We were sharing sorcery and witchcraft stories when a friend narrated a story of a sorcery joke that almost turned ugly – despite having no actual sorcery involved.
A young truck driver was driving from Bombo to Kampala when he got stopped by a traffic officer to check for something. They always have to check for something. Driving a heavy transport truck in Uganda – be it for agricultural produce, charcoal or construction material – requires immense amounts of patience with traffic officers.
It does not really matter whether the truck is new or old. This was perhaps the seventh time this young man was being stopped. As is practice, after receiving the driver’s license, officers nonchalantly walk away while holding onto the licence.
This young driver also jumped out of the truck and followed the officer. Then a thought occurred to him and scooped, or appeared to scoop, the dust from the mark left on the ground by the officer’s boot. Making sure the officer saw what he was doing, he pocketed the dust.
It was a joke that bombed really badly. The officer rushed to him in absolute fury: “Lwaki onjoola ebigere? Oyagala kunzita?” Something like, “Why are you scooping my legs? Do you want to kill me?!” The officer shouted in rage.
“Give me back my legs.” He called his colleagues. “This man wants to kill me. He has scooped my legs. He cannot take my legs!” he shouted.
At this point, he was sweating profusely. “Why are you scooping my legs? This is government work… why do you want to kill me… Woowee,” he cried.
One officer came in and asked him nicely to give the man’s legs back. But it was just dust. What legs did he have to give back. In this moment, the young driver told them it was a joke.
“You joke with my legs?” the affected officer cried out.
The officer whose legs had been scooped was inconsolable. He had henceforth unbuttoned his shirt after a bout of intense sweating. The matter escalated really quickly, with the young driver taken to the police station. One officer decided they arrest this driver.
They would not be releasing him before he summoned his sorcerer to make sure there was no problem. But the matter was resolved after the truck driver called the teller of this story to intervene and plead for him that he had only been joking.
“This man is a practicing Muslim; he cannot double as a sorcerer,” he had pleaded. “There are many Muslims in charge of local shrines, what are you talking about?” one challenged.
A Muslim officer at the station believed the teller especially since he carried a long beard.
“Aba-Tabliq, tebaagala ddogo,” he had said loosely translating. “Muslims who identify as Tabliq hate sorcery.” But almost five hours had been wasted.
Either way, they even paid a bigger bribe than they would have paid had the driver not attempted this silly joke. But that is not the point of the story. The story I wanted to tell is that this officer and the truck driver represent a national condition.
Truck drivers, market vendors, politicians, even medical doctors are endlessly threatening sorcery. Some of these truck drivers, vendors and traders are believed to have killed many rivals and enemies using magic spirits and potions.
In fact, during that entire confrontation with our truck driver, officers said that joke was so untimely as about two weeks earlier, they had buried a colleague believed to have fallen to sorcery.
Interestingly, we used to think only people in downtown – Owino Market, Mu Kiyembe, village co-wives – participated in sorcery and witchcraft. This was before we saw men and women in high places knocking themselves out in sorcery warfare.
Wasn’t an audio recently shared in public that a Speaker of Parliament allegedly planned to send demons and spirits to kill President Museveni? Current Speaker Jacob Oboth-Oboth also put the country on high alert when he said he feared no sorcery, and that all those trying to use it on him better beware. We are fast becoming a country of sorcerers.
A MAN CALLED SUNDAY
In the course of telling these sorcery stories, another brother told the story of a man called Sunday from Mbale.
“These men who have done Imbalu are another breed,” he started.
That in Bugisuland, some sorcery practices involve making a fresh traditional meal and leaving it in the middle of intersecting roads. That these are cleansing practices. That the ready meal should be set up like a homestead getting ready for dining, complete with mats, stools and cutlery.
All these are laid out and then abandoned. The belief is that the first person who walked past that meal walked away with the illness. The one currently carrying the disease would be healed as it transferred to a stranger.
Sunday had woken up in the early hours of the morning to run to a construction site. It took only those menial workers who arrived early as the numbers of job hunters were many.
When in the middle of an intersection he found freshly made matooke, a pot of aromatic beef stew (the one that was smoked before boiling), and wellmade Maleya, he couldn’t help himself.
Less than five minutes must have passed after the sorcerers walked away as every pot was steaming with freshness. Sunday didn’t hesitate he simply sat down, served himself a full meal and ate to his full.
It was not that Sunday did not know the tradition, but having spent the previous night without dinner, the decision was simply instinctive. He was hungry. Those who found Sunday feasting could not stop talking about his bravery and fearlessness.
Normally, whoever found that meal tried to look away and run past the evil meal. Nothing happened to Sunday afterwards. Instead, his legend continues to travel the world.
yusufkajura@gmail.com
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University