A group of traditional ‘mystic healers’ from Northern Bahr el Ghazal State last week formally formed and launched a union known as the Traditional Spiritual Spear Masters Group (TSSMG) which they say is to promote peace and security.
According to a copy of the document dated 25 August, naming their executive committee which Radio Tamazuj is privy to, the group named their officialdom with specific roles and even telephone contacts.
Among sections of the Dinka community, also known as Jieng in South Sudan, “Spear Masters” or “Chiefs of the fishing spears,” are a respected lot who provide health to the community through mystical powers.
TSSMG Secretary-General Garang Ngong Atak told Radio Tamazuj Wednesday that their new organization is meant to preach for peace, invoke rain, and fight against diseases and other threats against people.
“Our organization is called ‘Traditional Spiritual Spear Masters Group (TSSMG), which means that when God created the universe, the spear masters were the government of the day and they were also the peacemakers and that is why we returned to our traditional religion,” he said. “It was the first religion on the earth and we are working in the areas of peacemaking, child and general protection.”
“For example, if there are wild animals like lions, our spear masters can communicate with God so that they do not harm humans,” Ngong alluded.
He signed off by saying modern religions (Christianity and Islam) do not come directly from a god.
Ngong says his lot, the spear masters, prove their spiritual greatness, power, and miracles by making rain from “the skies when there is drought” and by chasing away bad omens and diseases in the community.
Meanwhile, in reaction, Northern Bahr el Ghazal State Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Bol Akuar Gamar said South Sudan is a secular state that allows for free right of worship.
“Before we discuss the matter, we first need to understand the system of our country. The system we have here is secular and that means separation of the state from religion and it remains a free relation between a worshiper and something that is being worshiped,” he said. “So, no one can criticize them on the things they worship and so on. The government does not have any intervention in their (spear masters/local spiritualists) operations except if their activities and beliefs collide with state laws and community security. Then, as the government, we cannot let them move ahead.”
A veteran lawyer, Madut Santino Deng, says the new spiritual organization has not gone through due government process to be registered.
“Any organization has the right to form itself only if it does not defy the laws and after it is verified and conforms, before its official launching,” he explained. “But this organization (TSSMG) is confronting the law and they intend to create confusion among the communities.”
Ed: In early June, an audio of ‘spiritual masters’ purported to have been hired by the National Security Service’s (NSS) Director General of the Internal Security Bureau’s (ISB), Gen. Akol Koor, to cast a spell to kill President Salva Kiir made rounds and went viral on social media in South Sudan and among the country’s diaspora.
The spokesperson and PRO of the ISB, David John Kumuri, immediately came out and said the audio was created by detractors to create a wedge between President Kiir and his trusted security chief Gen. Koor. Kumuri promised that those behind the audio would be found and brought to book.
Indeed, on Saturday 24 June, another press conference was convened by the ISB, and its mouthpiece, Kumuri, announced that four people had been apprehended from Warrap State’s Tonj South for creating the audio recording.
There has been no news of them being formally charged and or arraigned in courts of law.
South Sudan is largely Christian and animist but with a lot of cultural belief systems and laws prevailing in the countryside.