Muti

Moderator's note : this story is more of a news headline case documentary than it is a story, and it is NOT for the squeamish or weak of heart. It involves some fairly gorey elements as well as castration of minors and worse. The WARNING tag was checked.

By Pueros

(Johannesburg, South Africa, January 2001)

The 52 years old wealthy black gangster was bitterly angry. His white doctor had told him that his lung cancer, caused by many years of heavy smoking, was terminal. His black sangoma, Zulu for witch doctor, had been unable to elicit any improvement with the early remedies, despite also using his powers of communication with the man's ancestors. The notorious criminal therefore commissioned the manufacture of stronger muti, Zulu for medicine and for centuries an integral part of African culture.

In South Africa, there are estimated to be 80,000 sangomas, who are consulted by 80% of the black population. They frequently advertise in newspapers, promising to enlarge penises, increase potency and virility and cure ailments, as well as help people to pass exams, win the lottery and protect drivers from having their cars hijacked.

(One week later, Soweto, South Africa)

The gangster’s grandson, willingly given up for the purpose by his family, was brought at midnight to the ramshackle shed to meet the sangoma again. The old black man had extracted a pint of blood from the lad’s arm a week earlier but drinking the substance, to restore strength and vitality, had not made his patient any better. He had therefore used the sanguine residue to write the youngster’s name several times on a white sheet, now attached to the shed wall above a wooden bloodstained table, under which were several bowls and buckets. The 5 years old’s name had also already been inscribed in ink on a number of candles placed on shelves, running round the structure, to illuminate the scene. Jars of various contents and some tools shared the shelving.

The sangoma stripped the only attire, a pair of black shorts, off the frightened boy and carefully inspected his young nude body. The old man paid particular attention to the lad’s head, limbs, stomach, vertebra and genitals, which he weighed carefully before rubbing the penis and balls gently between his fingers. He then instructed the gangster’s two henchmen, who had brought the youngster, to strap the 5 years old in a face-up spreadeagled position on the table, leather ties already affixed to each corner for the purpose, and to gag him.

The sangoma picked up an unsterilised knife from a shelf and introduced the sharp blade to the lower base of the terrified grandson’s small ball sac. The old man pulled the little cock upright and then began to carve into the scrotum whilst the horrified boy fainted. The witch doctor skilfully soon had the severed genitalia in a bowl. He then moved the knife to the lad’s stomach.

Within a few days, a number of new jars of muti were introduced to the shelving and the headless and dismembered torso of a young boy, strangely redressed in red shorts despite his emasculation, was found floating in a sewer. The obviously ritualistic killing was to be one of the many similar murders never solved by the over-worked and under-strength South African Police.

The sangoma had added fresh young sexual and internal organs, which conveyed great medicinal strength, as well as eyes, tongue, powdered hands, feet, brain, vertebra and drained blood, to his muti. The Atlas bone, or first vertebra, was the most prized as it was considered to be the centre of the body, where all nerves and blood vessels met, and so possessed unrivalled powers. Charges of up to $400 were levied for its curative qualities. Some of these would be used to try to eradicate the gangster’s illness. Other items were to be kept for prescription to other patients for different complaints. The genitals were greatly desired for the resolution of problems of fertility. Other body pieces were used to cure a wide range of problems from arthritis and mental illness to bouts of bad fortune. Children’s parts were considered far more affective than those of adults because of their purity, their spirits thereby being better able to confer good luck.

Unfortunately for the criminal, the administrations did not seem to work and he was forced to order an even more powerful and much more rare remedy.

(A remote farmstead, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, February 2001)

The pretty 6 years old white farmer’s son was playing on his own in the barn when two black men entered. The boy, dressed only in blue shorts as it was a hot summer’s day, recognised neither as being one of the farm labourers. His perception was to prove correct.

(One day later, Soweto, South Africa)

The abducted white boy was taken at midnight to the ramshackle shed to meet the sangoma. The old black man extracted some blood from the lad’s arm and used the sanguine liquid to write the youngster’s name several times on a white sheet, which he then attached to the shed wall above a wooden table. The 6 years old’s name had already been inscribed in ink on a number of candles placed on shelves, running round the structure, to illuminate the scene. Jars of various contents and some tools shared the shelving.

The sangoma stripped the shorts off the frightened boy and carefully inspected his young nude body, the remains of which were subsequently never found although it was ritual to place such remnants into moving water.

(Johannesburg, South Africa, March 2001)

Unfortunately for the gangster, his white doctor’s prognosis proved correct and he died in great pain.

(London, England, September 2001)

The headless and dismembered body of a well nourished and cared-for 5 years old black boy, strangely redressed in red shorts, bought from a Woolworth’s store in Germany, was found floating in the middle of the Thames, opposite the Globe theatre near Tower Bridge.

(London, England, October 2001)

Police, searching the Thames foreshore several miles upriver from where the boy’s torso was discovered, found a white sheet and several half-burnt candles, all bearing the name ‘Adekoyejo Fola Adeoye’ in blue ink. The name was believed to emanate from the west African country of Ivory Coast.

The crime was considered to be the first case of muti murder in Britain.

THE END

of

MUTI

by Pueros