Of sacrifices and squirrel fat: African football magic (Feature)

By Clare Byrne and Gilbert Kedia May 31, 2010, 10:50 GMT

Johannesburg/Yaounde, Cameroon - In downtown Johannesburg, on a market strewn with the skins and limbs of pythons, elephants and other wild animals, exists a potion that could power players at the upcoming World Cup to run faster, kick harder and defend stronger.

The magic is contained inside an old Mellow-Wood brandy bottle filled one-third with the yellow fat of an African squirrel.

Speaking in Zulu through a translator, Thabang Khubeka, a traditional healer or 'nyanga', who sells remedies for everything from unemployment to bad luck in love at the Faraday market, says he advises footballers to rub a little of the grease on their feet.

'A squirrel moves very fast. Like Wayne Rooney. To be like him, you need to use this oil,' says Khubeka.

From powders and potions aimed at fortifying players to secret rituals aimed at bringing bad luck on the opposite team, football in Africa, like all aspects of everyday life, is steeped in traditional beliefs.

From Senegal to Soweto, where the World Cup opens on June 11, players and coaches at all levels of the game seek the advice of spiritualists or traditional healers, who act as mediums between the physical world and the world of the spirits or ancestors, on how to get a leg-up on their opponents.

In West African countries, marabouts (Islamic holy men) and traditional healers often give players a grigri (fetish) to wear or to bury on the pitch. In Christian communities, the pastor is sometimes called on to bless the balls, boots and jerseys with holy water.

In southern Africa, the 'muti' or traditional medicine used in football often takes the form of potions or ointments that players rub on the face or body. Some make little nicks in their skin the better to absorb it.

Tate Aaron, a well-known healer in Cameroon's south-western city of Buea, has treated top teams in the home of the Indomitable Lions, one of six African teams competing at the World Cup.

At his temple compound deep in a forest 15 kilometres from Buea, Aaron supplies players with a range of necklaces, strings for the waist and pieces of cloth to tie on the arm.

'These will make you strong, and weaken any player of the other team who wants to challenge you,' says the 67-year-old healer, whose father was also a famous healer.

If the team is really in the doldrums, they may need something more powerful - like the time in 2002 when he took all the players from a struggling second-division team out to bathe naked in the sea.

'They (the manager and president of the team) told me that they needed protection and that I should make the players strong for their remaining matches in the season,' Aaron says.

The team, which he is does not name because most teams officially deny using traditional medicine, went on to win the last six matches of the season, earning them a place in the first division.

Back in South Africa, Khubeka uses muti made from animal parts in the belief that the animal's characteristics will rub off on the user.

Squirrel fat, which is mixed with the roots of a tree and costs about 600 rand (78 dollars) for a course of treatment, is recommended both for footballers and people taking a court case - 'because both have to dodge the defence'.

While medicines that aim to strengthen the player are deemed benign, rituals that involve bringing bad luck or bad 'juju' on your opponent are branded as witchcraft and greatly feared.

When Ghana's star midfielder Michael Essien was ruled out of playing at the World Cup because of a knee injury, many Ghanaians immediately suspected dirty tricks.

'He was juju-ed (cursed) by his father,' many concluded, after James Essien, who lives in a mud house in rural Ghana and is in poor health, complained recently he had not seen his son for 15 years.

When a team suddenly performs very badly, some of their supporters will also immediately cry foul.

In 1997, journalist Peter Auf der Heyde participated in a ritual recommended by a medicine man to the South African team before a World Cup qualifier against the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) in Togo.

'It lasted two/three days, involved killing a chicken and then spitting on a replica player which represented various Congolese players and we would chant their names as they were spat at.

'Something was then burnt and I was given the ash to sprinkle in the boots of the South African players. This proved difficult, but I managed and we won and qualified for the World Cup,' he recalls.

Football's ruling body FIFA has generally steered clear of comment on traditional medicine, although the Swiss-based body was reported to be ticked off last year after a sangoma (a traditional healer with more powers than a nyanga) dug up a section of the FIFA-sponsored artificial turf in Swaziland's national stadium and planted a burnt chicken under the pitch.

Swaziland's National Football Association termed the incident 'embarrassing' but some African fans defended the Swazis.

'No worse than transmuting wine and bread into a god's blood and body and then consuming it,' one reader remarked sarcastically on South Africa's News24.com website, comparing the ritual with the Christian ritual of communion.

'Football is not just a Christian game,' John 'Shoes' Moshoeu, a former South African international says. For him Brazilian striker Kaka's wearing of a tee-shirt marked 'I belong to Jesus' under his jersey is just a Christian form of muti.

Meanwhile, South African football commentators joke that World Cup host side Bafana Bafana will need some powerful muti to get past Uruguay, Mexico and France in the first round.

'When your players walk into the stadium and they see clouds of smoke they must not think it's fire. It's 'special projects',' former South African coach Jomo Sono joked with a Mexican diplomat at a World Cup countdown event in May.

Healers themselves are divided on the potency of their solutions.

'Even if you are a good player, you need a push to shine,' says Cameroon's Tate Aaron.

But South Africa's Thabang Khubeka says muti is no substitute for training: 'If they have success it's because they worked hard.'