Fred & the Witchdoctor

Fred Simapuka was eager to be an evangelist but when he first went to Sinemagonde’s new school, he did not go alone. His friend George went long as a fellow teacher. It had been estimated that there would be 80 pupils that first year of the school, and as the government allows only 45 pupils per teacher, this would be a two-teacher school. Both boys had recently passed the eighth grade at the Namwianga Mission in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Fred’s father was a highly respected Christian teacher of long standing among the non-instrumental churches of Christ.

The boys were young and green – ages eighteen and nineteen. George, the younger, soon became discouraged with the isolation of Sinemagonde, which was only a native village in the midst of virgin such and forest. The nearest store/trading post was 45 miles away; the road led through country thick with elephant, buffalo, lion and leopard. This was the second worst tsetse fly area in the country. The people were savage and uneducated and spoke a strange perversion of his familiar Tonga. They were Valley Tonga – the lower class- while he was Plateau Tonga – one of the elite. When I made my first visit after the opening of school, George was near to tears, begging me to take him out of this forsaken place. Since no more than 45 pupils had turned up, he wasn’t needed: so Fred was left to carry the load alone.

I had been at the school on my regular preaching and inspection visits, and the first year was nearly two-thirds over when I received an urgent letter from Fred, via runner.

“You must come at once, sir,” he wrote. “I am dying. The witchdoctor has put a curse on me and says I will surely die if I do not leave this place.”

I was stunned. Here was Fred, a second-generation Christian, afraid of the power of the witchdoctor. I had feared trouble, but not this.

But this was not just an ordinary witchdoctor. Many and fantastic were the tales told of his marvelous powers. He could cans spells at a great distance. Some said he could fly. But his greatest fame came from his reputed power over elephants.

“I can command the elephants,” he had told his gullible people. “If I tell them to stay out of your crops, they will not bother them. You will not have to sleep in your fields to protect your crops. Just pay me what I ask and your crops will be safe.”

So the people paid up, and for the next three years, although Sinemagonde is the ancestral home of the elephants, their crops remained untouched while the neighbor’s fields were ravished.

I loaded my camping gear into the car, for it’s 100 miles to Sinemagonde, and the grueling drive usually takes over five hours. On the way I met the N.C., Mr. Cockroft. He stopped and told me there was trouble at Sinemagonde.

“Something about the witchdoctor and things that go bump in the night,” he growled. “I gave your teacher a going over, told him he ought to be ashamed of himself. He’s supposed to be a Christian and not believe in that stuff.”

It grew dark, but still we pushed on. Misael was with me, and Goliath, a teacher friend of Fred’s. Suddenly, I noticed a great moving shadow in the trees ahead. It could only be one thing, and I felt the hairs rise at the nape of my neck as I hurriedly switched on the spotlight to reveal a huge elephant. It swung defiantly toward the car, and I promptly slammed on my brakes. Then I saw the reason for its defiance. There was little baby Jumbo toddling along the road behind her. She faced me till Junior was safely across the road, then she went crashing off into the darkness.

Goliath let out a great sigh. I turned to him as he gasped, “This was my first time to see an elephant. They told me it was as big as a house!”

Not long before this, an old man at Sinemagonde rounded a bend in the trail to face a cow elephant with her calf. He turned to run, but she caught and killed him.

We arrived without further incident. As we drove into the schoolyard, Fred came out of his mud hut into the glare of the headlights. I was startled by his haggard look. He looked as if he were dying. I greeted him in a friendly way, told him I had received his letter and would talk with him in the morning, and left him with Misael and Goliath. I figured the companionship of these two fine young men would be the best medicine Fred could get just then.

Early the next morning I was up to talk with Fred. Fred had been teaching the Bible regularly in the school and preaching there on Sunday, as do all our teachers. But he had gone out into the villages on Saturdays to carry the Gospel to the adults. His preaching had naturally conflicted with the evil teaching of the witchdoctor, and thus the ban. He was ordered to stop preaching at once, or the magician would send his “fairies” (evil spirits) to bewitch him. Fred refused to stop, and the curse descended. One night after midnight, Fred was awakened by something beating on his roof and wall. He hurried out with his flashlight, bur found no one there, nothing on the ground, and no one in sight.

“It was his fairies,” Fred insisted. “It has happened other times, too.”

“How many times?” I asked.

“Many times,” he insisted.

“How many? You can count. You are a teacher.”

“Well, let’s see – there were – ah, two times.” He confessed.

“That’s not very many,” I chided.

“It seemed like it,” he insisted.

I talked on with Fred, letting him pour out his fears and loneliness until he was empty. When at last he was through, he waited for me to scold him like Mr. Cockroft had. Instead, I asked, “Fred, what have you done?”

He looked surprised. “What do you mean? He asked.

“What sin have you committed that you have not told me?” I insisted.

A pained look crossed his face. “I have done nothing. I have been preaching and trying to live a faithful life for Christ. Why do you question me in this way?”

“You must have done something that you think God will no longer protect you,” I said.

A look of understanding crossed his troubled face.

“I don’t know what you heard in the night,” I went on. “I don’t know what power this witchdoctor possesses. But I know my God, and He can protect His loyal servants against any power of evil. If you are faithful, you need not fear the spirits.”

As we talked more, Fred’s whole outlook changed. You could see his courage returning. He had been here with no other believers to encourage him. This was all he needed. We agreed to call a school meeting. All the people came the next day and before them all, Fred defied the witchdoctor to do his worst. I cautioned him to be careful what he ate as witchdoctors sometimes resort to poisons.

So Fred stayed the rest of the year. I had told him when he first came that I would take him to the teacher-training school at Mashoko so he could get a teaching license and make a better salary. On the last day of school, I went to get him. Chief Sinemagonde met me and said, “Why are you coming to take our teacher?”

I said, “I promised but I will bring you another teacher to start the new school year after the holidays.”

The chief said, “Then please try to find one like Fred for he is a very good teacher.”

When Fred left Sinemagonde, he left behind 33 new Christians he had baptized in the last part of that year because he had the courage to defy the curse of the witchdoctor.