June 09, 2003

You have to be crazy to see this witch doctor

REUTERS: Witch Doctor Robbed Graves for Medicines

A South African witch doctor's medicine recipes landed him in trouble with the law when police found him using human bones he had dug up from graves to treat mental illness.

Muti, or traditional medicine, uses herbs, barks and animal parts as legal treatments for minor ailments like headaches and bad dreams, and as potions said to boost sexual performance. But human body parts are banned from the mixture, police spokesman Mohale Ramatseba said, adding that the 39-year-old man had been arrested Friday in the northern Limpopo province for violating graves and possessing human bones.

Top Ten Clues That Your Witch Doctor is a Quack:

• Instead of a grass skirt, he's smoked way too much grass
• Constantly calling Martha Stewart with updates on the status of his medicine's FDA approval application
• Doesn't really have his Witch Doctorate... he's still only a Witch Medical Student
• He uses the Sports Page instead of the Obituaries Page as his inventory sheet
• Suggests that you can save money with a generic equivalent with body parts out of an unmarked grave
• The children's dosage for your mental illness potion made out of body parts uses midget pieces
• Says that you can refill your prescription at the drive-through window of the county morgue
• Actually greets you with "Oooh Eee Oooh Ahhh Ahhh Ting Tang Walla-Walla Bing-Bang"
• The guy keeps bitching about how hard it is to open tamper-proof coffin lids with that tricky "push down and turn" seal
• The warning label says "You have to be crazy to take this potion"