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South Africa is a mix of the old and the new, the ancient and the modern, and South African Christianity is a
perfect example of this. We adopted the religion of our colonizers, but most people held on to the old ancestral
ways, too, just in case. In South Africa, faith in the Holy Trinity exists quite comfortably alongside belief in
witchcraft, in casting spells and putting curses on one’s enemies.
I come from a country where people are more likely to visit sangomas—shamans, traditional healers,
pejoratively known as witch doctors—than they are to visit doctors of Western medicine. I come from a
country where people have been arrested and tried for witchcraft—in a court of law. I’m not talking about the
1700s. I’m talking about five years ago. I remember a man being on trial for striking another person with
lightning. That happens a lot in the homelands. There are no tall buildings, few tall trees, nothing between you
and the sky, so people get hit by lightning all the time. And when someone gets killed by lightning, everyone
knows it’s because somebody used Mother Nature to take out a hit. So if you had a beef with the guy who got
killed, someone will accuse you of murder and the police will come knocking.
“Mr. Noah, you’ve been accused of murder. You used witchcraft to kill David Kibuuka by causing him to
be struck by lightning.”
“What is the evidence?”
“The evidence is that David Kibuuka got struck by lightning and it wasn’t even raining.”
And you go to trial. The court is presided over by a judge. There is a docket. There is a prosecutor. Your
defense attorney has to prove lack of motive, go through the crime-scene forensics, present a staunch defense.
And your attorney’s argument can’t be “Witchcraft isn’t real.” No, no, no. You’ll lose.