The Sunday News
MYSTERIOUS fires are allegedly giving villagers sleepless nights in Masvingo’s Chief Zimuto area amid confirmation that self-proclaimed witch hunters known as tsikamutandas have been hired to cleanse the area.
Chief Zimuto (Tione Gono) told Sunday News on the sidelines of Traditional Leaders Day commemorations at 4 Infantry Brigade headquarters in Masvingo last Thursday that he had received a number of reports of mysterious fires burning homesteads and orchards.
He said he had since hired tsikamutandas to cleanse his area so that villagers could be afforded a break.
“There are challenges of mysterious fires in my area and so far I have received more than 20 reports of fire outbreaks of this nature. Firstly, I ignored the reports dismissing them as veld fires but they kept on coming from villagers until I realised that their concerns were genuine,” said Chief Zimuto.
Chief Zimuto said the fires originate from nowhere and sometimes raze the whole homestead if there are no people to put it out.
“The surprising thing is that the fires are all over villages and a number of villages have so far been affected without anyone knowing the source. They have destroyed homesteads and orchards. The most affected village is Mavundu Village near Gokomere.
“I hired one tsikamutanda called Godobo after learning of his expertise in dealing with such issues from other traditional leaders. My subjects are seeing nothing wrong with that although witchcraft is not recognised,” he said.
“Godobo helped in cleansing three homesteads and family members who had since deserted their home are now back. The disturbing thing now is that there are now too many tsikamutandas and they are hard to control. I have since ordered them to stop their operations. The last time I asked about their existence they were 53 in total and many villagers who had initially agreed to their operations are now complaining.”
