African Crucible: Cast as Witches, Then Cast Out

Domingos Pedro was only 12 years old when his father died. The passing was sudden; the cause was a mystery to doctors. But not to Domingos’s relatives.

They gathered that afternoon in Domingos’s mud-clay house, he said, seized him and bound his legs with rope. They tossed the rope over the house’s rafters and hoisted him up until he was suspended headfirst over the hard dirt floor. Then they told him they would cut the rope if he did not confess to murdering his father.

“They were yelling, ”˜Witch! Witch!’” Domingos recalled, tears rolling down his face. “There were so many people all shouting at me at the same time.”

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4 comments on “African Crucible: Cast as Witches, Then Cast Out

  1. Wilfred says:

    This item should not have been posted.

    We do not wish to give 815 any more ideas on to deal with dioceses or vestries voting to leave TEC.

  2. Ouroboros says:

    Pay no attention, people! One culture is just as good as another! Never mind that in the Middle East, women who are raped are then killed by their own families to preserve “honor,” in Puerto Rico today it was discovered that thousands of stray animals were thrown off a bridge by local governments as an animal control measure, and in Africa orphaned children are tortured and accused of being witches. All cultures are equal… to suggest otherwise means you’re a racist…

  3. Jon says:

    Does anyone know how significant of a presence mainline Christian churches have in Angola, particularly Anglican and Roman Catholic? I wish the article gave us a sense of what percentage of Angolans are Anglican or RC, and of those who are, how their churches are dealing with this.

    My guess is that Anglican and RC churches denounce this behavior and do what they can to save some of these kids, but I really don’t know. The article briefly alludes to what one small RC group is doing but that’s about it.

  4. Christopher Hathaway says:

    Hasn’t the government of Angola been rather marxist and anti-religious foir the past thirty years? Maybe that has something to do with the level of savagery. Nothing inspires love for one’s fellow man like materialist determinism.