Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Invasion of the penis snatchers.... and they thought Ebola was bad

Takes penis envy to a whole new level.... stuff like this can't be good for tourism....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080422/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_congo_democratic_witchcraft

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital
By Joe Bavier
Tue Apr 22, 1:24 PM ET
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumours of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.

Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.

It would be hard to make up the weirdness that is out there.

Not the first time this has happened. It'sa condition called 'koro' AKA GRS (Genital Retraction Syndrome)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_panic

Thank you "Uncle john's Bathroom Reader"

Obama is going to want to tax us to send Viagra aid to this poor "under developed" country....

I wonder if thats anything like smallcox?

Now I know what happened to Hillary.

Qtip
Soli Deo Gloria!

That was funny.. well at least I thought so..

As far as witchcraft in West Africa, the fear of it was very real. "Voodoo" is an Ewe (pron. "eweh", an major Tribal group in Ghana/Togo) word after all.

Sorta ironic, one of the most notorious witchcraft villages in my area was located right adjacent to the powerlines bringing electricity from the Akusombo Dam on Lake Volta to the Ashanti capital of Kumasi.

I used to point out that these folks were dabbling in spells while right over there heads was a true miracle occurring. The locals would counter that witchcraft was indeed mentioned as a real entity in the Bible. I would counter that while it may have some merit sometimes, a couple of bad guys with knives or something could do worse evil in just a few moments without recourse to spirits or anything.

I would further point out that while witchcraft might could work on occasion, but until it conjured up bags of rice to feed the hungry or the like it was best left ignored.

I was told that if I went around the village in the middle of the night I would see witches. So one moonless night I did, about 2am, all around the village (about 2,000 people) peering into the gloom by the light of my kerosene lantern. Nope, none, nada. I DID see sheep and goats, which I told people were looking at me like they COULD have been witches

Anyhow, I suppose walking around in the dark like that I could have got snakebit.

The locals had a saying... "The Christian God is very patient, the African Gods are not that way at all"

Shortly after my arrival my fancy American running shoes got stolen, which at the time I regarded as a calamity (turns out after you drop 20-30 pounds and are running on dirt anyhow fancy footgear ain't needed). An African friend put out the word he was going to the witchcraft village to curse the one who did it, the shoes reappeared on my porch the same day. Likewise a Peace Corps buddy over in the Eve region used to put up a witchcraft snake charm to keep the locals from taking his papayas.

Eve witchcraft had the reputation for being particularly vicious, eyeball and testicle collecting being especially feared, the evil doers leaving the victim alive. I heard OF this, but never heard of an actual incident. I don't doubt it happened, but not as often as the rumors it generated suggested.

With the death of a local traditional Chief, many folks were fearing the "headcutters", figures from the Ashanti past who would collect victims to send off with the deceased. I dunno how much the practice still went on.

I suggested that we get up a party and see if we couldn't catch us a headcutter or two ourselves, taking the intitiative by hunting the hunters, that being the American way after all.

Birdwatcher

that explains why those young black guys walk around holding their crotch!

Maybe the man was just standing in a cold draft.

Penny

OK now that one is solved<I'd give that one a 9.5 Sam>..... but what is up with the pants being worn down to expose the back side????

Although not a curse on his genitals I heard a missionary once say a village witchdoctor came to put a curse on him. He said he stood patiently as the good doctor completed his incantations then told him, "I don't believe in your curses but obviously you do so I'm giving it back to you ... only doubled!" He said the man's eyes got wide as saucers and he ran screaming into the night and never bothered him or his mission again.

gotta love charitable women!

Gay wanna-be's..........

I had something like this happen while at Ft Lewis, and fording the Nisquali river.

agreed Tod,


cold water has some powerful voodoo!

No I think a more accurate wanna-be would be

transsexual |tran(s)&#712;sek sh o&#333;&#601;l|
noun
a person born with the physical characteristics of one sex who emotionally and psychologically feels that they belong to the opposite sex.
� a person who has undergone surgery and hormone treatment in order to acquire the physical characteristics of the opposite sex.
adjective
of or relating to such a person.

Not transsexual..................they are transformers, they have more than meets the eye.

What is the stuff Smilein Bob sell on TV? supposed to make it grow! Send that to west africa