You would think on an island where life is so dominated by Islam there would be no room for a world of witches and black magic. Perhaps one squeezed into a small, insignificant pocket for the faithless minority. Not quite, for here there be demons. ‘Shetani’ (‘Satans’) are very real for most local Zanzibaris. Magic and witchcraft have been the warp and weft of life on Zanzibar for a very long time. Well before the advent of Islam. As recently as 1930 Evelyn Waugh, visiting Pemba reported: “Zanzibar and Pemba are the chief centres of black art on the whole coast, and novices come from as far as Africa’s Great Lakes to graduate here’.

And we’re not talking spooks in the cupboard or stories to scare the kiddies at night. In 1995 the demon Popo Bawa (loosely translated as the bat wing or bat man) was set loose in Pemba. The bat man’s speciality was to drive an individual insane though, wait for it . . . buggery. Mostly men. I kid you not. So terrified were people that most villages on Pemba, started sleeping outside, seeking safety in groups. The hysteria swept to Unguja and resulted in a modern day Salem witch hunt. The local cabal of wizards eventually expelled it to the mainland from where it was claimed to have originally been sent by mischievous Tangan witches envious of Zanzibar. So infamous became the incident of Popo Bawa that leading western psychologists were sent to the island to investigate.

Of course this all points to an obvious, logical conclusion. Christian Bale in a reprisal of the batman oeuvre. Picture it, ‘A dark and troubled knight drawn to a dark and troubled distant shore, not to fight crime, oh no, instead to satisfy a terrible, insatiable hunger. A hunger that must be satisfied.’ I see a title . . . wait . . . yes, of course . . .

. . . ‘Batman Be Buggered!’ Christian would be magnificent.

Closer to home some of our very own colleagues practice the art of witchcraft. We have been assured they do the nice, touchy feely kind. We had a Ministry of Health colleague recently conduct an exorcism of someone afflicted with a Shetani that had apparently driven the poor man off his rocker. Our ‘white wizard’ fasted for 3 days then stood over the prostrate victim for 7 days reciting appropriate Quranic verses. Cured? But of course. Another example, a local teacher, again a colleague, is presently preparing with some fellow local witches to do battle with a Shetani that has possessed a Zanzibari, now living in London and of late taken to wandering the streets aimlessly for days on end. The preparation will take the form of a 7 day fast followed by communal recitals of the Quran over a period of 1 month.  We hope for a successful outcome.

Nadine has actually just completed her Shetani Little Witches Advanced Drivers Licence. Here in a practice session with two unfortunate souls before her final exam.

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A sobering footnote:

Unfortunately, there’s a far more disturbing side to all of this and it’s an example of how strong a hold the belief in witchcraft still holds on large swathes of the population in East Africa. About 6 months ago, on the mainland, in the far west around the area of Bukoba, children started to disappear. Tragically their bodies would invariably later turn up, horribly disfigured. According to reports, they were kidnapped for local ‘witches’ who believe children contain powerful magic. Now admittedly, wild rumours are a daily aspect of life around this part of the world, however, these stories have sadly proven true. The local communities are naturally very scared and very angry. People have been accused of being involved in kidnapping and have been dealt with in a similarly brutal manner. But it is always only ever people accused of kidnapping. It is never people accused of being a ‘witch’. A volunteer colleague caught in the middle of this horror asked why on earth weren’t these so called ‘witches’ themselves brought to justice. They do live a hermit existence but they’re easy enough to find. The reason? The locals (including the police) are afraid to. They apparently believe ‘witches’ are too powerful and cannot be confronted. To do so would mean that person’s death and the death of all those close to them.