Tinyanga arrested

The traditional healers are said to be have been digging up graves looking for dead people’s skulls following a claim by a Mozambican traditional healer that if they brought him the skulls they would be instant millionaires.

Albert Myeni confessed to this newspaper that he dug up a grave belonging to Khabonina Simelane and stole the skull as well as the left arm bone.

He said he did this after two traditional healers, identified only as Mlotsa and Makhanya, had told him they had consulted a traditional healer in Mozambique who said if they brought a human skull to him they would be able to get more clients and become instant millionaires.

Vilane said he was told by Mlotsa and Makhanya that since he was not getting many clients, he should look for a human skull as they would take it to the Mozambican traditional healer and their fortunes would be turned around.

"They came to me and told me to look for a skull of a person who had died of natural causes. I asked how we would escape being caught and I was told I would have to keep this a secret.  I took this lightly until Mlotsa came to me and said I was not serious enough and did not want to be rich. He said he was going to Mozambique and would leave me behind because I was lazy to work. I asked that he lend me E3 000 so that I could at least join them just to get umutsi wenhlanhla (muti for luck)," said Myeni during an interview yesterday.

He said seeing that he was now going to lose out on being rich he then identified a grave that he would dig and then steal the skull in order to take it to Mozambique like his fellow colleagues had done.

"One night I went to the community grave site where I identified the grave that I was to dig and then told my son in-law as well as Bongani Gumedze to  accompany me to dig a grave belonging to someone I thought was my relative, a certain Maseko man who had died a long time ago. We went to the grave and dug it up for the better part of the night.

"Once we had reached the decomposed body we took the skull and the left arm bone and then refilled the grave. I subsequently went home and crushed the skull into powder and then informed Makhanya that I had got the skull. He was very excited and told me to give it to him as he would, together with Mlotsa, take it to Mozambique," narrated Myeni.

He said it was when the plan to Mozambique was altered to exclude him that he began to be worried about the sincerity of the whole deal. He said even though they dug the graves about four months ago, no one had noticed that they had stolen the skull until last month when a Simelane family was alerted of the anomaly of the grave site. Myeni said he was arrested by the police last week together with Gumedze and the other traditional healers but managed to be out on free bail after getting sick while in custody.

In turn Myeni alerted the police hoping that he would not be caught. However, the police managed to detect that he had something to do with the crime and arrested him last week Tuesday.

The police were able to retrieve the skull from Myeni’s homestead as part of their evidence.

The skull was found hidden in the fields at Myeni’s homestead.

Police Deputy Public Relations Officer Superintended Wendy Hleta confirmed that three traditional healers had been arrested in connection to the offence. She said they were charged with violating a human grave.

Comments

The scripture says, my people are dying because they lack knowledge. Apart from that let us learn to work on our own that we may have money. Swazis! Let us trust in God & forget about such evil traditional healers and habits. Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good character.
Jul 28, 2010, 9:51 AM, Thokozani (tzwne83@yahoo.com)

If all the 'men of God' in this country would turn their attention away from instant riches and begin to preach the gospel of righteousness and right living, our dead relatives would be intact in their graves. However, because we have stirred this nation into a gluttonous, get-rich-now, money hungry society, often times sugar-coating it with scripture, we have descended to the lows we are at now. People have just adopted this new craze, fascination with being a millionnaire, INSTANTLY, without working hard for it. I blame it on no one else but us Christians and our leadership.
July 28, 2010, 4:04 pm, Angelo (awesum2010@gmail.com)

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