A rural family in Honde Valley lives in constant fear due to a strange occurrence they believe stems from an avenging spirit. Sekuru Aaron Ruzai and his daughters have been plagued by butterflies that mysteriously appear and fly directly into the girls’ eyes, causing temporary blindness.
The unsettling events began afflicting Ruzai’s daughters in 2008 and have repeatedly terrorized them since. By his account, the butterflies seem to materialize from thin air, flying straight towards the girls to invade their vision before vanishing without a trace.
“Only my daughters are targeted. The butterflies fly at them and enter their eyes, stealing their sight for a day or even months at a time. What concerns me most is that this only happens when the girls marry. It hurts their marriages as their husbands always abandon them,” Ruzai described with evident worry.
Ruzai’s eldest daughter has endured this peculiar phenomenon for sixteen long years, keeping him awake with dread. He is convinced these strange occurrences stem from his late brother Togara Manhamo, who Ruzai alleges murdered a Mozambican domestic worker. That woman was a daughter of a traditional healer from Mozambique, who reportedly warned Togara before his death that killing his daughter would incur a curse on his family. Ruzai is certain the mysterious butterflies tormenting his kin are the vengeful spirit of the deceased woman.
“Mariyo, the Mozambican domestic worker, had mysteriously passed away while caring for the household. Her grieving father, a traditional healer from their village, had ominously warned Togara that any involvement in her demise would be repaid in kind. Now, a string of bizarre and tragic events convincingly suggested the vengeful spirit’s hand was at work. I sought counsel with Togara, hoping to make sense of it all, but our discussion only inflamed old tensions between our families once more,” Ruzai said despairingly.
In addition, one of Ruzai’s daughters has recently fallen ill with epilepsy – the very same ailment that claimed Mariyo. Repeatedly, mysterious deaths have befallen their family, with three perishing annually under mysterious circumstances.
Rumbidzai Manhamo, one of the family members, pleaded with Chief Mutasa to intercede and mend the rift dividing Ruzai and Togara. She believes their lingering animus fuels the curse plaguing them all.
However, Togara firmly denies involvement in Mariyo’s passing. He maintains she was already gone by the time he found her body and dutifully delivered her remains to her grief-stricken father, who issued one final ominous warning.
“My hands are clean of her demise. When I came upon her, she had already died. In accordance with customs, I surrendered her corpse to her father in Mozambique, though her father accused me in his sorrow. Yet the truth is that someone within our family sought a sangoma’s power and marked Mariyo as their victim. Now unfairly, her spirit now blames our family for her death,” Togara recounted solemnly.
The veteran traditional healer Sekuru Shingirayi Mukotsanjera, renowned in Honde Valley for assiduously addressing and solving cases of avenging spirits, has worked closely with the family for several weeks, managing to temporarily halt the butterfly assaults. He says that the relatives must travel to Mozambique to appease the deceased woman’s spirit.
Chief Mutasa decreed at his customary tribunal that the family must travel to Mozambique accompanied by Sekuru Mukotsanjera to converse with the departed woman’s father and ascertain the appeasement required to pacify her spirit.
