The
picturesque setting of Gusiiland has for years hogged the headlines as a
playground for the purveyors of sorcery, with media reports of
suspected victims of the dark art and the attendant lynching of
individuals alleged to be involved in the practice.A soil-encrusted coffin found in a house in Kisii town early this year. The owner of the house fled before the grisly discovery was made. The house was eventually burnt down by an angry crowd.
Indeed residents of certain areas in Kisii, Nyamira and Gucha have for decades taken it upon themselves to weed out witchcraft with those of a religious bent recommending prayers, traditional medicine men administering concoctions and vigilante groups hammering the point home violently.
But even as the shilly-shallying continues on the best way to get rid of the evil menace, a macabre aspect of witchcraft, involving the desecration of graves and exhumation of freshly buried corpses, seems to be giving residents sleepless nights. While in most parts of Kenya a visit by the Grim Reaper is the worst imaginable misfortune, in Gusiiland the dead seem to be subjected to worse fate by sorcerers.
"After burial in most parts of Gusiiland you have to keep vigil by the graveside for between two weeks and a month, or whatever time you think the corpse will have decomposed, otherwise there are people who will come and exhume the corpse then use it for witchcraft-related rituals. It is suspected that the sorcerers prefer coming for the body three days after it is buried," says Paul Angwenyi who lives in Keroka. This also means that graves in the area are dug to a depth of up to seven feet because the shallower the grave, the easier it is for the body to be exhumed.
Sorcerers exhume body
The ghoulish practice, whose nuances transcend the realms of human logic, literally rips the ubiquitous epitaph ‘RIP- Rest in Peace’, effectively defying the Abagusii tradition that accords respect to the dead.
Although the practice of sorcerers in the Gusii community exhuming corpses after burial is thought to be as old as the history of Omogusii itself, today Crazy Monday exclusively brings to you a mysterious incident that is eerily emblematic of the practice. It is a plot even Stephen King, the master of horror fiction, would not imagine, because this one is real…
About two decades ago, a woman in Nyamira made it known that upon death she did not wish to have her body taken to church for a requiem service, despite the fact that she was a devout Christian. When she passed on her wishes were honoured by the local Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church. However it is said that after she was buried, sorcerers exhumed her body in the dead of the night and took it inside the church for their rituals, thus inadvertently disobeying her dying wishes.
While inside the church, a bright light, likened to a flash of lightning, lit the church and made the sorcerers scamper for safety. They left the coffin and the corpse, which they had placed on a table inside the church ready to begin their rituals. Now, hold your breath because it gets more bizarre.
The ‘flash of lighting’ seemed to have done the work of a giant camera, capturing the incident and leaving a large image of the sorcerers around the coffin emblazoned on the front wall of Nyakeore SDA church in Nyamira District. When the villagers entered the church the following morning they found the corpse and a mysterious incriminating piece of evidence in the form of the image on the wall. From that image they could recognise some of their fellow villagers who they came to identify as sorcerers.
To date the image remains on the wall of the SDA church, located near Kibirigo, less than 10 Km from Nyamira town.
Magic words
Over the years attempts at praying and putting fresh coats of paint over the mysterious image have been futile as it keeps reappearing, defying any form of erasure. The image is now a tad faded but it is still easy to make out the figures. The worshipers now want to put an end to the uncanny occurrence by demolishing the church and moving into a new one. Despite being a one-of-a–kind incident, that ghostly image on the wall of the Nyakeore SDA church symbolises the depth of the problem of sorcerers exhuming bodies in Gusiiland.
Theories abound on how exactly the bodies are exhumed but it is generally agreed that, like those who use voodoo to bring up the dead as zombies in countries like Haiti, the sorcerers in Gusiiland do not physically remove the bodies from the graves. An elder from Keumbu, who did not want to be named, says the sorcerers usually come to the vicinity of the grave at night then begin to rhythmically tap the ground as they chant magic words and call out the name of the dead person.
