Witches and the Bewitched

So other than those last 4 stories/news items, it's been since January that I've really updated on my life here in Lesotho.  Obviously that means there's a lot to catch up on. Lots of good days, lots of bad days. Lots of crazy times in the village. Lots of unexpected encounters while hitchhiking. Lots of kids doing silly things. Lots of training for the half marathon. And lots of... witches?

Well, that's what they say, at least. We here at Thuto-Ke-Leseli High School are battling a witch epidemic. It's been going on since the first week of school back in January. Witches only attack girls.

On the 2nd or 3rd day of school, we had a sort of opening mass to christen the new school year. There, a sweet young orphan girl from my village named Mamotseare gave a long speech. She was re-taking Form A after failing last year. She spoke about why she had failed. Sounds like it should be inspiring, right? Well, turns out she had become possessed by witches during finals. Her soul was taken captive and brought to a cave, where she was beaten and fed pig food for a month or so. Her body continued to persist as usual, so she was able to take her exams, but this caused her to fail. But as of the time of her speech, her soul had returned and she was ready to take on Form A again.

Naturally, I was not convinced.

A few days later, I entered the staff room to see a new student screaming and writhing on the ground. As she shouted things I did not understand, teachers and students stood around her, trying to hold her steady and calm her down. I watched on in bewilderment as they yelled alternately in English and Sesotho, things like "Out, in the name of Jesus!" and "Fire and the holy spirit!" This went on about 30 minutes until the girl regained full consciousness. She described, once again, caves and pig food. She returned to class, but came back a few hours later with the same problem. This time, I helped steady her head so she wouldn't slam it against the tile floor as she convulsed. Despite my obvious skepticism, it was disturbing. I can now say I've taken part in an exorcism.

Over the next few weeks, the same thing happened to a few other girls. Being possessed seems to manifest in slightly different ways each time - sometimes screaming and pain, sometimes loss of coordination, other times a state resembling a coma. But there are always caves, and always pig food.

One morning we called in a local pastor to help us fight the witches. He gave a sermon that (judging by students' reactions) was very compelling. It culminated in him putting his hand on each student's forehead as a kind of cleansing. Sometimes he would "see" something in a student's eyes. He would focus more on that student. The student would promptly collapse. There were, at one point, 6 students laying on the foyer of our staff building, shouting/twitching/falling over, with the rest of the student body watching in horror. They were some of my favorite kids - I was especially shocked to see it happen to Thato, one of the brightest, happiest girls I know.

Another student, a very nice quiet girl, was one day accused of being one of the witches behind all this. No word on any evidence behind the accusation, but nevertheless, she was taken to jail. Jail! Then she was released, and she returned to school. Teachers considered her to be in danger of violence, as our village blamed her for all the witchcraft. I'm not sure what happened since then, but she stopped coming to school.

These days, the problem has not gone away. One of my students, Mamoliehi, experiences a sort of coma every week or two. She just goes unconscious in the middle of class. She then gets carried to our staff room where she sits for a few hours, her eyes very slightly open. She does not respond to any stimuli whatsoever (even when I squeeze her pinky nail as a test for pain response). After a while, people come in and pray for her, then she wakes up. It's almost a routine.

So, what to make of all this? EVERYONE at school believes it's real witches. People disregard my Western ideas. Lately I've been pushing for Mamoliehi to go to a hospital, but no one cares. I can't get myself to believe there's any truth to the witchcraft. But it's not so easy to just dismiss it, either. I know it's easy to shrug off when you hear stories like this. But believe me when I say, it's totally different to watch students I care about suffer from it (and they really are suffering). Still, in the end, I don't buy it. In America, we stopped believing this stuff 200+ years ago. And above all, I'm a scientist.

I'm leaning towards a theory along the lines of: These girls are paranoid schizophrenic, and their paranoid delusions take the shape that their society tells them it should. The more people around them tell them they are possessed by witches, the more they believe it and act it out. But then, is it really possible for such delusions to manifest so physically and so violently? (Maybe.) And also, is it really plausible for this to happen to so many girls? What percent of people experience this kind of paranoia in their lifetime? My school is small, and I'm talking now about ~5-10% of our female students over a 4 month period. I welcome any ideas from people reading this. Are there certain triggers for a psychosocial epidemic of this nature? Are there precedents elsewhere?

At the very least, this whole experience has gotten me interested in the neurology behind religious/spiritual experiences. I'm reading some books now. I'll update if they help me reach any new theories.