Narnia is for real!
You know how when you go to a new place everything calls your attention and you trend to notice things that locals, which get so used to seeing/hearing them on a daily basis, just don’t anymore?
In those moments when something surprises you, you immediately look for an accomplice with whom to exchange understanding glances. Usually someone who is closer culturally, intellectually or affectively than the rest.
I don’t really know why, but that moment feels very reassuring to me.
Anyways, here everything amazes me, even though I’ve lived here 1/3 of my life. It’s not like everything’s new, but I guess I appreciate things in a different way, I’m more aware and open minded. I try to judge less and understand more.
I have come across an interesting and odd article I’d like to share:
The original article is in Portuguese and 3 pages long so I took the audacity of compressing it, commenting the highlights.
One of the local papers published a note written by Sergio, he used to be my neighbour when I was little. I can vaguely recall him, I remember I thought he was really cool ‘cause he sometimes had atypical animals at his place, rode a jeep and a motorbike, and had a father who had huge scars caused by the attack of a dying lion.
In that note he recounted how he was called to the north of Mozambique to hunt a couple of lions that were killing local people. So off he went with 2 of his mates. The lions had killed over 15 people, mostly woman working on the fields, and they were always on the move.
Sergio and his crew stopped in every village where the lions had killed someone. The attacks where happening regularly so they had to hurry.
In one of the villages, the locals had 2 young men tied up, and were beating them up.
(note: it is a common way of punishment for thieves, many times these ‘public beatings’ end up in the death of the thief, either by the severe injuries caused by hard objects, punches and kicks or because the crowd gets carried away and ends up burning the moribund thief by putting car tires around him and setting them on fire)
Thinking it was just another case of thievery they moved on.
He later found out that the mother of one of the 2 unfortunate young men had been the woman killed by the lions, and that the day before mother and son had had an argument.
The inhabitants of the village assumed the son and his friend had transformed into lions (2 lions had killed her, so it had to be them) and killed her as vengeance.
The locals believe regular lions don’t kill people. The only ones that do are the ones possessed by a person’s soul through witchery or humans who transform into lions, and listened to no other explanations such as the fact that due to the lack of prey (antelopes mainly) in the north of Mozambique these 2 lions had turned into men-eaters.
Until Sergio killed and showed the people of the village the lifeless bodies of the lions, they didn’t let the 2 accused men go. Some natives even insisted on touching the bodies to make sure it wasn’t a visual trick caused by a spell!
Raf
Comments
Post a Comment