Case file · Witch trials
Medicine murders in Basutoland
A wave of killings in which body parts were taken to make medicines (liretlo) alarmed Basutoland in the late 1940s; a 1951 government report by G. I. Jones examined the cases.
1949 CE · -29.31, 27.48 · status: official
The account
Chiefs and their followers were convicted in several trials, and some chiefs were hanged. Jones linked the rise in killings to colonial reforms that threatened chiefs' power. Similar killings still occur in southern Africa.