Newspaper Page Text
Ghana’s witch villages
protect an outcast class
Witches gather
for protection,
acceptance in
communities of
their own.
By Tim Sullivan
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer
GAMBAGA, Ghana
Stopping for a moment from
grinding her small ration of mil
let, the young woman smiles ner
vously and says, no, she’s not
sure exactly what she did to come
to this place.
All she knows is a little boy
died. And she was blamed. And
with accusations of witchcraft
seething in her village, she was
attacked by former friends and
neighbors.
Eventually, her family turned
against her, and her husband
brought her to Gambaga, a dusty
town 30 miles (50 kilometers)
from the nearest paved road that
offers refuge to more than 100
women accused of witchcraft.
They live in a cluster of mud
walled compounds out on the
edge of town, hoping to reclaim
someday a little piece of their
lives.
“Idon’t know what happened,”
says the woman, who goes only
by the name Banga and who now
believes that she somehow did
put a curse on her nephew, mak
ing him sick and finally killing
him.
“Only God can tell. I don’t
know how I did it,” she says.
. In a country where cellular
.phones and satellite TV mix
freely with age-old beliefs in the
‘supernatural, where everyone
from Cabinet ministers to mis
sionaries believes in witchcraft,
the “witch villages” of northern
Ghana have become the center
-of a debate over how a modern
government should deal with
sometimes brutal traditions.
If the witches of Gambaga live
in abject poverty, forbidden from
leaving without permission, their
“ghettoisalso oneofthe few places
‘where they are safe.
“If T go back I would not sur
‘vive,” says one woman, Hawa,
who came to Gambaga a few
‘months ago. “The father of the
“"baby I bewitched would hunt me
down.”
For centuries, witchcraft has
been used in this part of the
‘world to explain natural phenom
‘enon, from polio to impotence.
“The accused often are elderly
women, the weakest members of
Have a nice
park them?
A
-‘ :
[0
=G
“There’s no place for kids here.”
“The apartment is too small for kids.”
“We only allow two people in a
housing choice use
you;w have children could be
discrimination. You can fight back.
| unfair housing practices,
covy::d Hfiooryw'now Fair Housing
Center. Everyone deserves a fair chance,
L
u.s\. uu-cuam 1-800-927-9275
oe R :
e g\
4 ‘*:’ |
‘ %f-"?:e
A J ’i.’";",‘u
% \\ gX P b "
\ ; /8 g ‘ ;‘\ O
"\ X 4 E B \‘.
oio R . ‘
- ‘ w\ * \ B - AL ‘
- S Lo
" o, IR T
/,: &y e\4 g
% R ok = YRORER T
- S {l\ NRR b% £
e J : e \ ;,,",”_ L - % AR ;:\:Qfl m
Chief Yahaya Wune, left, sits in his palace with two residents of the “wiich village” he over
sees in the village of Gambaga, Ghana Nov. 29, 1997. Gambanga is one of Ghana’s “witch
villages,” where women accused of sorcery live after being chased oway from their homes.
(AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
African village life. Many times
it is a jealous neighbor or an
other wife in a polygamous
household who makes the witch
craft accusation.
Women accused of sorcery have
few choices but to seek protec
tion in a witch village. There,
the chief is believed to have the
ability to drain a witch’s powers
before shunting her off to live in
the sorcerers ghetto, where most
of the women eventually come to
believe they really are witches.
Gambaga, a collection of mud
and-thatch huts and colonial-era
fieldstone buildings, is one of the
three known witch villages re
maining in Ghana. During the
last century, nearly every village
in the region had its own witch
ghetto, but they gradually dis
appeared under pressure from
missionaries and British colonial
authorities.
Gambaga has a population of a
few thousand, about 130 of them
accused witches. It looks pretty
much like every other town _
except that the witches’ camp is
spotlessly neat. “No men,” one
woman explains.
The alleged witches of
Gambaga, most of them in their
40s and 50s, are mostly unedu
cated and come from small, ru
ral villages, where fear of witch
craft runs deepest. Many will
spend decades in the camp, liv
ing there until they die.
Most are desperately poor. While
the chief offers the women protec
tion and the eventual promise of a
proper burial, he provides them
with little food. Instead, they rely
on charity, the sale of firewood
96,9’-@\2 _
N/
ol
RISV AN i
and the food they receive from
working in the chief’s fields.
Ruling over Gambaga is Chief
Yahaya Wune, a sometimes be
nevolent autocrat with a firm be
lief in the righteousness of the
witches ghetto.
“It’s not by magic that I keep
them,” he says through a transla
tor. “It’smerely a tradition handed
down from generation to genera
tion to provide sanctuary.”
The witches ghetto stands near
the humble, thatch-roofed dwell
ing that the chief calls his palace,
Yahaya's rule has changed little
from the days when his forefa
thersran Gambaga. Here, his word
is law, and he is greeted with bows
and hand-clapping when he walks
through town with his black,
wooden staff. 2
Hebecomes angry when he talks
about the accusations leveled
against the witch villages from
hundreds of miles away in Accra,
the capital.
“What crime have I committed?”
he demands.
“Those that actually did it — are
proved to be witches — I accept,”
hesays. “But we settled them here
to prevent them from being at
tacked.”
