The spirits, the witches, African Tokoloshe, superstitions, experiences and the tales

[Hunt anything]

This is a great thread!, nothing much to add. Other than one of my trackers in Mozambique wanted the horns off of a reedbuck to give to someone in his village. Wish I would’ve asked a few more questions but he was being a little secretive about it.

 

[ActionBob]

Same with owls....here anyway...

And in parts of the US.... Creepy things.

 

[DLSJR]

This has been a real good thread. I read every single post with keen interest.

 

[mark-hunter]

Lets hope, more to come!

 

[Foxi]

My Father was an MD in rural Tanzania. He had perfectly healthy individuals come into the hospital with a death curse placed on them by witch doctors. In a few days they died. Perfectly healthy people believed they would die and did in less than a week. It was considered better to die at the hospital than the woods since the families wouldn’t let them die in the home since it would then be uninhabitable and have to be burned down. .

My Father came up with an idea for the next time it happened. An individual came in with a death curse. My Father told him he might die but if he took the hospital dawa and his urine turned purple (if I remember correct that was the color) then he would be assured the hospital dawa was greater than the witch doctor dawa and he would live. Sure enough his urine turned purple and he believed enough he lived. Soon everyone wanted the drug that would make the urine turn purple. Didn’t matter if they had syphilis, cancer, burns, broken arm or a panga buried in their head. Didn’t matter that it was a placebo, it was the strongest drug they had ever heard of. Word got out even further afield and people with death curses from witch doctors would come from all over the country, Malawi and Zambia to get the drug that would make their urine turn purple.

The power of belief in the witch doctors is very real with many unexplained happenings actually happening.

a wonderful story Wheels.
You must have become very rich as a result.
How many goats do you now have in your garden ?

 

[Sideshow]

I live it...my wife is zambian and when she trims my hair she makes sure non is left on the floor...all down the toilet so the cleaner can't take any....same with other stuff....its in her culture...I respect it , and have seen staff on ranch and others who are terrified when a witch doctor is used as a threat against them by local people who want to poach etc...some shit happens that you can't explain...as some have posted ....a witch doctor we got in to try and find out who was stealing, when asked why they held so much power/ influence...he said remember our culture using this was around long before Christianity .....do I believe...not sure ...probably a bit...but I sure as hell am happy not to poke it....

Haven’t read the whole thread yet.
Bet there’s no chameleons in your house! What is it again women there believe if you get bitten by one you can’t have kids?
Ive plenty of story’s of witch doctors but the only one that had a direct effect is below:
I got quite sick when coming through Malawi went to a doctor in Lilongwe who couldn’t find much wrong. It was harvest time and said I should buy a tokoloshe to protect me from the evil sprits as he thought a Witch doctor might have put a curse on me. I’m like yeah right what a load of mumbo jumbo…. But on the walk back to the campsite I started thinking. When I was a kid I’d found a small peace of greenstone in the far north of NZ and had shown it to my neighbor who had blessed it and said keep this it will protect you. So when I went past the big curio market and saw this so brought it straight away put it up in the cab of the truck and it’s been all over. Never figured out what I was sick from but it cleared a few days after.

We learnt in NZ not to muck around with the Maori sprits the elders Kaumatua would tell us “You kids stay away from such and such a place or the sprits will put Utu on you”! It’s a type of revenge that fills up your body. Once found a Mere, war club whilst digging a drain on the back of dads place. Took it up to the neighbours who was an elder and priest his family would not touch it until he came home and gave a blessing over it to remove the utu that it held. (Ray Tarnai same guy that blessed my greenstone) Once done they happily handled it.

If they say go see a witch doctor I’d say go it’s all part of the trip. But do treat it with respect it’s their culture even if you don’t believe in it. They think we are mad that we eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood.

 

[Foxi]

Almost none of us hunters who live in the mountains would shoot a white chamois.
They say that you will die within a year.
A prominent example was the Austrian heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, who fell victim to fatal shots in Sarajevo, which were one of the causes of the 1. World War.
This was followed by Austria's mobilization against Serbia, the German Kaiser was an ally of the Austrian Kaiser; France was an ally of Serbia and so the shit got going, you can see what curses can trigger.

As an enlightened person of the 21st century, I don't believe in the nonsense about the White Chamois, that my fate is also linked to theirs.

Foxi.

p.s but I would never want to shoot one because I have no intention of risking my life just to disprove a fairy tale

 

[Hillbilly Marine]

What a thread! Like my grandfather used to say in the West Virginia hills "I don't believe in 'em, but there's Haints up on that hill"

 

[PerH]

Give us some more details?

Kristoffer Nilsen Svartbækken Grindalen - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In very short without becoming Ruark in length .

It was a cabin in Norway where a lot of parties , accidents and couple of deaths through the years had occurred .

The ordinary log hunting and fishing cabin off the trail but close enough to road that one could hear a car coming 1 mile away if the wind was right .

close to the cabin was the place just called the Block ( or Skafottet ) where an execution in 1876 took place . The last one done until after ww2 .

In the cabin in morning was a weird electric feeling and I woke up and looked towards the other side of the horse shoe shaped benches .

I. Front of me 4-5 meters in front I saw a man sitting with heads in his hands hulking his soul away . The other guy in cabin was opposite me , I thought it was him , but suddenly I saw the sleeping back
Move in sideways corner

Then as light hit in there , I saw the man had 1800s style clothes on him , worn tired exhausted as if a life of crime , bad sleep lot of drink and occasional good food .

As I wondered how he got there the man walked past me and the guy on other side . He was crying and opened the door . Then we just laid down again . And I did before sleep .

But when we woke later it was so cold , the door was fully open and it was almost impossibly to do so otherwise .

We did a CSI and door was open when a couple of guys stopped by , locals and they saw the door open and wondered . I just said « Svartbekken opened it « and they were not surprised over it , just what can go on in the area .

 

[Pondoro]

A woman wich farm I hunted on told me a similar story..waking up an seeing a smallish man dressed in 1600-1700ish clothes sitting by her bedpost.. Suddenly he dissapeared.. This happened in a large timber house from 1645...near the border against Sweden.. convicts got their sentence there as the farm belonged to the local sheriff.. I stayed there during hunting season many times..never noticed anything though..