So I was reading news on the BBC website this morning and came across the following story: Nigeria Police Hold "Robber" Goat
Apparently it is a fairly common belief in Nigeria that people shape shift, and this particular story outlines how a group of citizens arrested a goat who had previously been a man who stole a car. Here's the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7846822.stm
Now, the tendency in America is to laugh at this kind of thing, probably even to shake your head in disbelief that people could believe such a stupid thing. However, as I read it I just felt really sad. That is because we hear about things like that here, too. It is a reality whether you believe in magic, or spirits, or not.
This week, I saw a man who looked like he was mentally disabled. With screeches and hand-flapping, he lurched up and down the street. I asked someone who knew him if he was disabled, and they told me that no, he had stolen a lot of money, and the people from whom he stole had cursed him. That is why is was like this. I asked if he was like this when he was a child, and they said that no, it started some years after the thefts.
I know a young woman whose son had eczema. For months, I gave her creams and pills to help treat the condition, and explained to her that there is really no cure and that most children grow out of it. However, the child had difficult sleeping at night and when she ran out of the anti-itch pills I gave her she didn't contact me for more, or couldn't afford to buy them, or thought they weren't helping. I heard last week that after taking the child for the 20th time to the local hospital to try to cure him (she didn't believe my diagnosis), she was advised there to return to her home district and find a witch doctor (not just an herbalist, these folks also use spiritism). She did so, and from the grapevine I learned that the child is seemingly cured. She is a Christian and attends church regularly.
There is also a belief here that you cannot kill a snake, that it is in fact a spirit. Which explains another reason people are so terrified of snakes, besides the fact that there are many deadly snakes here (we found a small spitting cobra in our yard last year).
Lest you condemn these folks to the category of "uneducated", I urge you to remember that even now in America people believe in spirits, in ghosts, in strange and mysterious happenings. Although not all those stories are believed, those who experienced the events would swear that they happened. And we cannot dismiss the folks here for their beliefs. True or not, people here can tell you story after story about how the ancestors or the spirits blessed or cursed them, how someone fell ill after another person cursed them, or how something bad happened to a family after they mistreated someone. And it is not just bad things happening to bad people. When someone has good crops and then falls ill, people say that the neighbors were jealous and put a curse on him. When a baby is sick, people say that the ancestors are upset with the parents and an offering must be made.
If you come into situations like these and try to explain to someone that the illness is caused by a virus, or poor nutrition, or by an evil spirit or other spiritual reasons (like using charms), they generally will not believe you. Too many experiences over too many years have cemented these beliefs into people's heads. The only way to change people's hearts and minds is through slow change through understanding of the Bible and through the Holy Spirit. Only then do they begin to understand the work of evil spirits and of God's call to follow only Him, not the ancestors, and to live in freedom, not in fear.
-Cami
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