MBABANE (Swaziland): A rash of deaths caused by lightning accompanying early summer storms in Swaziland has inspired beliefs that the incidents cannot be coincidental. “Swazis do not believe that any death is the result of natural causes,” says psychiatrist Dr Thandie Malepe of the National Psychiatric Centre in Manzini. “A person can die of a virus, but people will wonder who cast a spell that sent that particular virus to that particular person in the first place. It is like a car whose potential for destruction is inert until someone gets behind a wheel and uses the vehicle to run over a rival.”

This deeply felt cultural belief has always been with Swazis, according to historian JSM Matsebula. Through the 19th century, whenever a Swazi king died, several members of his court were put to death because it was felt that someone had to be responsible for the monarch’s demise. It did not matter, Matsebula wrote, whether the officials were guilty or innocent, the ancestral spirits demanded that some sort of retribution be enacted. It was believed that the ancestors would then punish the assassins.

“The belief is almost religious, having to do with vengeful ancestral spirits, rather than coming just from ignorance, and this must be understood, particularly when there are so many strange deaths at once,” says David Tsabeze, a graduate student of sociology at the University of Swaziland. The apparent capriciousness of the strikes, which would kill one person while leaving another person nearby unaffected, raised superstitious beliefs that the bolts were directed by malevolent forces. Like Zeus hurling bolts from Olympus, witches or people casting evil spells were thought to be the guiding hands.

Thabsile Dlamini, a nurse in the central town Manzini, has a different view. “People do not know what first aid to apply for lightning victims, like artificial respiration to get them breathing, and heart message to restart hearts that have stopped. If emergency medical aid was more widely available, some people would survive.”

To make matters worse, the bodyguard of one of King Mswati’s eight wives was struck and killed by lightning. He worked for the queen who had been a victim of damaging rumours earlier in the year that linked her to an alleged poisoning plot against King Mswati. T

The king, who was out of public view for over a month while the palace refused to report on his health status, later said he had suffered a bout of gastritis. But the damage to the queen’s reputation was deep, and when her bodyguard died from a lightning strike, the second of her bodyguards to die in six months, the rumour mills were sent spinning. “People will believe what they want,” says a police lieutenant. “It does not become a crime until there is a “sniffing out” ceremony, and someone is identified as a witch. Then it does become a crime. An innocent person can be persecuted by people looking for a scapegoat for a natural occurrence.” —Dawn/InterPress Service.