Fire Mystery.
Theory of Malay Magic.
Baffling series of outbreaks.
A series of mysterious fires, which the superstitious believe have been caused by a sorcerer’s curse raising ‘fire phantoms’ has “haunted” the house of Robt. Wilson, a coloured man, at Windermere, near Maitland, Cape Province. The visitation lasted eight days, and left Wilson and his family penniless. He had already been unemployed for two months.
All the neighbourhood is talking of the “bewitched” house, states the Cape Town correspondent of the British United Press. The fires baffled all theories. Clothing in cupboards in locked rooms suddenly leapt into flame; papers dropped on the floor have taken fire without apparent cause. No human agency has been detected to account for these phantom fires. Often it was proved impossible for any living being to have started them.
The house stands in a waste of mud and sand. It is a nine-roomed building divided into two semi-detached cottages. The occupants are eight adults and seven children – the family of Wilson. Among the fantastic tricks played by the “fire phantoms” were these: Clothes inside a suitcase burst into flames and burnt through the top of the case; The paper wrapping on a packet of sandwiches caught fire on the kitchen table; Blankets on a bed burned to ash on the mattress; A mattress on another bed was burned on the under side; While Wilson was talking to one of his sons a pile of newly-dried washing burst into flames.
None of the fifteen members of the family ever saw the fire actually start on any object, but when they turned their backs momentarily flames would burst forth. Wilson said that he could not sleep for fear, although there was never any fire in th enight. At ten each night the fire ceased. “We believe that some enemy has put a spell on th ehouse,” said Wilson. “It is Malay magic. The neighbours say that some man who hates us has gone to a doeken (Malay witch doctor) and paid to have the curse put on the house.”
Despite the fact that his home was ruined, Wilson took the fires philosophically. “It is the will of God,” he said, “and all we can do is pray.” He showed a newspaper man over th ehouse. Beds, tables, and chairs were all scorched, each fire having apparently started in the padding of the upholstery or the bedding.
Mrs Liebenberg, a neighbour, described how two fires broke out while she was in the house. “While I looked at a batch of clean washing on a chair outside the house it caught fire,” she said. “I could hardly believe my eyes. It was just as if someone had put a match to it. Then, again, while I was standing in the kitchen I saw the dresser on fire. Nobody was anywhere near it.”
At the end of a week, after the eight days’ visitation, the fires broke out again. A sheet on the bed where Wilson’s sick son was lying burst into flames, and he had to pull the boy off the bed to prevent him being burned.
Derry Journal, 4th July 1932.