What do witch doctors actually do?
s part of trying to understand how Public Authority operates in such impoverished, marginal and conflict-affected places, Robin Oryem has been interviewing local witch doctors.
One thing every Acholi person wants to avoid
is being associated with a witch doctor, but I took courage and informed the powerful voodoo priest (motorbike taxi) man that I was heading to the witch doctor’s
place. He bombarded me with questions: What is your problem? Are you looking
for riches? Has someone bewitched you? And his last word was that these people
(witch doctors) are bad.
People certainly associate witch doctors with bad acts. They
don’t associate witch doctors with, for example, deciding whether widows, with
or without children, can stay on the land of their dead husbands, return to
their maiden home or have the choice to reject or accept a protector (male
relative of their late husband)?
Yet these are just some of the roles I discovered when I
interviewed some witch doctors in Northern Uganda as part of my research for
CPAID. Let’s hear from Akumu Christen (a female witch doctor):
‘It was in 2009 when I became a witch doctor, even though I
never wanted to be one. In 2005 I was attacked by a ‘jok’ for the first time’.
Robin: ‘She was trying to show me what she
uses in her daily work, Each one of those things has got different roles to
play. The spear represents a god call Jok Kalawinya. Kalawinya is summoned when
someone is possessed by evil spirits. The Bible represents a god called Mary,
Mary is a white and she loves peace, so for most powerful voodoo priest bringing peace, they summon her. The beer bottle represents a
god call Jok Kirikitiny. Kirikitiny is a god from the Karomonjong ethnic groups
– he is concerned with protection. The small syrup bottles contain a liquid
substance which she takes before starting her work, it makes her see and hear
from the gods.’
A jok is a class of spirit within the traditional Acholi belief system that is
viewed as the cause of illness. Traditional healers (known as ajwaka) first
identify the jok in question and then make an appropriate sacrifice and
ceremony to counter them. Alternatively if such an approach is unsuccessful the
person possessed by the jok can go through a series of rituals to gain some
level of control over the jok and then themselves become ajwaka.
‘This jok wanted me to become a witch doctor.
When I resisted, I became mad for three months, but in the fourth month I was
taken from voodoo
doctors near me a born-again Christian and the jok left me
alone. But that liberty only lasted for two years and then I suffered the
hardest attack yet from the jok. I became mad for the second time and lived in
trees like a monkey for three months without eating food or drinking water and
without coming down to the ground. Then my sister brought another witch doctor
to initiate me into being a witch doctor, which was what the jok wanted all
along, and that’s how I became a witch doctor.
‘I was scared because of what people would say but I now have
realised that this jok–known as jokajula- does not support wrong-doing like
killing people. I don’t do rituals to kill people but to help them’.
Akumu Christen now helps the people in her neighbourhood town.
Paico, in different ways, including:
Mental Health Worker: Helping victims or Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) returnees by trying to stop or prevent spirits from
attacking them. Or stop them from being haunted or rerunning in their minds the
bad things that they did in the bush, preventing nightmares and helping them
cope in their community.
Peace Maker: Participating in the reconciliation of two clans,
where one killed a person from the other clan. Beside that she is also involved
in summoning the spirit of the dead to ask him who should receive the ‘kwo
money’(blood money paid to the victim’s family/clan).
Family Therapist: End barrenness voodoo near me women, which is hugely important because children are very
significant to an Acholi: for a home to be called a home it should have
children around.
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