'I Have A Thokolosi For Sale'

By Greg Kelebonye
Staff Writer | Monday February 22, 2010 00:00

That is if thokolosi 'manufacturer' Dr Imrani, or his woman colleague Mama Aisha decide to go after your corpse. If they do and your corpse agrees to obey them, you will probably become a bricklayer or farmworker doing the night shift at a stranger's company. You are also likely to have tens of 'customers' clamouring for you.  You only need to see the consistent manner and the number of times in which 'traditional' healers are advertising their trades to appreciate your chance of becoming a thokolosi.

A creature of immense strength, it is said that the thokolosi will do its master's bidding - be it to help around the house, mould bricks or help in the field. If the thokolosi was not popular in Botswana before, it has in the last few years become as popular as magwinya or fatcakes says Dr Imrani who regularly advertises his business in the newspapers. Dr Imrani, who also works with a lady acquaintance, Mama Aisha says he sells the thokolosi. Indeed he advertises the sale of the thokolosi as 'short boys and rats to find good life'. He also says he provides medicine to help enlarge men's penises: 'enlargements from 10-25 centimetres within a day, make it strong and powerful including long-lasting erection.' The man claims he can even bring back a lost spouse: ' divorced? Bring back your lost love forever,' he says in the advert.

'By short boys I mean thokolosi. These are dead people whose bodies we empower to do the job that a client may want the thokolosi to do,' he says. He says in his practice he does not kill people to turn them into thokolosi.

'These are people who have already died and been buried. I go to the graveyard at night and using my powers call their bodies to the surface and carry them away,' he says.

Once he has taken the body he 'treats' it. The treatment includes 'breathing' life into the corpse and giving it specific instructions so that it can become the right creature for whatever job the client wants.  'Any corpse is a potential thokolosi although I have encountered some corpses that simply would not be called up or respond to instruction. These tend to be mainly Christian, although I have been able to get some of them,' said Imrani.

He says thokolosis are also called 'short boys' because the treatment makes them short.

'They look like small boys because they have become short, but they are big people. It is just that they shrink because they died a long time ago and because of the treatment'.

Imrani will however not say how he administers his 'treatment' so that ultimately the corpse becomes short. However writer Van Hunks in The Tokoloshe: Africa's Brownie says that the corpse is said to shrink after a heated iron rod is thrust into the skull. 'Life and obedience are breathed into the zombie by means of a secret powder blown into its mouth... the tokoloshe is nowadays often a domestic spirit in the households of witches and warlocks. Usually described as a brown, hairy dwarf, it is virtually identical, in habits and appearance, to the brownie of European folklore. The tokolosh is said to speak with a lisp. It is usually naked, but sometimes wears a cloak. In European folklore, a naked brownie often 'helps' around the house until it is 'paid' with clothing, after which it may disappear,' he says.

Various literature describes a brownie as a legendary kind of creature popular in folklore around Scotland and England said to inhabit houses and aid in tasks around the house. The creatures don't like to be seen and will only work at night, in exchange for small gifts or food. The creatures were said to take quite a delight in porridge and honey and hated it if the gifts were called payment, so much that they would abandon the house, leaving their owner in the lurch.

The thokolosi can also be nasty. 'The penis of the thokolosi is so long that it has to be slung over his shoulder. Thus sexually well-endowed, the duties of the tokolosh include making love to its witch mistress. In return, it is rewarded with milk and food,' says Van Hunks. However there have been reports of Thokolosis that harass people who are not their mistresses or owners.  A few years back, the Eloyi church became famous for 'removing' thokolosi from many a terrified client. In the numerous times that they said they had removed thokolosi, Eloyi ministers said that the creature would have been sent by an enemy to make the life of the other person a nightmare. For some reason these thokolosis would not be chased away by salt. It is traditionally believed that the thokolosi hates salt and the best way to chase it is to sprinkle salt around the house. You can also make it leave your service by feeding it food with plenty of salt.

The thokolosi is said to be invisible to adults, except its master. You would be warned not to annoy it by speaking to it, or pointing at it if you happen to see it. A creature of mischief, the thokolosi is said to love milk from cows and will often steal it if it finds it in the house. 'The creature that I create will not harm people. It will only do its master's bidding as, per simple instructions that I would have given to it,' says Imrani.

Imrani claims demand for the thokolosi in Botswana has grown as more and more people who are looking for riches come looking for it. Many of them are already rich people.

'A lot of my customers are rich people who know that the term for the tokoloshi that they have been keeping for the last 10 or 15 years has expired and want another one,' he says. He says most of his clients want the thokolosi to work their lands, herd cattle, mould bricks or build for them.

'The thokolosi will only work at night.' But just how do people like Imrani 'manufacture' creatures like the thokolosi, if they do indeed? There is no clear answer but a reader in the New Zimbabwe Forums writes:

'The spirit world is very vast. We share our physical world with a variety of animals, plants etc... There are just as many creatures and beings that live in the spirit world as those we have here in the physical. From time to time there arise opportunities for those on this plane and those of that world to meet.