Greetings people!
Take a deep look at the photo of the owl; aren't you scared? Isn't it telling you that it's a witch?
For those who consider having owls as pet, pardon me on this blog or better, skip this. Thank you.
"Owls conote witchcraft" is a strong stereotype associated with us in Africa, particularly in my country Nigeria. Nigerians here, especially those born in the 90s and early 2000s are aware of this mythical belief, but for the sake of the non Nigerians, as well as the Nigerians born in 2010 and above (I would have me mentioned names), I would explain this belief
*OWL
It's the bird that witches and wizards transform into whenever they want to go to the coven for meeting in the underworld. This bird has a special characteristics that makes it go to the spiritual world in the physical body.
It's a nocturnal animal, and it's usually seen flying at night. Anytime you see it flying at night, just know that a human (witch) has transformed into it, and the witch is either going for a meeting or returning.
When it cries, it's calling a fellow witch around.
Although I'm not the type that's scared of things like this;(in fact, I love to know more about the things of the spirit because I have a lot of questions to ask), but this belief of owls being a witch or wizard is so thick in my mind, even when I've found out that they're just ordinary birds.
There was a day one of my uncles visited our house is and decided to spend the night in my room. At night, when we were about to go to sleep, I asked him, "Are you okay with the windows being opened because I don't close my windows?"
"So are you expecting me to be scared when you, a small child, is not scared?" He replied, and I smiled and opened the window more.
Just a few minutes into lying down, I was still awake, pressing my phone, when an owl perched at a block close to my window and began to scream, "Owwwn owwwwn!" Uncle Ezekiel quickly got up from the bed and went to jam the window. I burst into laughter. A whole adult is scared of an owl.
There was also a day when I woke up and saw people gathered in the next compound. I got there and asked what was happening, and they pointed at an owl on the roof. The owl was just there, finding it hard to move. According to what we found out, which was the truth, the owl was not able to return or transform into it's normal human body when the dawn of the day caught it there.
*You understand? I mean, the owl (a human witch occupying the owl) went to the coven in the night, and upon returning, the daybreak met it on the roof when it was yet to transform into the real body of the witch. Fear myth! 馃ぃ.
That is also to say that the witch was close by.
During the days of my high school, my school had the community cemetery as a neighbour. I don't mean the English type of cemetery; I mean the one located in the bush where dead bodies are buried in a very shallow excavation.
We were very sure that the cemetery is a coven for a lot of witches in the community because the cemetery harbours a swarm of owls.
Each time we go for sweeping around 6:00 a.m. before normal school hours, we kill any owl that's caught unable to fly, inside with the mindset that it has sucked a lot of blood and can't fly again. We don't just stop there; we butcher it, remove the heart, cage the heart in a bottle, throw the bottle away and burn the remains of the owls to charcoal.
Why these? We were told that, that's the only way to completely kill the witch inside the owl. If you kill it and leave it like that without caging the heart in a bottle and burning the remains, the human (witch that's the owner of the owl) would continue to leave and probably get another owl to continue being a witch.
Thanks for reading 馃グ
