 Director's Note
November brings not only the rainy season and the risk of death by lightning to many parts of Africa but also Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in the US which many consider the beginning of the holiday giving season.
We would like to thank the many generous donors who have contributed to ACLENet's life-saving mission of protecting school children and their teachers in Africa.
Please include ACLENet in your holiday giving!
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Tell your story
We invite you to share your questions and stories about lightning with readers worldwide who are interested in lightning, especially in Africa. We will do our best to publish it and respond to questions with expert advice from our worldwide pool of research advisers and lightning safety experts.
If you witness a lightning incident, please report it, post images on our social media sites and be part of the effort to 'reduce deaths, injuries, and property damage'.
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LIGHTNING MYTHS AND FOLKLORE
Belief that muthi protects against lightning
 Muthi is the Zulu word for traditional herbal medicine. Available for purchase in village markets, muthi are made not only from herbs and other parts of plants like bark, bulbs, roots and leaves, but also animal tissues including fat, bones and other parts plus a variety of other materials such as burnt and ground rubber from tires, a common household disinfectant and sea water.
Muthi markets are not just a rural phenomenon. There is a large muthi market in Johannesburg's city centre and a well known muthi shop has been on Diagonal Street for many years.
Herbalists believe the medicines they make can protect clients against both witch-sent and natural lightning but stress that these medicines are made differently. Traditional healers interviewed in Hlabisa had their own recipe for muthi to protect homes against lightning that are made from animal bones and different parts of plants. Muthi are buried in the ground, typically in four places around the house.
In a biography, the sangoma Elliot Ndlovu (Reeder, 2011) says that two plants, clivia and cycads, picked in the light of the full moon can be used as protection against witchcraft, evil and lightning. Bishop Henry Callaway reported that Zulu heaven doctors would dig in ground where lightning had struck and related they would find 'something resembling an assegai', a traditional Zulu fighting spear, which they would use in muthi. |
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WE NEED YOUR HELP
If you are fluent in other languages spoken in Africa, please help us monitor news reports of lightning injury and damage in these languages -
CONTACT US to find out how!
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Monthly Lightning Injury Reports for November
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Lightning kills primary school pupil in Sumbawanga District
November 1, 2018
Tanzania |
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