A big story in the SA media at the moment is about the disappearance of an eleven-year old girl from her home near Pretoria on New Year's eve - her mutilated body has just been found. Police are investigating possible links to at least three other disappearances. These things happen all over the world, of course, unfortunately, but in this case the motive for this unimaginably despicable crime appears at least partly to have been for muti killing - that is, the harvesting of body parts for use in witchcraft. The news stories say that a suspect has been arrested who is already known to have sold human body parts to a sangoma - a traditional healer; body parts are considered to be extremely powerful, apparently, when used in witchcraft rituals of various kinds.
These African words aren't translated into English in the media - they're part of the SA vocabulary, as the practice of muti using body parts is well known across Africa, and related crimes happen fairly frequently. Journalists universally condemn the practice - but I heard on a radio phone-in programme the other day, chillingly, that the police find it difficult to investigate these crimes because it's considered "bad luck" to even talk about muti, let alone help the police in their enquiries.
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