Still, after existing quietly for at
least 150 years, the witch villages
have become a political issue.
Government officials, rights ac
tivists and church groups decry
them as inhumane prisons where
elderly women languish unless the
chief decides they no longer pose a
threat and their home villages will
take them back. Freed witches
must also repay the chief for his
protection, giving him a goat, some
96.9 The Touch
presents
Magic Mornings
Monday - Friday
6am -10 am
with
' Tom Joyner
&
Mechelle Jordan
chickens and the equivalent of
about $lO, asizable payment for a
Ghanaian villager.
“It is obnoxious and is a viola
tion of the rights of women,” says
Ama Benyiwa-Doe, Ghana’s
deputy minister of employment
and social welfare, who wants to
ban the villages and prosecute the
chiefs.
But even critics concede that in
a country where an accusation of
witchcraft can be adeath sentence,
the witch villages provide a neces
sery haven.
The chief “is not a cruel man,”
says the Rev. Emmanuel Arongo,
the Anglican bishop for the
Gambagaregion and a harsh critic
of the camps. “What he’s able to
do, he does.”
Some activists say that instead
of closing the havens, the govern
ment should improve the lives of
the women by providing aid, par
ticularly deliveries of food and
clean water.
As for the women, some dream
of the day when their accusers die
off and they can return to their
own villages, but for others the
witch ghettos become their real
homes.
“I won’t go anywhere,” says
Banga, her 3-year-old daughter
standing silently beside her while
she works in front of their tiny hut.
She says she misses parts of the
life she left behind, especially her
elder daughter and her husband.
They visit from time totime, Banga
says, but even if given the chance,
she won'’t return to her former
village.
“I don’t want to go back,” she
says. “This is my home.”
Gingrich attacks
bilingual education
hßy Lori Wiechman
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer
SMYRNA, Ga.
In a speech that could foretell
some of the m. battles in
theupcoming yearinCon
gress, House Speaker Newt
Gingrich attacked bilingual edu
cation today and called for a na
tional debate on drugs, education,
tax cuts and retirement benefits.
The Georgia Republican urged
that all school children learn En
glish by the fourth grade but said
it should be up to local schools, not
thefederal government, toachieve
that goal.
“When we allow childien to stay
trapped in bilirgual programs
where they do not learn English,
we are destroying their economic
future,” he said.
He also proposed a commission
to outline ways to buttress Social
Security for the retirement of the
big Baby Boom generation, which
will begin in a decade. He made no
suggestions about how the mas
sive program should be altered
but seemed to suggest that such
changes don’t have to mean re
duced benefits.
“Anyone who thinks you’re go
ing to have painful choices in So
cial Security doesn’t understand
the marketplace,” said Gingrich.
Gingrich made his remarks while
visiting his home district in a
speech to the Cobb County Cham
ber of Commerce. Though he made
no specific legislative proposals,
the speaker’s comments seem
likely to help shape the upcoming
election-year session of Congress
and beyond.
Gingrich said his four goals are
to create a drug-free America for
children, to improve education, to
protect Americans’ retirementand
to reform taxes.
“If we would focus on these four
areas, we could dramatically
change the country,” he said.
The speaker proposed that ev
ery student spend one day a year
reading the Declaration of Inde
pendence, the Constitution and
AugustafFOQCUS
FOCUS on a unique gift: Buy
ad space in the Augusta Focus
for that special someone or
someplace.
Call 724-7855 to arrange your
purchases.
s, . g
p ol
o . e
o .
: fi« O ",
o . o,
i 'i( & et W s ’ e
T A el T i
# A e P g ‘:-.;" ‘>
4 3 i \ \« " & .‘__'c A
L .
R
L~ W
-
{
AUGUS' ous
JANUARY 8, 1998
the Federalist Papers, including
“It’s im; for any judge _
even with an ACLU lawsuit _ to
argue that a teacher should not
explain what the word ‘creator’
means in the Declaration of Inde
pendence, sinceitisasecular docu
ment,” Gingrich said.
“It will do all of us good if every
child begins to learn that they're
endowed by the Creator and, by
the way, so is the person next to
them. So if you're a rapist, the
person you're raping is endowed
by God.”
Poorly performing schools
should be identified and their ad
ministrators asked what their plan
is for improving the school in the
next 30 days, Gingrich said. “If
they don’t have a good answer, we
frankly ought toreplace the people
in charge.”
On taxes, Gingrich said the na
tion needs to define what percent
age of income the government can
take from each individual.
“I would suggest that, in peace
time, our goal should be that all
three levels _ state, local and fed
eralgovernments_should not take
more than 25 percent” compared
with 38 percent now, he said.
He declined to offer specific tax
cutting plans but said he wants to
eliminate capital gains and inher
itance taxes. He also said the first
‘goal should be to have a federal
budget surplus.
He said he hopes President
Clinton will endorse the commis
sion so it can begin work this sum
mer and Congress can act in 1999.
“There’s no crisis, but there’s a
long, steady problem unless we
invent a better model” for Social
Security, he said. “We can avoid
generational warfareif we will have
a dialogue about creating the best
retirement system in the world.”
Ondrugs, Gingrich said he wants
tointroduce legislation expanding
the powers of the nation’s drug
czar to seal off borders, go after
“drug dealers and raise costs for
drug users.
3B