Traditional Healers use body parts of chickens for muti

Poultry farmers have been reporting theft of chickens - it has been suggested that witchdoctors have been using the chicken parts in Muti. Has anyone experienced this - or know anything more on the subject. It has happened on several of the smaller chicken farms. Traditional healers and Sangomas have been know to use body parts for the making of spells and muti - even using human body parts. Spells often require muti and body parts are mostly used from the more exotic animals -  stealing chickens is a new thing. Chicken theft has never been a huge problem in the industry - although free range chicken farming and organic chicken farmers take the biggest knock - The stolen livestock seems to be taken right outside the farm and then the chicken slaughter happens. While many other animal parts are often used in muti, or muthi, I am not sure why chickens are getting attention.

Theft for food seems to me to be the reason, but a local witch doctor informed me that often they are stolen for other reasons. Most healers use some kind of animal product, bones etc. in their trade. Exotic animals and reptiles are often the target, and of course the powerful animals such as lions and rhinos are worst hit. A few of the really evil witches use human body parts. This practise, although not talked about often, is wide spread through out Africa. Mortuaries and morgues are often the target - with criminal healers taking tongues and private parts from the corpses of children. One has to wonder at what drives this practise - it is quite obvious that the buyer of such services knows exactly what he or she is buying. As with any business, even one as gruesome as the trade in human body parts, it is driven by what the buyers perceive as need. Many such cases go unreported, and worse yet, unnoticed.

Family who do discover that such mutilations have taken place are often afraid to report these incidents - the fear of the occult, and of witches is huge. In some way the person who reports such may find himself or herself on the receiving end of the witches wrath. The very strong belief in witchcraft by African peoples, even so called western or Christian Africans allows these criminals to ply their trade openly and without fear of prosecution. In every small town or village in Africa you will find some kind of healer, or ngaka at work. While you may not see them openly offering powerful spells that need illegal items for the muthi, once you are inside and in consultation there are few that will turn away such a profitable patient. Many African will say that they do not believe in such rubbish, but often this is a lie, especially if it is a white person asking. Once the sun has gone down and the person is back in their village or home there are very few African who will deny the power of witches and sangomas.

Training as a sangoma in many cases is not an easy thing to do - apart from the knowledge and history the candidate must learn there is also a darker side. The humiliation and degradation of the candidate by some teachers is not well documented. The darker side of traditional healing and medicine is not openly discussed or written about. Like any form of witchcraft, there are secrets and procedures which are not disclosed to any except the inner circle of the trade. The fear the people hold for witchcraft could not be maintained if it were otherwise. To control people with fear they have to be terrified, and much of the black magic practised by African witches is terrifying. How they cast their magic and what they use in their magic is enough to scare even a western person who does not believe in African witchcraft. The phenomena of using animal parts and human parts in magic is of course not an "African thing" - it is widely practised in almost every form of witchcraft around the world - and as with African sorcery, all such practises are fear based, and power based. While many westerners think only of practises such as Wicca, and think of these practitioners as pretty harmless due to their "do no harm" philosophy, many forget that Wicca does have a very dark side, and some very scary followers. Satanic rituals are often blamed on African witchcraft - but in many cases it is western magic makers that are to blame. A quick look at Christian history will also reveal that they too have a lot to answer for - even now in places around the world modern Christians practise rituals to cast ot demons - and these rituals in themselves smack of sorcery and witchcraft. Seems like humans in one form or another - no matter how civilised, need to dabble in the arcane in one form or another! Got information or ideas? Let us know please.