Dead man's spirit demands wife, 5 beasts

The avenging spirit of a war veteran who died during the liberation struggle is manifesting itself through two Pafiwa Mutasa High School girls, demanding a wife and five beasts as appeasement by its alleged killers.

The two minors, ages 12 and 13, often exhibit excessive and uncontrollable panicky behaviour when under attack, prompting their parents to lock them indoors. When the spirit attacks, victims usually behave in all sorts of strange ways and this is a result of some demonic or spiritual manifestation of the troubled spirit of a dead person seeking identification.

This condition usually attacks women and girls for the reason, critics say, being that 'women are the carriers or deliverers of life to spiritual suffering', especially in the cases of the dead who seek proper burial rites.

The two girls are doing Form One and Two respectively at Pafiwa Mutasa hish school in Mutasa District, Manicaland province. They have twice led a delegation comprising of members of their families, traditional leaders and some exhumers to Gondo Mountain in Watsomba, where his remains were found. The remains were buried in a shallow grave beside a huge rock.

A relative of one of the girls Mr James Dhlora said the two girls (name withheld) were being attacked by the strange spirit purported to be of a man from Hurungwe who died during the liberation struggle. The deceased was identifying himself as Cde Albert Machocha, of Hurungwe, who was operating in the Mutasa area during the war. His liberation war name was Cde Bruce. The deceased is also claiming that his slayers knocked off four teeth and stole two rounds of ammunition from him.

Mr Dhlora said the combatant claims that he died of food poisoning after being betrayed by one of the girls' aging auntie, whom he said was disputing the allegations and utterances. Mr Dhlora added that the spirit chronicled what the local community needs to do, the two girls would start crawling, pumping their chests raising hands in the air in a joyous fashion, typical styles characteristic of guerrillas on the battle front and after posting a victory respectively.

Then the spirit makes its demands crystal clear: "Remove us from this place and accord decent burial in our ancestral lands. You must perform traditional rituals, which include a traditional brew. I need a wife and five cattle. My family will pay these girls because they are suffering for the wrongs they did not commit," claims the avenging spirit.

Mr Dhlora said: "It is true that the young girl has been undergoing bouts of spiritual possession for the past three months. All along her parents have been locking her in the house, and mistaking her strange behaviour as symptoms of mental challenges. I personally interrogated the spirit, and that is when the truth was unpacked. During our conversation, the spirit said, while the whole village listened, that is was manifesting itself through the girl because her aunt (name supplied) had a hand in murdering him. The girl's other grandmother is also said to have been aware of these developments."

Mr Dhlora said three war veterans in Mutasa District, Cdes Madziro, Makumbe and Choga, have visited the shallow grave and were given an order to exhume the remains next Monday.

"Cde Choga is an exhumer, and has acknowledged the voice of Cde Bruce, since he was a commander in the area during the war. He is consulting with some spirit mediums (Cde Takesure Bunjira and Cde Mauye) so that the remains are exhumed next Monday and be taken to Hurungwe for reburial. Mr Choga has pleaded with the spirit for understanding saying it must spare these girls for now and allow time to work on its demands. It was agreed that it was not an overnight process to conform to these demands and time was needed to involve the area's spirit mediums (masvikiro). The spirit was told to stop tormenting innocent school girls, who know nothing about issues it was raising. The girls were given a reprieve up to Monday," said Cde Dhlora.