Headline you never thought you’d see: Cat turns into woman in P/Harcourt – 5 killed as cultists clash
Nigerian Tribune learnt that three cats were crossing the busy road when the okada ran over one of them which immediately turned into a woman. This strange occurrence quickly attracted people around who descended on the animals. One of them, it was learnt, was able to escape while the third one was beaten to death, still as a cat though.According to a source who witnessed what happened, the cat-woman said she and the two other cat-fellows had travelled from Abuja to Port Harcourt to kill three people. “The woman said they came to Port Harcourt from Abuja and that they came to kill three people. She said they had succeeded in killing two people, but the third person, whom I guess might be a pastor, was difficult for them and that they were preparing to go back to Abuja,” said the source.
I have absolutely no idea what to make of this; but I’m not going to rule out a priori that it might be completely real. I’ve never heard of any such thing, but I know there are many things I don’t know; and I believe in God, I believe there is a Devil, and I’ve come up against demons before, so I have no real reason to say this sort of magic couldn’t happen, given people who believed in it and were willing to give themselves over to it. There are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in most of our philosophies, after all.Still, that’s pretty weird.
I’m quite happy to go further and say that I don’t believe for a moment that it’s real. There’s usually a rational explanation for such things, even if it isn’t apparent to those who were there at the time, given their superstitions, religious views and/or cultural prejudices.
Most Westerners are quite happy to go further. In the rest of the world, that’s far less obvious–and I do not mean that as an insult to the perceptive abilities of the rest of the world. One of the things I’ve learned from men and women of God whom I trust from Africa, Asia and South America is that it’s not just a matter of “superstitions, religious views and/or cultural prejudices”–at least, it’s no more a matter of theirs than it is of ours; we in the West are not as enlightened as we like to think.
Do I believe that this woman was in fact a werecat? I’m agnostic on the point; but I don’t believe Western presumptions about what’s possible and what isn’t are enough reason to rule it out.
On reflection, I hope my previous comment didn’t sound harsh–it wasn’t meant to be, but I’m ill today and not a good judge. But I will admit to a certain unwillingness to entertain the pervasive Western assumption that the Global South, insofar as it doesn’t conform to Western assumptions, values, and behaviors, is backwards or ignorant; and that’s what I think I’m hearing in your comment, in the implicit assumption that the belief of those Nigerians can be dismissed as irrational. It might be wrong, but I don’t think we can simply assume it is, just because it’s outside of our own experience and our own ideas of what’s rational.
It’s not so far fetched. At least two Native American people have a tradition or story of those who are called “skin walkers”.
Alan
Hey, another Weber fan! Cool. And a Portlander to boot . . . I would have loved to get back to the PNW when we left Colorado, but God had other ideas. I’m definitely going to have to take some time to explore your blog.
But yeah, the stories of people doing this kind of thing come from a number of different places and cultures; I don’t know that it’s to the point of “if there’s smoke, there must be fire,” but it’s suggestive, anyway, at least if you’re willing to entertain the possibility.