The Additional Bodily Organ Needed by Every Sorceror or Shaman

There is an "extra organ" that is added to a child to make him a future shaman or sorceror. It is called "eleme" in Nzime or in Badwe'e, or "lelyem" in Njyem. The little beasty is supposedly located between the stomach and the backbone. If it is facing the backbone, it empowers you to be a shaman, or "spirit doctor".

A shaman is considered absolutely necessary to those whose luck is finished or who find that they have sorcerors gunning for them.

If its mouth is facing your stomach, you have to start doing the work of the sorceror, however, killing people through occult means. It needs their blood and if it doesn't get it, it will gnaw on your stomach until you deliver the victims.

The people a sorceror can kill are from his own network of family members. To kill one of them, he recites the points of connection between the chosen victim and the sorceror. Someone is really vulnerable to the sorceror if he/she paid the bride-price on the victim's mother. When the victim "dies" mystically, he turns up as a zombie in the land of another sorceror, one who is willing to pay the price for him. These upscale sorcerors are usually living in Europe, so that is where zombies are most often found.

The Nzime, Badwe'e and Njyem talk about these zombies by using the word ndim, which is most commonly translated "ghost". There is a difference between the western idea of a ghost and ndim, however: the ndim is no less physical in appearance than a real person.

If a sorceror is afflicted with an uneasy conscience about his actions, he or she can secretly call for the help of a shaman who will try to turn the eleme so its teeth are pointed to the backbone.

A Badwe'e woman whose faith I trust volunteered an explanation for what happens to the eleme after one turns to Christ and repents of his sin. She said that Jesus probably makes it die and rot, so that it does not trouble one anymore. There is no need of an operation to remove it, either. She is pictured to the left.

Pray for the Nzime, Badwe'e and Njyem people to place their confidence in Christ as the source of their security rather than in their shamans.

Note: To make this representation of eleme, I took a picture of a piranha from the web and modified it. Obviously, I have never seen one. I am simply going on the basis of what people say exists.