Witchcraft Accusations against Old Mama Rose

In one neighborhood where I lived temporarily, a two-year-old child died. Although two doctors in town agreed malaria had been the cause of death, the mother, Alice, who was a nurse herself, sought out a moasy and later a tromba medium to discover the identity of the person who had brought death upon her child. For this mother, the medical prognosis was not enough—the child may have died of malaria, but she needed to know why this had happened so suddenly and at that time and place. Mama Rose, an older woman who lived next door, was identified by both healers as a witch (mpamosavy). Mama Rose’s daughter, fearing for her mother’s well-being and safety, took a leave of absence from her own job in a distant town to watch over her elderly mother and to make sure no harm came to her. She also called up Mama Rose’s own tromba spirit to ask for advice and protection from the fanafody raty that they assumed Alice was now using to harm her. Mama Rose was an older woman in her sixties, and so this in itself was a sign of their desperation, for she had not been active as a medium for nearly ten years. After approximately six months the animosity between Mama Rose and her neighbors subsided but only after Alice had moved out of her house, leaving her husband and his child by a former marriage behind. Three months later Mama Rose’s daughter finally returned to work at her job full-time. She continued to visit her mother every weekend until Alice moved away.

This story reveals the value—and the power—of tromba spirits and their mediums. As Alice seeks to make sense of a tragedy in her own life, it is a moasy and later a tromba medium who give her answers that extend beyond those that her own medical training can provide. Mama Rose, as an old woman who lives alone, is a vulnerable target and she, in turn, relies on her own tromba spirit for comfort and support in time of crisis. As the stories that follow reveal, tromba spirits and their mediums provide a host of other services to clients who struggle with the problems of daily urban life and plantation work.