By Pascal Mwandabo
Social misfits such as thieves, witches and sorcerers have been a thorn in the flesh of the society since the days of yore. A family known to have people of such dubious character was shunned and any form of involvement with them in areas such as friendship and marriage was discouraged.
The evil that such characters like sorcerers can visit upon a community was dreaded and such misfits had to face justice upon discovery. Traditional Taita justice system was very elaborate and according to one of the Taita elders Mzee Lenjo Musamuli, social misfits were identified and carefully tracked before made to face the full force of the traditional legal system. It was elaborate and very thorough.
“There was a council of elders known as njama ya waghosi, which dealt with issues to do with justice and retribution” says Mzee Musamuli.
“The elders and seers usually struggled to unravel the cause of social ills that befell the society and once the culprit was uncovered punishment was instantly meted, which at times involved death,” the elder explains.
The elder says some strange occurrences such as children death during birth or strange happenings like miscarriage were either because of witchcraft or curses. In the case of the former the sorcerer had to be carefully tracked.
“There was always a suspect in the ills that befell the community. Most of them were people who descended from family of sorcerers. They were evil and wicked and people shunned them,” he says.
“Witchcraft was inherent and this was handed over to future generations,” he says.
Once a suspect was put before the council of elders he had to defend himself.
Herbal concoctions
“He was to either admit wrongdoing or he would go through rituals that would expose him or absolve him from any wrong doing,” Musamuli goes on to explain.
For instance, a suspected sorcerer would be asked to admit wrongdoing. If he claimed innocence the justice system would take its course.
The suspect would be required to drink a mildly sickening herbal concoction known as mwalola (kulola in Taita means to find, trace or locate something). Upon taking mwalola the suspect would go into a state of delirium and would start uttering things. One might call it obtaining a confession under duress in modern legal parlance, but the elders were very careful to ensure that someone was not victimised for nothing.
In the course of uttering things in a drunken stupor, the suspect would say for instance…It’s me who bewitched the daughter of so and so…It’s me who stole the goat of so and so…That was enough to make the elders chart the next course of action.
“Usually the seers would summon strong youths in the dead of the night who dragged the suspect to the ‘execution chambers,’ which were the high rocky cliffs known as maghamba. The suspect would then be sent tumbling down the rocks and to be reduced to a mass of flesh and broken bones,” explains another elder Mkilo Kilambo.
He says social misfits were never given a decent burial. They were a pain in the neck of society.
In another case, especially for sorcery suspects, the elders would, if mwalola failed to extract a confession, use another powerful charm known as mghule. A suspect who uttered a false confession after drinking mghule would drop dead on the spot.
“This was the trickiest and most effective system given that in most cases those who were guilty offered to drink mghule and drop dead than suffer the painful death of being hurled down the cliffs” Mkilo explains.
But in some cases a person could be suspected of wrongdoing but prove innocence after going through the rituals.
“In such a case the elders had to cleanse their name by ordering the suspicious person to pay the suspect a bull or seven goats as atonement. The process was called kuombochua,” says another elder Christopher Kayanda.
These ‘execution chambers’— namely rocky cliffs — are scattered all over the otherwise picturesque Taita Hills, but those who visit the county to savour the beauty of the land may hardly know the story behind the rocks.
To date some broken bones of these victims can be found scattered at the foot of these cliffs but no one cares to whom they belong. These rocky cliffs are found in Sagalla, Lwada Falls, Sungululu, Wesu rock, Dembwa Falls and Iyale Rock.
Mchombololo Rock in Mbololo, sticking prominently at the bell of Mbololo Hill, was a major killing point for social misfits. The Mbololo area derives its name from the rock’s name.
Better than current laws
Others are Ighamba jha Ndululu in Nyache village where a notorious witch, Ndululu, was executed and Lwala lwa Mwakuza in Choke village, where a thief called Mwakuza was killed. An elder who requested anonymity said the traditional justice system was better than what we have now especially on dealing with issues of witchcraft.
“The laws have no specific charges that can be brought before a suspect of sorcery, and most witches go scot free despite the fact they cause a lot of harm in the community. Most of them are free because there is hardly any evidence that can be used to charge them,” the elder laments, saying this has forced aggrieved people to lynch the suspects.
“In fact, the advent of Christianity has provided a shield for most witches and sorcerers to hide under ‘salvation’ and still practice witchcraft. Some of the church elders and staunch believers in Christian religion still practice sorcery under the cover of religion and go scot free. This was not the case in Taita traditional society” the elder says.
