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Sangomas provide basic healthcare for an estimated

80 per cent of South Africa’s 45 million people, most of whom cannot afford Western-style medical care, and who use muti in the same way Westerners use homoeopathic medicine.

But the sangomas also specialise in making potions for everything from the removal of evil spirits to increasing income, bringing good luck, boosting fertility, passing examinations and preventing cars from being hijacked.

Most of the 300,000 sangomas in South Africa publicly condemn the use of human body parts. But the belief that the parts make exceptionally powerful muti frequently tempts rogue sangomas.

The murders are often carried out to order. A traditional healer will describe what body parts are needed — testicles for virility, breasts for luck or a tongue to smooth the path to a girl’s heart — and how they are to be harvested. The parts are obtained while the victim is alive, supposedly to increase their potency.

“The victims usually just happen to fit the bill at the time,” Dr Labuschagne said. “The practice is shrouded in secrecy. These people do not talk about what they do, and there is a reluctance to report muti murders for fear of being cursed by the sangoma.”

Dr Labuschagne doubts that the practice will ever be stamped out. “It’s part of the cultural belief system. It will always be around. Like murder and rape, muti killings will always be with us to a greater or lesser degree,” he said.

Although muti murders are easy to identify, they are extremely difficult to solve, Dr Labuschagne said. “The biggest problem is that they are what we call ‘stranger murders’. Identifying the victim does not help you. Apart from the body parts, there is no reason why the victim was chosen, and nothing to connect the victim to the murderer.

“Muti murder as part of traditional African beliefs has been practised for centuries. With the arrival of Western criminal justice systems such practices became illegal. The problem faced by law enforcement agencies is that little is known about muti murder.”

MUTI AND THE BODY

• Severed hands: buried under the door of a shop or business these would bring customers to the premises, making the owner wealthy
• Breasts: widely regarded in African traditional culture as the source of “mother luck”, which would be used in magic potions to bring good fortune
• Genitals: both male and female are in demand, used by sangomas to boost virility in men and fertility in women
• Adam’s apple: would be used to silence a witness who was intending to testify against a sangoma’s client in court
• Skull: used to protect members of one tribe from another by burying the enemy victim’s head in the tribe’s village
• Eyes: supposed to confer far-sightedness
• Tongue: used to smooth the path to a girl’s heart for a prospective lover
• Body fat: usually taken from the stomach, the fat is regarded by some people, especially the Venda, as the source of a good harvest
• Sperm and urine: also widely seen as a source of good luck
• Atlas bone: regarded as powerful muti because of the belief that the circulatory and nervous systems run through it
• Brains: would help to confer intelligence

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