Abstract
DURING the past week the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has had before it the appeal of a Swazi subordinate chief, Fakisandhla Nkambule, against a judgment of the Swaziland court, by which he was convicted of having through a witch-doctor procured the death of one of his wives, his brother and his brother's wife. Among the grounds of appeal, it was submitted that the plea of guilty by the witchdoctor had been allowed to prejudice his case. The statements in the case throw an interesting, if somewhat lurid, light on the strength of Swazi belief in witchcraft, which the British administration has for long made strenuous efforts to suppress. It would appear that during the ceremony of placing the ghost rope over a grave to prevent the egress of the ghost, some twenty persons who were present, seated around a cauldron over a fire, partook of ‘medicine’ into which it is alleged commercial arsenic had been introduced. In the result, it was claimed, three of them had died.
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Witchcraft in Swaziland. Nature 145, 664 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145664a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145664a0