As they do this, the elder avers that the coffin containing the corpse steadily rises to the top of the grave until it comes to the surface. The sorcerers then carry the body away. But sometimes, powerful sorcerers can simply ‘summon’ the corpse to whichever place they require it to be without actually going to the grave.
"Sometimes they carry the body together with the coffin but sometimes they only carry the body, leaving the coffin. When they go without leaving a trace of the coffin, the only sign that will indicate the removal of the body will be the slight sinking of the grave because the soil from the top will have replaced the space that was previously occupied by the coffin.
Even cementing the grave is not really helpful," says the elder. He believes that those who physically dig the grave to remove the coffin may not be sorcerers but probably people interested in stealing the coffin. Such cases are however rare.
He adds that even before burial people have to guard the corpse because some sorcerers can mysteriously put out all forms of lighting in the home then steal the corpse or cut off some of the body parts. Interestingly the 72-year-old man refuses to give his name or have us take his picture because he thinks that either the sorcerers will use these to bewitch him or vigilante groups will suspect him to be a sorcerer.
They feast on the body
Powerful sorcerers are said to have the ability to exhume bodies from the grave without the knowledge of those keeping vigil. It is believed they can make people fall into deep sleep then go on to carry out their activities in the dark.
Once the sorcerers have the corpse, they proceed to feast on the body at a secret location or inside churches and school buildings. On a few occasions the sorcerers remove the internal organs from the corpse and use strong preservatives to embalm the body. The internal organs are then dried, ground and used for preparing charms while the void left in the body is turned into a store for various charms to make them deadlier. On other occasions, the limbs are cut off and preserved in order to be used for other rituals. Several cases have been reported where suspected sorcerers have been caught with human parts and corpses and lists or photographs of people they want to bewitch.
"Such suspects are usually lynched because people are frustrated by the effects of witchcraft in Gusiiland," says Angwenyi.
Instances where soil-encrusted coffins have been found dumped near rivers or kept in houses belonging to suspected sorcerers are also common. In the latest incident in Kisii town, which was reported on KTN in February this year, two such coffins were found inside a rental house whose occupant had vacated a day earlier. The incident sparked protests from residents who burnt down the house in anger.
Coffins used to ripen bananas
However there seems to be a belief that grim profiteers, who believe in witchcraft, have joined the fray.
"The coffins are used by some people to ripen bananas. Such bananas are rumoured to be sweeter than normal and attract more customers. A few brewers of changaa and busaa are also said to acquire preserved human hands which they use to stir their brew in an attempt to get more customers," says Angwenyi.
Moraa Nyamisa, 80, says sorcerers in Gusiiland are regarded with both fear and hatred. She says it is difficult to identify sorcerers, until they are found with their tools of trade or caught in the act. Most of them are said to be living in poverty despite their alleged supernatural powers. Their aim seems to be to harm successful people in the community or those they consider to have the potential for success. That is why they are always out to exhume corpses in order to prepare more powerful charms to bewitch people.
Mzee Saisi of Gusii Cultural Group explains that witchcraft is thought to be hereditary and nobody will willingly marry from a family thought to be practicing witchcraft.
"Anyone married to a sorcerer will be also be converted into the practice," says Saisi.
Despite several reported cases of bodies exhumed for witchcraft-related rituals, the provincial administration insists that witchcraft is non-existent and should be treated with the contempt it deserves. The official policy also considers lynching suspected sorcerers to be a crime. However chiefs and assistant chiefs who spoke on condition of anonymity, believe that witchcraft is a big challenge in Gusiiland that will take long to eradicate.
Meanwhile members of the community continue to undergo traumatising experiences every night, trying to protect the graves of their dead ones.
"These sorcerers have given the entire community a bad name because people from other parts of Kenya keep on saying that all Abagusii exhume corpses, eat human flesh and practice witchcraft. This is a misleading stereotype," explains Angwenyi.
