Son In Fear After Gov't Destroys His Fathers Shrin

[OlOrisa_Olokun]

Son In Fear After Gov't Destroys His Fathers Shrines

Fear of the Gods Haunt Traditional Doctor's Son
Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)

July 16, 2004
Posted to the web July 16, 2004

( Francistown, Botswana )

A traditional doctor's son is living in fear after the court recently ordered his late father's healing equipment to be burnt. Samuel Makoka of Block Three said that the burning of the items would evoke the anger of the ancestors who in turn would cast bad luck on him and his siblings.

His parents died in 1999 leaving him as the family breadwinner at the age of 19. Makoka expressed disappointment at the law for not heeding his warning that the wrath of the gods would also affect those who confiscated and burnt the goods.


"My father obtained the items through the instructions of the gods. So if the law authorities deemed it fit to dispose them, they should have followed the right procedures of consulting them (gods)," he said

Makoka, who faced a jail term not exceeding five years for unlawful possession of government trophies and keeping live animals without a licence, was slapped with a P150 fine, which he has already paid. He was punished for being found in possession of some of his father's healing paraphernalia like hides of a leopard, honey badger, black backed jackal, the genet and two tortoises.

According to the police, Makoka was arrested when Special Support Group officers on an anti-illegal immigrant operation carried out a search in what used to be his father's consulting room.

After his sentence, the court ordered that the animals be handed over to the department of wildlife and national parks, and the skins burnt because they had lost value.

Makoka said he was not aware that taking care of the properties that belonged to the gods was a crime. "I grew up to find my father with these things and when he died in 1999, I had no idea to what to do with them. Then a traditional doctor who was trained by my father told me to take care of them until further command from the gods," he said In an interview with Mmegi, 54-year old Dorah Rice, a traditional doctor at Manyanda ward in Tonota, revealed that Makoka's late father graduated her into a sangoma using the confiscated skins and tortoises.

"By then Samuel was still very young," she said.

Asked what would follow the un-commanded disposal of the late traditional doctor's items, Rice said, "Those who do that are usually followed by doom and the spirits of that departed soul would always haunt them with nightmares in demand of their destroyed items.

But for the family of the deceased, all that is needed is just to follow the right channel of informing and appeasing the gods".

She blamed the law for ignoring tradition, saying this is the reason Africa faces many problems and incurable illnesses.


Kutlwano police station commander Boikhutso Dintwa said that during the last illegal immigrants clean-up campaign in Francistown, his men, in conjunction with the wildlife authorities arrested two men possessing government trophies without a licence. He stated that ignorance of the law was unjustifiable "lest it creates a floodgate of excuses from persons on the wrong side of the law".

Dintwe urged beneficiaries of such traditional doctoring items to seek advice from the wildlife department, as the law does not recognise traditional beliefs.