Witch Doctor Love
One day after many years of mediation I started to remember a previous lifetime. It was in Africa around the year 650. I was a brown man who lived in a village on the edge of a desert and savanna.
I was a young successful warrior and I was inseparable from a young woman in our village since the time we were very small. It was accepted that we would soon marry and become a family in our tribe. This happened and all was well for a time.
One day we went out to the bush to look for food and dig roots. I went along with my new wife because I enjoyed her company and was very much in love. But while away a lion came near us suddenly and unexpectedly. I backed away slowly with my mate and then told her to turn and slowly walk back to the village to get help while I watched that the lion did not follow.
My mate was very frightened but for some reason she refused. This was a great shock to me then. No one refused the words of a warrior in a tribe especially a woman and especially in the bush. I again told her to go to the village and get help for me to slay the lion who was hunting too chose to our village to be safe for the people. Again she refused. It was then that I realized that she thought we would never see each other again if she went to the village. She chose to stay and fight the lion with me rather than flee to safety.
It was then that the lion saw we were distracted that it charged us and I had no choice but to fight the lion alone and with the assistance of my mate. The lion fought well and I was much troubled to keep myself between the lion and my mate. The lion was wounded with my spear lightly but it was greatly angered by the blow and charged again and leaped on top of me. I took the spear and again plunged it into the lion while I was being greatly bitten and clawed to death by the beast. My mate struck it and distracted the lion for a moment and with my last breath I thrust my knife into the lions neck which finally killed it.
My mate was unharmed but still shaking strongly with extreme fear at the encounter. I told her to go to the village to bring warriors to carry me back to the village. But it was not necessary because some others from the village had heard the lion fighting and sounded the alarm in the village.
I spent many months healing but I was too mauled to walk upright for many years. And we had to rely on the charity of other warriors to feed ourselves. The elders met and learned that my mate had refused to leave to go for help. And my mate was shunned for this forever by the village because it had caused great harm. No one in the village was ever allowed to speak with her ever again. I knew my mate had good intentions and argued for her well but it was not to be. My mate did not realize that I had no intention of fighting the lion alone. When she had safely left I would have climbed a tree to safety. But since she did not know this and disobeyed me she was shunned forever by the village.
I and a few of the warriors were the only ones to ever break this decree of the elders. But eventually my mate began to sing instead of speak to communicate. And so she sang songs whenever she wanted to talk to someone but still the people did not look her in the eyes and acknowledge her presence as a person of the tribe.
I could do little of value to support myself but my mate was a good provider of roots, herbs, and crafts and we were very happy together though extremely poor by our tribes standards. I made crafts and helped the old witchdoctor prepare potions and spells for the tribe. I could only crawl on all fours to get around for many years until one day with the aid of a crutch I was able to walk upright. This was thought to be a very good omen for the tribe but this only lasted for a few months time. For our witch doctor fell ill one day and suddenly died.
I was asked to take his place since I knew most of the spells and potions he used to make magic for the tribe. And so from then onward we were no longer hungry or poor for anything which the tribe could offer.
When a witchdoctor dies in a tribe it is a time of great peril. Other witch doctors in surrounding tribes will cast spells to harm the new witch doctor and many spells come at the new witch doctor from many tribes at once. I had spent long times in meditation and I knew little of this from the old witch doctor before he died. So whenever I felt ill from a strange spell sent to me I would close my eyes and let the pain pass through me and not harm me.
If I had fallen ill it would be a sign of spirit weakness and our tribe would be attacked by one or more of the other tribes and killed or driven away from our lands. But instead the other witch doctors fell ill when the energy of their spells to harm was not accepted by me and this energy returned to them who had created it and they in turn fell ill from their own doing.
We lived in peace for many years and our tribe prospered. I could father no children and so we had no family to raise. We grew to be the longest lived of our tribe and I at least was greatly honored by the tribe. But my mate was still shunned as this could never be ended even by me.
I grew very old and wary with life much sooner than my mate because my body was ravaged in my youth by the lion attack. I was in great pain on many days. My mate saw me loosing my will to live and began nagging me to heal myself with my magic. But it could not be done. I grew worse and weaker but still the neighboring witch doctors did not attack me with their magic. They still feared me for my longevity and the harm they thought that I had caused them long ago.
One witch doctor was wiser than the others and he did manage to harm me in a way most unexpected. He cast a spell to harm my mate. And so she became very anxious and abusive with me to get me to heal myself. But I could not and things became worse between us for the first time. One day I could take it no longer and lashed out at my mate and drove her away and I said I never wanted to speak with her again.
This was a great hurt to my mate because she had only me now to talk to for companionship of all the tribe. She still sang to everyone else to communicate but they could not see her or acknowledge her presence — except some of the small children who did not know any better. And so I made a great hurt in my mates heart and I immediately knew that I wanted to speak with her again and say it was not true.
Later that day at the evening meal of our tribe we were attacked by many men of the other tribes. Word must have gone out that the witch doctor was truly not well and so we were attacked as the wealthiest tribe in the area for our possessions.
I still had not spoken nor seen my mate since our argument and great hurt in the morning. Enemy warriors came upon me and shot their arrows into me. One arrow went through my stomach and came out the other side near my kidneys. As I lay dying I had but one burning thought in my mind — to see my mate one last time before I died and say I was sorry for my words. As I slowly grew weaker I became angry at my mate for not coming to me. I thought if she still loved me then the force of our love would bring her to me one last time for me to gaze my eyes upon her before I died. But it was not to be, and then I died.–J.E. Ante
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