The African Ritual of Animal Slaughter

Abstract

In his account of the significant links between witchcraft and soccer on the African continent, German journalist and filmmaker Oliver Becker describes a variety of sacrificial rituals performed by traditional medical practitioners (whose ‘job description’ also includes divination, soothsaying and, in the case of those who are also witchdoctors, sorcery and witchcraft or juju) to ensure good fortune for individual players and/ or whole teams and to put curses on opposing players/teams. These rituals often involve the use of severed vervet monkey or baboon paws (to aid goalkeeper’s reflexes and general mobility), zebra hooves (meant to increase stamina as well as running, passing and scoring prowess), porcupine quills, pig blood and ‘medicinal’ substances (so-called muti) containing anything from burnt bird feathers or roosters’ feet to parts of snakes or scorpions and even ‘lion fat’, slitting the throats of (preferably black) roosters (or even goats or cows) or cutting off their heads and then dousing players’ legs and feet with the animal’s blood. In Africa, according to Becker’s journalist friend Frank Mavhungu, sport and rituals are simply inseparable: if traditional healers were banned from football in the region, this would be nothing short of a clear and unequivocal attempt to annihilate altogether the traditions that have been associated with African football for a very long time.