Further to my recent review of The Masque of Africa by V.S. Naipaul, I reprint here, without further comment, a story that appeared today on the Zimbabwean NewsDay website.
Lest you think I'm making this up, here's the link.
Goblin found in Chitungwiza
A strange-looking object, believed to be a goblin, became the centre of attraction for scores of Chitungwiza residents near Makoni Shopping Centre on Friday morning.
The goblin, which had a cone-shaped horn with what looked like human hair attached to it with red, black and white beads, was spotted by a woman who said she had gone to throw away rubbish at a nearby dump site.
According to the woman who claimed to have seen the goblin first, it was removed from a bag of mealie-meal by street kids.
“I was coming to throw rubbish away when I saw that thing (goblin) which street kids nearby said they had taken out of a 10kg mealie-meal bag as they wanted to use the mealie-meal to cook sadza,” the woman said. “That’s when I started calling people to come and see.”
A local man, Rangarirai Mutomba, emerged from the crowd and left people dumbfounded when he lifted the goblin and said such things were the source of suffering for a lot of people before ripping it apart and exposing its insides filled with reddish powder.
“People should not believe in these things. God is there and he is the only one who can answer your problems, no one else. I don’t know why people use these things because they do not work,” said Mutomba.
An eyewitnesses at the scene said: “It is an act of witchcraft used by many people thinking that they would be rich if they use those goblins. That’s why they keep them. But if you see it abandoned like this it would have become a problem to the owner.”
Mutomba said: “A lot of these things happen and the people never go far with them. Throwing it away like this means they couldn’t handle it anymore.”
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