***
Terror of the gay dwarfish African incubus
by Dan Roodt
.jpg)
To most people outside South Africa in
developed countries, our life here must seem bizarre. After all, nowhere in
Europe or the United States would you drive your children to school and see
that the country’s largest newspaper, the Daily Sun, has got “Terror of the gay
Tokoloshe” as its frontpage story for the day.
Probably you do not even know
what a Tokoloshe is. Ever since I was a child I was intrigued to see that most
black people in South Africa,
especially women, place their beds on bricks. Apparently if one’s bed is high
enough, the Tokoloshe cannot reach you while you are sleeping. So from my
earliest years as I became aware of the peculiar differences between blacks and
whites, I was brought under the impression that the Tokoloshe played an
important role in the lives of blacks.
More black people in South Africa
use so-called “traditional medicine” than the Western kind. The government has
even institutionalised witchdoctors which are now called “traditional healers”
or simply “healers”. At one point I read somewhere that one might also claim
from health insurance for visiting a healer who will give you a concoction called
“muti” that might contain all kinds of bizarre ingredients. In the northern
parts of the country, there is even traffic in human body parts for making
“strong muti”.
Being Africans of a slightly
different kind, we Afrikaners jocularly refer to the more regular Eurocentric
medicine that we take as “muti” too, especially to children. “Come on, drink
your muti,” one would tell one’s son or daughter, referring to cough mixture or
a tablet made by some branded pharmaceutical company.
Sometimes we Afrikaners call
our children “Tokolos” as a term of endearment. Otherwise, we often joke about
the Tokoloshe, saying things like: “The Tokoloshe is going to catch you.” But
of course, unlike black Africans, we lack any real belief in his existence. To
us he is merely a mythological creature like Zeus or Spiderman.
Wikipedia has a few lines on
the Tokoloshe, but it mostly omits his sexual proclivities. From
what I remember, the Tokoloshe especially preys on single women as they are
more likely to be amenable to his advances, especially in dreams. It is also
through one’s dreams that the ancestors communicate to the living. Normally,
witchdoctors or sangomas or nyangas as they are also called, are “called” by an
ancestor to their profession.
I once heard a story of an
African investment banker in Johannesburg
being called to become a witchdoctor. He went missing for six weeks and arrived
back at the bank with an animal bladder on his head. Afterwards there was some
discussion as to whether he could discuss corporate finance with clients while
wearing the bladder, which he was not allowed to take off.
The Daily Sun’s story has a
charm of its own and is in a way politically correct. No doubt it will speak to
people for whom gay rights are a burning issue as even the little African
incubus may be gay, it seems. Considering that there is currently a whole
hullabaloo in the United
States about the Republican senatorial
candidate’s petite phrase about “legitimate rape”, “the terror of the gay
tokoloshe” brings a whole new dimension to discussions of rape.
According to the Daily Sun’s
report, Mr. Isaac Malope (51) has already spent R200 000 (about $25 000) on
muti to defend himself against a gay Tokoloshe who comes to rape him every
night while he is asleep next to his wife Constance Mazibuko (43).
Isaac Malope told the Daily
Sun’s reporter, Alex Nkosi: “Every night he comes between me and my wife and
rapes me over and over. When he leaves, I no longer have energy for my wife and
even if I try to get an erection, nothing happens.
The only time when I manage
to get an erection is if I fast for seven days and ask God for it. But it only
lasts for a day and then it is back to hell. I have been to many different
sangomas but they have failed to solve the problem.”
Mr. Malope has even travelled
from South Africa to Nigeria to
consult a well-known prophet there, to no avail.
The couple are now asking the
Daily Sun’s readers for help, giving the following number in Pretoria to dial: 012 424 6251.
PRAAG – Pro Afrikaans Action
Group
See also:
No comments:
Post a Comment