The Juju Man

The Juju Man – Kenya 1978

We had been living in Nairobi for four months and decided to leave town for a weekend trip to the Ark Lodge. It had been a hectic pack-out and transfer to the U.S. embassy where I served as an attaché. My wife and I needed a break.

The Ark was a well-known game lodge built high in the trees in the Aberdeen forest. Another, better-known lodge in the area is named Treetops. At both lodges, animals would be lured to the camps by baiting. Spotlights at night would shine over the bait, and the various animals would come to feed. It was a photo shoot event only, as hunting big game had been outlawed many years before.

The Treetops Hotel was more famous because it was the place where a princess went up one night and came down as a queen the next morning. In 1952, Queen Elizabeth II of England, then a princess, stayed at Treetops. During the night, her father King George VI died. So, the saying.

As part of the Ark package, we lunched at a two-story colonial house on a foothill outside the forest. This was the rendezvous point for the tourists taken to the lodge. After lunch, the tourists visited a corral that had been set up adjacent to the house.

The corral was a third of an acre in size and had a dozen tribe members selling trinkets to the tourists. The tribe members were Kikuyu as the Aberdeen was part of their ancestral homeland. The Aberdeen was also the stronghold of the Mau Mau, mostly Kikuyu fighters, who waged guerilla war against the British colonialists in the 1950s.

I recall seeing domestic animal skins, beadwork, and other tourist tchotchkes for sale. It was the same stuff we could buy any day at the Nairobi market. This was strictly a tourist trap, and we did not buy anything. Well, sort of.

There was a tribe member in his late sixties or early seventies who caught our attention, but his age was difficult to determine. He spoke no English and helped by another man, much younger, with interpretation. The older man was a witchdoctor or shaman or Juju Man, all the same nonsense.

The Juju Man was wearing a traditional piece of cloth wrapped around his body and was otherwise unremarkable in appearance. There were no frightening masks or makeup or other theatrical effects one saw in the movies. The interpreter was wearing Western style clothes, slacks, and a button-down shirt. For about a shilling or two, we could have our fortune read. While we knew it was all a swindle to earn a bit of money from the gullible tourists, we agreed. After all, the cost was equivalent to only about twenty-five cents.

The Juju Man removed a small leather pouch from his person and shook the bag. He then opened it and dumped the contents on the ground in front of us. The items I remember were bone and stone bits and there were about a dozen items in total. He spoke to the interpreter who in turn said that we had a child with a deformity. Yes, deformity was the word he used. He then cupped his elbow with his hand. Stunned, we told him he was wrong. My only son Michael, an infant, was with us and did not have a deformity. The interpreter asked if any of the family had a deformity, next pointing to his leg. We replied with an emphatic no. The Juju man had struck out. The interpreter simply shrugged his shoulders as if to say “Well, maybe the old man doesn’t get it right all the time.”

We thought nothing more of the Juju Man’s reading of his pouch contents. That was until my second son was born five years later. The delivery room nurse immediately brought to our attention the large hemangioma on his elbow, a bulging collection of blood vessels. The pediatrician assured us that as he grew, the blood vessels would naturally absorb back into his elbow. He was correct.

I never told anyone the story about the Juju Man we met one day in Kenya in 1978.