Times Of Swaziland: SUSPICIONS OF WITCHCRAFT AS OWL FOUND AT HIGH COURT

SUSPICIONS OF WITCHCRAFT AS OWL FOUND AT HIGH COURT
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BY KWANELE DLAMINI on 23/02/2018 01:04:00


MBABANE – As odd as a cow on snow, the appearance of an owl at the High Court
yesterday set tongues wagging.
The owl, silver grey and dark in colour, was spotted by some High Court staff at
the entrance of the court building between 10:30am and 11am. Some were afraid to
come near it and the brave ones tried to remove it from near the entrance.
Before long, a group of people had gathered around it and notably, most of them
were afraid to come anywhere near the owl.
They did not want to even touch it in fear that it will bring them bad luck.
Culturally, owls are associated with witchcraft, and its presence in the court
premises led others to ask which cases were ongoing inside courtrooms. Some
insinuated that the bird had been sent to influence an ongoing case in favour of
whosoever had been accused of a crime.  Many other people made different
insinuations about the owl, some of which cannot be repeated.
There were those who simply dismissed it as a mere bird which was just flying
by. Owls are nocturnal by nature and its presence in broad day- light resulted
in a number of questions asked, such as what the bird was doing in court when it
should have been somewhere sleeping.
They said there was something out of the ordinary about the presence of the owl
in the court premises. One of the onlookers said the bird was seemingly trying
to enter the court building since it was found way up the stairs next to the
entrance.
After it was removed next to the entrance, it landed midway by the stairs where
it remained for the entire day. Even after High Court staff had knocked off at
4:45pm, the owl was still on the steps and it had not moved an inch since
morning.
It was believed to be injured because it did not attempt to fly even when
passers-by went up and down the steps.
According to http://exemplore.com–spirit-animals, not all owls hunt and eat
during the night and if one sees or hears an owl during the day, it means that
it is a diurnal owl which sleeps at night and it is awake during the day. There
are two kinds of such owls; the burrowing owl and the short-eared owl.
Chairman of the Witchdoctors Association Makhanya Makhanya, dismissed claims
that the owl was just flying by like any other bird. He said something was
happening since there were ongoing cases.