By Rédaction Africanews
and AFP
IVORY COAST
Residents of the Ivorian village of Kpo-Kahankro are in shock. In the past two months, over 15 mysterious deaths have plunged the entire community into despair.
Dorothée Ahou Kouamé has lost her 3-year-old granddaughter. Authorities say they have found traces of a deadly bacterium on the deceased.
"At present, the body is still in the morgue. The burial has not yet taken place. I haven't seen her since that day. We were forbidden to see them," Mrs Ahou Kouamé laments.
Some are blaming witchcraft and accusing a prominent villager of installing a fetish.
Clostridium, a common but deadly bacterium was found both on the so-called object of witchcraft and on corpses that authorities tested. Still many grey areas remain.
"We're still afraid... we're still afraid, because the first blow (of the series of deaths, editor's note), was on 2 December when it killed six people, it let up for, let's say, a month and then it started again. So this is our concern," Paul Kouassi,a village youth leader details.
Expedited court hearing
The man accused of installing the object and the owner of the land where the fetish was set were condemned to 5 years in prison on February 9 for disorderly conduct and charlatanism.
The fetish was moved out of the village. The local chief is not completely reassured though.
"It's a mystical thing. It's a wind-driven thing. When it's wind-driven, you can't see it. So it's a mystical thing. So it surrounded the whole village," Nanan Patrice Koffi says.
According to the health authorities 16 died but villagers say 21suffered untimely deaths including 18 children.
Symptoms prompted by botulism that is caused by the deadly bacterium include vomiting and muscle paralysis.
Review of "The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to The Present," by Ronald Hutton
Chas Clifton
2019, The Pomegranate: The Internationla Journal of Pagan Studies
Pagan Studies,
Religion and nature
Publication Date: 2019
Publication Name: The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies
Pomegranate readers who are familiar with Ronald Hutton’s The Tri- umph of the Moon: A History of Modern Witchcraft—whose twentieth anniversary was just celebrated by the publication of a tribute volume, Magic and Witchery in the Modern West (2019)—as well as essays and books touching on the development of modern Pagan traditions of Wicca and Druidry, might be expecting more of the same. But The Witch is not that book. Propelled partially by Hutton’s own concerns about the persistence of witch-hunting and witchcraft executions in parts of Africa and Asia, it begins in a more contemporary framework with a chapter titled “The Global Context” but ultimately circles back to the problems of studying the European and witch trials, specifically those of the British Isles.
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