Extract from an article in the Telegraph, London (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...21.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/21/ixnewstop.html):
Liberians enslaved again by civil war
(Filed: 21/06/2003)
In Africa's 'land of the free' magic wigs and powdered leaves are the only answer to bullets. Tim Butcher reports from Monrovia
As a magic shield against bullets, the wig had not really worked very well. It lay knotted and bloody next to the rotting corpse of its young militiaman owner on the road outside Monrovia, capital of Liberia.
But the dismal failure of the wig's bullet-proof qualities failed to persuade other gunmen to drop their deep faith in black magic and spiritualism, a bizarre feature of the fighting in this most chaotic of west African states.
In the heavily accented drawl of the American Deep South that is common in Liberia, a country set up by freed African slaves from the United States, Sylvester Russell, a 30-year-old militiaman explained his deep-seated belief in magic.
"If you know what you'se doing with right leaves from the jungle, you can protect yoself from bullets," he said.
"You take the leaves, you boil them, dry them, make them into a powder and that powder is very, very strong.
"I seen it myself deflect a bullet like the strongest magnetic field.
"As God is my witness, this is not one word of a lie."
During the fighting, he said, he carries some of the magic powder in a hollowed-out animal horn. Others prefer to cover their faces with the powder and others believe in special wigs, often garishly coloured and coiffured.
"This is Africa and we have African ways," said another gunman, Saah Tamba, a 19-year-old with rheumy eyes and alcohol-laden breath whose personal history was a sad reflection of the country's bloody and turbulent recent history.
Liberians enslaved again by civil war
(Filed: 21/06/2003)
In Africa's 'land of the free' magic wigs and powdered leaves are the only answer to bullets. Tim Butcher reports from Monrovia
As a magic shield against bullets, the wig had not really worked very well. It lay knotted and bloody next to the rotting corpse of its young militiaman owner on the road outside Monrovia, capital of Liberia.
But the dismal failure of the wig's bullet-proof qualities failed to persuade other gunmen to drop their deep faith in black magic and spiritualism, a bizarre feature of the fighting in this most chaotic of west African states.
In the heavily accented drawl of the American Deep South that is common in Liberia, a country set up by freed African slaves from the United States, Sylvester Russell, a 30-year-old militiaman explained his deep-seated belief in magic.
"If you know what you'se doing with right leaves from the jungle, you can protect yoself from bullets," he said.
"You take the leaves, you boil them, dry them, make them into a powder and that powder is very, very strong.
"I seen it myself deflect a bullet like the strongest magnetic field.
"As God is my witness, this is not one word of a lie."
During the fighting, he said, he carries some of the magic powder in a hollowed-out animal horn. Others prefer to cover their faces with the powder and others believe in special wigs, often garishly coloured and coiffured.
"This is Africa and we have African ways," said another gunman, Saah Tamba, a 19-year-old with rheumy eyes and alcohol-laden breath whose personal history was a sad reflection of the country's bloody and turbulent recent history.
