For most people, childhood memories of Easter are about bunnies, chocolate eggs, curry fish and church.
I also had a little of that, but, for some reason, this year something triggered a memory that seems to have been pushed to the back of my mind for more than four decades.
Terrifying memory
A terrifying memory of my Sunday school teacher’s words, warning us to “be vigilant, play in groups, run and scream at the top of your voices when strange men approach you”.
A few hours later, as fate would have it, I bump into my childhood neighbour and fellow congregant, who I have not seen in ages. He immediately confesses that he goes to church only on Good Friday and Christmas. We reminisce about our childhood Easter memories and how we used to share one chocolate bunny with our friends.
I then remind him about the fear that this time of the year brought to our community back in the day. The fear of child kidnappings and medicine murders.
Men who lure kids with sweeties
The elderly warned us every day to be careful of men, known or unknown to us, who might use sweeties to lure us into the field or their cars.
There was a strong belief in my hometown that, during the Easter season, local medicine men and their accomplices went out in search of children to kidnap and kill for body parts.
Then they would sell the medicine made of human tissue to the local chiefs to make them powerful and influential, especially during the time leading up to the Parliamentary elections, which were held in April in our homeland.
Grisly deeds
The other target group was the business community, to help them grow their wealth. The irony was that it was important for the grisly deeds to be carried out during the Easter season, as it was believed to be a time of renewal, cleansing and restoration.
Perhaps the culprits hoped to cleanse themselves of bad luck, and to renew and restore their wealth and social standing. It turned out that all the agitation was, after all, not far-fetched.
We recalled how, one morning, our community had woken up to the piercing screams of two young men who, upon their return from the Easter night vigil, had decided to go off to the bushes to smoke some weed. On their way, they noticed a trail of blood that led to a gruesome discovery: the dismembered body of an unknown young boy, thrown into a stream!
Shock and terror swept through our community and the neighbouring communities. I could not sleep at night. What was baffling was that the elders spoke in hushed tones and tiptoed around the subject. They did not want us to talk about it either.
South Africa has sporadic incidents of medicine murders, but if left unchecked, the situation has the potential to spin out of control.
Africa needs to rid itself of this senseless belief and practice. What are the chances of gaining good fortune, power, or wealth out of a dead body part? How is a mutilated and dismembered body of a child of any use to anyone? Our children are already bearing the burden of living in underdeveloped and poverty-stricken countries. To aggravate this challenge with the possibility of kidnappings and medicine killings is cruelty of the highest form to them and to humanity in general.
Masehume Motloenya
