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.

Nzime Creation Story

The Nzime have a version of the creation story that resembles the biblical account at a few points. Here it is:

When God (Nzyɛm) created the world, he made man and woman, male and female gorilla, and Eleme. Eleme was a bodiless, sentient being that could speak and which lived in the plantain "tree" near the man's house. The man and the male gorilla enjoyed each other's company, but they had a falling-out when the gorilla let the fire die out. Upset by the man's anger, the gorilla left with his wife to parts unknown in the forest. They man went after them to bring them back, but could not find them again.
Meanwhile, the woman was bored and left to herself, together with the children and domesticated animals. She was cooking in her kitchen and saw an opportunity to leave the cooking in order to have a conversation with Eleme. She talked to him at the plantain "tree" and then said she would have to return to her cooking. "Would you like to continue our conversation in the kitchen?" "Yes." "Well then, get on my shoulders, and I will carry you there." "I don't travel on shoulders." "How do you travel?" "In their stomachs." "So how do I carry you in my stomach?" "Bend over." She bent over and Eleme went into her stomach by way of the anus.
When she arrived in the kitchen, she asked him to get out. "I don't get out." "Well then, stay where you are." "Fine!"
The conversation continued and before long she felt stabbing pain. "What are you doing to me?" "I'm hungry!" "What can I feed you? What do you eat? Plantains?" "I eat meat!"
She first fed him all the animals of the village and then she fed him all of their children. Still Eleme was hungry!
Then the husband came back and was astonished by the unaccustomed silence in the village. "Where are the animals and children?" "Eleme ate them."
The next morning at dawn, the man got up and talked to God, telling him about the horrible development in the village. God had a solution: "I will kill your wife and give you another one." "No, please don't. I am used to her."
So God took leave of him and never returned to his village.
The story ends: "And that is why, ever since that day, children are born with meleme in them."

Note: The best, most obvious candidate for diabolos (Greek), "devil/demon", is eleme. A secular humanist French colonial administrator with a passion for anthropology, Koch, saw and understood that eleme was to be so understood. Nevertheless, the Nzime people sometimes see this as bearing a tenuous connection with "demon" or "devil", since eleme has a physical manifestation. They sometimes allege that they could find it in an autopsy, it being somewhat like a supplementary organ. It is supposedly a spherical being, having a mouth and teeth. If it is turned toward the backbone, the person with eleme is a shaman, or spirit-healer. If its mouth is turned toward the stomach, the person is a sorceror. The sorceror must find sources of blood for the eleme, or else it will chew away at his own stomach.
If the sorceror is grief-stricken about killing people to feed the eleme, he or she can consult a shaman, who will turn the eleme so that its mouth gnaws ineffectually at the backbone rather than at the stomach. At that time, the ex-sorceror will have become a shaman, too, one who can heal rather than kill with the powers of his oleme, or power to engage in sorcery or shamanism.
The person with eleme who wants to become a new creation in Christ through faith in him, has a problem: what will happen to his eleme? Does he or she need to have a surgical operation to remove it? I asked a person whose faith I trusted as being sincere, and she answered, "I do not know, but I suspect that Jesus makes the eleme die and then rot inside me. It doesn't need to be removed by surgery anymore."
This, dear reader, is what we call "ethnotheology": dealing with the facts of life, as understood by the culture, from the perspecive of Christianity which has been internalized by a full member of the culture.