Malawian Odd Beliefs and Business

The majority of Malawians strongly believe in the existence of a supernatural world, whose members interact with living humans from time to time. Stories abound of people indulging in evil practices through invocation of these supernatural characters.

If an individual works so hard in his/her garden that they get bumper yields, people become suspicious of them and sooner or later, there will be a rumour to the effect that the prosperous individual actually employs ndondocha (miniature characters from the spirit world) to work in his/her garden. The rumour will be so rife that everybody will believe it, casting the concerned individual in very poor light.

Maize mills are believed not to run purely on diesel or electricity. The owner, so the belief goes, would usually murder a relation and "install" them in the mill to do the work. Owners of maize mills in rural Malawi are not the best loved people in society.

There is a more modern variant of witchcraft known as satanism. Even educated Malawians strongly believe in, and fear, satanism. Several years ago, a colleague of mine came into my home, and upon seeing some snail shells that I had collected from the lake in the house, he was horrified and said, "these items are the telephone handsets which demons use to communicate with each other!" Too many Malawians watch Nigerian films and take the stories therein for real.

It is not the purpose of this article to affirm or refute the existence of satanism. It is the impact of the so called satanism on business enterprise that I am concerned about. In Malawi, ingenious individuals who prosper are usually believed to be dubbling in satanism, one way or another.

These and other odd beliefs discourage Malawians from becoming entrepreneurs. The cost of becoming one is too heavy, because you will easily be associated with any of these dark practices and immediately become a misfit in society, as people will, at best, distance themselves from you, or, at worst, actively seek ways and means of eliminating you.