A Kind of Homecoming by Braithwaite E. R.;

Author:Braithwaite, E. R.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-12-09T16:00:00+00:00

At Kailatun we refuelled and retraced our steps, passing again through Kenema, then Grema, Gegbwema and down to Zimi, a few miles from the Liberian border. Beyond Zimi, we crossed the wide Moa River at Baudajuwa by hand-operated ferry and headed west for Papetun. I could not help thinking that so much seemed to depend on the roads, yet so little seemed to have been done about them. This was the dry season—during the rains, life must be really grim for all concerned. From Papetun we headed north for Magburaka, where we hoped to spend the night. My friend wanted to visit one of his wives, who lived there, and remarked, “I think I’ll take the opportunity of getting some medical advice while I’m there.”

“Does your doctor live there?” I asked. It seemed an awfully long way to travel for medical attention.

“Oh, I’ve got a doctor in Freetown,” he replied, “but this is different. This is what you might call a native doctor—he can deal with things which are not found in medical textbooks.”

“Is he a witch-doctor?” I asked.

He looked at me, then roared with laughter. Whenever he did that, I had the feeling that he saw me from a long way off; thought of me then with something like pity, as if he considered me naïve and uninformed beyond belief.

“Wherever do you get such terms?” he asked. “You say ‘witch-doctor’ in a way that clearly expresses your unbelief and European disdain for something about which you know nothing.”

It had truly shocked me to hear this cultivated, intelligent man speak with such casual acceptance and faith about something which had always seemed to me to be mumbo-jumbo. I had heard of witches and witchcraft and read of the part such beliefs and practices had played in the historical development of many countries. I had read many reports of such practices and beliefs as related to Africa and Africans, but I suppose I had stupidly assumed that they belonged to the primitive element, which still remained comparatively unchanged by contact with Europeans. In my mind, I somehow expected that education presupposed a rejection of such beliefs and I found it difficult to associate this charming, educated man with charms and fetishes.

“Sorry,” I said, in puerile excuse.

“You know,” he continued, “you’ve been away from Africa too long, too many generations, so you talk and think like a foreigner, like a white man. You’d be surprised to know what really goes on in this bush we’re passing through. You call him a witch-doctor, but he can do a hell of a lot more for us than all the patent medicines you can name. Besides, some things cannot be cured by medicines.”

He then recounted instance after instance of strange illnesses which had suddenly overtaken friends or acquaintances, so that they sickened and would very probably have died but for the intervention of the native doctor. In each case, the illness defeated analysis by the European-trained doctors in Freetown, but promptly responded to what one would call the “witchery” of the native doctor.

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