During my long-term fieldwork in Matobo district there was constant discussion of supernatural beliefs concerning livestock. I have always been dismissive of these beliefs, thinking that they were just remnants of the past. How wrong I was! Supernatural beliefs about livestock are still very much part of day-to-day practices in rural Zimbabwe, as well as in South Africa and elsewhere in the region. We need to understand them when responding to the health and management of livestock systems.
The use of secret charms and potions
Various secret charms or potions are used by stock owners for various purposes in livestock systems. A common magic charm employed in Matabeleland is ‘umthuso’. This charm is used to enhance the productivity of animals (such as getting more calves). This the equivalent of ‘divisi’ in crop farming areas in Mashonaland regions. Divisi is a secretive charm or potion used by some farmers to increase the productivity of the soil and crop yields. Such charms and potions are used secretly and are only of use to the owner. If used on others’ animals, they can have devastating effects.
During the 2011-12 season, there was a severe drought in Matobo. With smaller herds and relatively larger tracts of land, the households in Vimbi – one of the two A1 land reform villages that I conducted fieldwork in for my PhD research – decided to lease out grazing on a short-term basis to herd owners from the drought-stricken areas in the south of the district in exchange for heifers as a strategy to build up their herds. Many households got between two and five heifers as payment. Yet many of the households sold these animals as soon as they received them. I asked why they decided to sell such valuable assets. They told me that they feared that mixing their pre-owned herds with the new animals would lead to abortion. They believed that some stock owners used the ‘umthuso’ charm to enhance the productivity of their animals, and the charm would affect those without umthuso if in the same kraal.
I came across similar beliefs in Hwange communal areas where I conducted fieldwork for my Masters’ research on the impacts of a community-based ‘Holistic Management’ programme. Here, stock owners were encouraged to combine their herds together under Holistic Planned Grazing for perceived ecological benefits. However, most herd owners disliked this idea due to fears of umthuso, which was believed to cause abortion. In the end, the sign-up to the programme was very low, and the project failed completely.
A local veterinarian in Insiza district once told me that she doesn’t enter into a kraal without asking for permission from the owner when treating a sick animal. “When I was new in the area, I once entered into someone kraal without seeking permission and he screamed to me saying, ‘Oh no, you have rendered my umthuso ineffective’.”
It is stock owners with very large herds who are believed to use umthuso. In southern Matobo, I was told about one large herd owner with over 200 cattle who could not sell some of his animals to educate his children. “All of his seven children never went to school, but he had a kraal full of cattle. Those are muthi cattle”, my interlocutor declared. My informants emphasised that when such owners die, the cattle will usually die too. I was consistently told that, “those people die with their things (cattle)”. This is because other family members won’t know how to handle umthuso.
When buying cattle for breeding, one is often urged to avoid buying cattle from herd owners suspected of using umthuso as such animals will abort or have still births. As one of my informants told me:
“I bought a cow from one of the farmers in the village, and that cow never gave me a single calf. It will get pregnant, but have abortion in the late stages of the pregnancy. One of the old men in village later told me that I made a mistake buying this cow from that old man as he was known for bewitching the cattle he had sold.”
While it was very possible that the cow was simply suffering from bovine brucellosis, the neighbours claimed that the old man had used a potion on the cow because he was ‘jealous’ of the buyer expanding his herd. Some herd owners, people argue, use muthi to make their bulls breed with other’s cattle, so that their cows will experience prolapses or abortions.
‘Witchcraft’ as the cause of livestock disease
Livestock owners very often attribute certain animal diseases to ‘witchcraft’, especially if they cannot diagnose the disease. The sudden death of an animal with no apparent cause is sometimes associated with ‘witchcraft’. The death is of even greater concern to the owner if it is preceded by strange behaviour. One A1 farmer in Matobo experienced sudden and unexpected deaths of his goats. He suspected some type of suspicious intervention. As a result, he decided to dig out all the manure in the goat kraal, and found ‘a lot of rats’, which he said were responsible for killing his goats. Instead of consulting a veterinarian for a scientific diagnosis of what disease was killing his goats, he was convinced that the rats were responsible for the death of his goats. Despite his efforts to dig out the manure and kill the rats, his goats continued to die.
Another A2 farmer in Matobo told me that he had to change the site of his kraal because his milking cows were discharging pus instead of milk, and his calves would eventually die. As a result, he suspected that someone had planted a charm in his kraal to damage the udder his cows. As a result, he was losing half of his calves every year. I asked whether he had consulted a veterinarian, but he said no. His solution was to move the kraal, although he admitted that the problem persisted. Yet, to me the symptoms seemed very much of mastitis, which is easily diagnosed and treated.
Protective spirits
In 2016, when I began my fieldwork, I visited the Shashe Block in the southern part of the district to learn about ‘mlaga’ (transhumance) system practised by herd owners as a strategy to deal with environmental variability. Once there, I was told a story about a certain large herd owner who had over 1000 head of cattle. “His cattle are grazed at emlageni (cattle post) throughout the year. He leaves his animals at large, but they are not stolen”, my interlocutor told me. Given the rampant stock theft in the area, I was baffled. I asked why this man’s cattle were not stolen like others. He replied: “He has a strong muthi (potion). It is believed that when thieves try to drive his animals away, they will see things!” By ‘things’, my interlocutor was referring to ape-like ‘tokoloshe’.
In recent years, I have also heard many stories of ‘ngozi’ spirits in relation to loaned cattle. For example, in my own village in Zvishavane, there are two stories of ngozi spirits concerning (loaned) cattle. In the early 2000s, following land reform, a man in our village asked his neighbour to loan (kuronzera) him 20 head of cattle because he had acquired an A1 plot and had no cattle. The neighbour, a single old woman who had acquired the cattle through traditional healing, agreed. The agreement was that the loanee would get manure, milk and draught power in exchange for looking after the cattle. The loanee then moved the herd to his newly acquired farm. Years later, the loanee started selling the cattle without the knowledge and consent of the cattle owner. The cattle owner decided to recall the herd but found out that only five cattle remained. A conflict ensued, but the cattle owner passed away a few years later before she was paid back her cattle.
Today, rumours abound that the late cattle owner’s avenging spirit is demanding her cattle back. It is claimed that, because of the haunting by the ngozi spirit, the loanee joined the ‘Mapostori’ religious sect in order to seek protection from the ngozi. In another story, I heard about a woman who died and her children decided not to pass on her ‘mombe yehumai’ (cow of motherhood) to her maternal relatives. A ngozi spirit returned, demanding that the cattle to be given to her relatives. It is claimed that the ngozi spirit was causing infertility and marriage problems amongst female children and other misfortunes. The children made monetary contributions and bought a cow, which they then gave to their maternal uncles (vanasekuru) to settle the ngozi spirit.
In sum, supernatural beliefs around livestock (especially around cattle) are still important today, influencing livestock management, loaning practices and animal health treatment. While some beliefs such as ngozi are effective at claiming stolen wealth, others are clearly problematic, particularly when it comes to failing to diagnose easily treatable animal health problems. Whatever you think of these practices, they remain an important part of livestock systems in Zimbabwe today and should not be ignored as I had been doing until conducting my research.
This blog was written by Tapiwa Chatikobo, post-doctoral researcher at PLAAS, UWC, South Africa. It first appeared on Zimbabweland