A group of nine men were digging a ditch in the southern Shiselweni district when they were struck by lightning. In a flashing instant, all but two men were killed. One died later in hospital. The lone survivor staggered to his feet, looked around to see the others scattered on the ground dead, and could not comprehend why he was spared, he later told a newspaper reporter.

While not blaming the survivor for the incident, the people of the rural community immediately began to speculate how lightning could find so many to kill.

Thabsile Dlamini, a nurse in the central town Manzini, has a different view. “People do not know what first aid to apply for lightning victims, like artificial respiration to get them breathing, and heart message to restart hearts that have stopped. If emergency medical aid was more widely available, some people would survive.”

But still, Dlamini admits, “Some people would still speculate about who sent the bolts headed in their direction in the first place, instead of at a tree or a pig.”

To make matters worse, the bodyguard of one of King Mswati’s eight wives was struck and killed by lightning. He worked for the queen who had been a victim of damaging rumours earlier in the year that linked her to an alleged poisoning plot against King Mswati. The king, who was out of public view for over a month while the palace refused to report on his health status, later said he had suffered a bout of gastritis. But the damage to the queen ‘s reputation was deep, and when her bodyguard died from a lightning strike, the second of her bodyguards to die in six months, the rumour mills were sent spinning.

“The queen had better watch out, because her enemies want to do her in,” said a palace observer.

“Swazis have always believed in luck, and I sell them medicines to influence luck,” says Gogo Ndwandwe, a traditional healer in Embuleni. Her specialty is protecting homesteads against lightning strikes. She does this by sprinkling liquid potions brewed from herbs over huts, fields and animal kraals. “Not one person I have treated has ever been struck by lightning,” she claims.

When told that the odds against being struck by lightning are astronomical, the healer is not impressed. “Even if it is one in one hundred thousand who is struck, why is that person struck? It is because someone else is behind it.”

Judging by public reaction to lightning strike killings, the healer’s supposition is shared by many.

“People will believe what they want,” says a police lieutenant. “It does not become a crime until there is a ‘sniffing out’ ceremony, and someone is identified as a witch. Then it does become a crime. An innocent person can be persecuted by people looking for a scapegoat for a natural occurrence.”

SWAZILAND-CULTURE: The Wrath Of The Gods Or A Scientific Phenomenon?

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

Dec 3 2001 (IPS) - Scientific evidence may show that lightning is created by a build up of electrical charges in storm clouds and dissipated through unpredictable connections to ground surface objects, but this is not enough to dissuade many people in the traditional kingdom of Swaziland that bewitchment is not involved.
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