Tracing African Roots: Exploring the concept of ‘ngozi’

03 May, 2015 - 00:05 0 Views

The Sunday Mail

Sekuru Friday Chisanyu

Spiritual vengeance is an issue that can be only treated and resolved by traditional medical practitioners in collaboration with traditional leaders and family members.

It is the return of the spirit of the deceased to revenge and reveal the truth about his/her death.

The spirit of the deceased appears to or attacks its killer or members of the family of the killer.

It is facilitated by traditional medicine used when a person is still alive or employed after death, or where a person has died in anger; for example Mbuya Nehanda and her crew, who were killed by whites while fighting for their land. Their avenging spirits returned.

It is believed that when a person dies, the spirit partners with relatives and ancestors. The ancestors are the ones that facilitate sending back the spirit.

That spirit attacks any member of the family of the killer. The main reason for ngozi is revenge and to reveal the truth about someone’s death.

The avenging spirits appear to or attack the killer and his blood line regardless of the fact that the killer may have been sent by someone to kill, for example as is the case with soldiers.

The avenging spirits does not consider that. It appears to the killer regardless of the reasons for killing.

There are signs and symptoms that there is ngozi in the family. These signs include mysterious deaths, mental illness and other mysterious things like dreaming of the dead person or seeing the dead person walking at night. The spirit of the dead can posses a member of the family of the killer and narrate everything about his/her death.

In such cases people often consult traditional or faith healers and are told about the ngozi affecting the family.

They are told the killer, how it happened and what the deceased wants as compensation. Sometimes they are told where the deceased was buried and where to find the surviving family.

The spirit can be sent to animals, and that’s when you sometimes see animals like cows, hens and goats loitering in the bush. Some send the spirit back to the family of the deceased.

The best way of solving the problem of spiritual vengeance is to consult traditional or faith healers, hear what the spirits want, and pay back as stipulated.

Payment can be in the form livestock or even humans. It all depends on what the spirit wants.

Some spirits require a woman be sent to the family of the deceased and bear children as appeasement.

In parts of Manicaland, ngozi is paid with 15 beasts: four beasts are given to the chief and 11 to the family of the deceased. And in sending the beasts the killer has to pay another beast known as gashiro.

Sometimes the killer gives away his daughter to the deceased as a wife and if she marries anyone else her children will wander until they reach the deceased’s home. This is common in Vumba. When the spirit of the deceased possess a family member of the killer it spells out the deceased’s name, the killer, where he/she was buried and the compensation is. This is common in the Murehwa area.

Spiritual vengeance of property happens when the property of the deceased, usually the wife, is misused and destroyed by the husband’s family.

The vengeance affects the husband and the children until the property replaced and given to the deceased’s family. Sometimes a family is not convinced by causes of death of their relative. They go to the grave and ask for the spirit of the deceased to come back and revenge (kumutsira ngozi).

Spiritual vengeance works with the law because if someone kills a person and is imprisoned that person is usually not affected by ngozi.

If that person is affected after being imprisoned it means the deceased was not satisfied with the sentence passed by the judge.

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