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2007 August Slush
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(DA) Expanding Foam & Blowtorch Fatality
Why do you need a steering wheel?
Balls R Us
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(DA) Those aren't teddy bears!
(?) Witchdoctor meets his ancestors
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Darwin Awards
2007 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
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Witchdoctor meets his ancestors

2007 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

Darwin says, "No... this one is um, uh... Um."
ORIGINAL:

Believing that his status as local traditional healer and communicator with the spirits provided him with superhuman powers, Nyasio Alfonso told his excited villagers in Masingo (near Rukwa, Tanzania) that he was going to jump into the nearby river to confer with the ancestral spirits. This would take 3 days - since there were many important issues to discuss - after which he would resurface and recount his new-found knowledge to the local people. To the accompaniment of drums and singing, he plunged into murky waters. Nothing was suspected as being awry until the fourth day when Nyasio failed to appear as promised. Local police were called by the village elders on the and they recovered a decomposing body downstream. Apparently the ancestors did not like what the medicine man had to say to them - or was it that they liked him so much they asked him to stay?

---------------------- ORIGINAL STORY FOLLOWS Sorcerer dies in failed underwater spirit stunt

A TRADITIONAL medicine man in Tanzania drowned after jumping in a river and promising to resurface three days later with relevations from ancestral spirits, police said Tuesday.

The local witch doctor, named as Nyasio Alfonso, staged his ill-fated stunt last week at the village of Masingo in the western Mpanda district near Lake Tanganyika, Rukwa regional police commander Daudi Siadi told AFP.

Dozens of villagers chanted and drummed as the fortune-teller dived to confer with the riverine spirits, he said.

"The incident was reported to us by the village leadership on Sunday, four days after Alfonso threw himself into the river," he said. "His decomposing body was fished out several metres downstream."

The police officer said the incident was the first of its kind in the region. "We are not aware of such practices although belief in witchcraft is widespread in Rukwa region," he said. — AFP

http://www.theindependent.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=14&id=11303&siteid=1

Submitted on 08/31/2007

Submitted by: Douglas Ball
Reference: Zimbabwe Independent newspaper 31 August 2007

Copyright © 2007 DarwinAwards.com

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James said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
I am voting DA because I happen to have met quite a few Tanzanians in the past few years (my church, an NYC Lutheran church, has a sister church in Bukoba, Tanzania, 400 miles north of Rukwa, which we help support and it is flourishing). Those Tanzanians I met are dignified, intelligent, sensitive, articulate (many speak fine English), and VERY talented. In short, Tanzania is NOT a nation of idiots. Of course, every village HAS its idiot, and I imagine even the local witch doctor may qualify for that esteemed position. I'll go DA on this one!


Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Darwin Award
Great writeup, Douglas. It makes one wonder what qualifications are (or aren't) required for the position of witch doctor!


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