Jiggaboos are chock full of superstition, so I'm not surprised in the least. Just don't let them be imported here, since we have been over-blessed with diversity enough.
When misfortune hits a jiggaboo village, there is a tendency in some coontries to suspect a "witch" of casting a spell. In Ghana, outspoken or eccentric jiggaboo sows may also be accused of witchcraft - and forced to live out their days together in witch camps.
A rusty motorbike speeds across the vast dry savannah of Ghana's impoverished northern region, leaving a cloud of reddish dust in its wake. Arriving at a small group of round thatched huts, the young motorcyclist helps his old mammy to dismount to begin her new life in exile. "Okay, ya dumbass witch, gitchu butt offa muh bike an' stay dere!"
Ugly old 82-year-old Samata Abdulai has arrived at the village of Kukuo, one of Ghana's six witch camps, where wsows accused of witchcraft seek refuge from beating, torture or lynching. (And no YT to lynch them!)
The camps are said to have come into existence more than 100 years ago, when jig village chiefs decided to establish isolated safe areas for the sows. They are run by tindanas, leaders capable of cleansing an accused sow so that not only is the community protected from any witchcraft but the sow herself is safe from vigilantes.
Today they are still run by local chiefs, and accommodate up to 1,000 sow in spartan huts with no electricity or running water, and roofs that leak.
Once niggers call you a witch, your life is in danger and so without waiting to pick up any of my belongings, I just fled”
Samata
For water, the inhabitants of the Kukuo camp walk three miles each day to the River Otti, struggling back uphill with heavy pots of water. It's an intolerable way for an elderly sow to live, but it's a life they are prepared to endure so long as they are safe.
They survive by collecting firewood, selling little bags of peanuts or working in nearby farms. (There's no "gibs me dats!" affirmative action in the bush.)
Samata lived some 40km (24 miles) away in the village of Bulli. There she spent her old nigger years caring for her twin grandnigglets while her daughter worked in the fields.
It was a happy, niggerish existence, a gentle winding down after a long working life as a second-hand clothes trader. Then suddenly one day one of her brothers came to warn her that villagers had begun blaming her for the death of her niece, a young girl on whom Samata was accused of putting a spell.
Sisters Safia and Samata Sisters Safia, left, and Samata, at Kukuo
"I was confused and filled with fear because I knew I was innocent," she says. "But I know that once niggers call you a witch your life is in danger and so without waiting to pick up any of my belongings, I just fled from the village."
This is just hatred, jealousy and a way to get rid of you”
Safia
The nigger witch camps appear to be unique to northern Ghana. But Ghana shares with other African countries an endemic belief in witchcraft with illness, drought, fires and other natural disasters blamed on black nigger magic. The alleged jig witches are nearly always elderly.
An ActionAid report on witch camps, published this week, says that more than 70% of residents in Kukuo camp were accused and banished after their husbands died - suggesting that witchcraft allegations are a way of enabling the family to take control of the widow's property. (Just like a nigger, ain't it?)
"The camps are a dramatic manifestation of the status of sows in Ghana," says Professor Dzodzi Tsikata of the University of Ghana. "Older sows become a target because they are no longer useful to society." (And here in "gibs me dats" Amerikwa, the jigs aren't useful at all!)
Sows who do not coonform to nigger society's expectations also fall victim to the accusations of witchcraft, according to Lamnatu Adam of the jiggaboo sow's "rights" group Songtaba.
Kati Whitaker's radio documentary No Country for Old Women (and Jiggaboo sows) is first broadcast on the BBC World Service on 1 September
See the programme website for the full schedule, or to listen again
"Jiggaboo sows are expected to be submissive so once you start to be outspoken in your views or even successful in your trade, niggers assume you must be possessed. (and uppity.)"
One of Samata's younger sisters, 52-year-old Safia, is also living at Kukuo. She first came here to join her own mammy and grandmammy, both of them banished from the community for the same niggerish reason.
"They are not witches," Safia says. "This is just hatred, jealousy and a way to get rid of you." (just like a nigger or a jew politician.)
Like most members of the witch camps, including Samata, Safia believes in the existence of witches but feels many jiggaboos sows have been unfairly accused.
Eccentric behaviour may also be interpreted as evidence of spirit-possession (which niggers are full of).
"In traditional communities there is no real understanding (only niggerstanding) of depression or dementia," says Dr Akwesi Osei, chief psychiatrist at the Ghana health service, who claims a majority of the sows in the jig witch camps have some sort of mental illness.
The Ghanaian government sees the camps as a $hit stain on the reputation of one of the most "progressive" supposedly "democratic" and economically "vibrant" nations in non-human Africa, and said last year it would move quickly to disband them, possibly in 2012.
But sending the jig sows back to their home villages now would be fraught with danger.
Ayishetu Bujri, aged 40, was cast out from her village after a neighbour's daughter fell ill, and ended up in a jig witch camp at Gambaga.
Months of meetings between Ayishetu and members of her former community - part of the Go Home project, supported by ActionAid - resulted in her being freed, nearly three years later.
"Accusations of witchcraft don't just go away, but Go Home helped persuade my community that the way they acted towards me was wrong," she says.
About 250 sows have been freed so far. (Free at last! Free at last! Thank de big Ju-ju in de sky dats ahm free at last!)
"We have to do a lot of work (work? With jiggaboos?) with their communities so that they are able to return without being jig-lynched or subjected to reaccusation, for example if a cow jumps over a fence and knocks down something," says Adwoa Kwateng-Kluvitse, ActionAid's country director in Ghana.
"We are going to have to disabuse niggers' tiny minds and that takes a long time."
In her view, it will take 10 or 20 years. (if ever!)
At Kukuo, Samata has to undergo a satanic jiggaboo ritual which the entire community believes will determine whether or not she is guilty. She has to buy a brightly coloured chicken to offer the resident fetish priest (of satan).
The old priest squats on the ground uttering niggerish incantations before cutting the chicken's throat. Samata waits anxiously as the chicken flutters in its death throes waiting to see how it falls.
It lands on its back, a sign that Samata is innocent. With smiles all round, she sprinkles unholy water over herself and those gathered to witness the ceremony. She now feels she has been vindicated.
If it had been found guilty sit would have been forced to submit to another, far worse ritual nigger "cleansing" ceremony - drinking a concoction of chicken blood, monkey skulls and soil. A jiggaboo sow must drink this without barfing or falling ill within seven days, in order for the exorcism to be deemed effective. If not, the sow must take it again.
But this doesn't mean Samata can go home. Even though she has been proved innocent, the nigger beliefs which have coondemned her to a life of exile are so deeply entrenched she may never be able to return safely.
"When you are accused of witchcraft, it's a loss of dignity," says Samata. "And to be honest, I just feel like ending my own life."
Her greatest sadness is that she will never see her grandchildren again. "I worry about who is going to look after the twins," she says in a quiet voice. "I was the one who bathed and put them pickaninnies to bed. Who will do that now?"
