Real Black Magic Stories: from Nigeria

Is black magic real? I asked that question one December evening, and the answer I got was not in words. It was something I still cannot explain. This is one of the real black magic stories I heard from a Nigerian friend, and I will tell it as faithfully as I can.

A Night at the Dubai–Sharjah Border

His name is Bobby. He is a Nigerian from West Africa, a cheerful and friendly man who has lived in Al Nahda 2, in Sharjah, UAE, for more than twenty-five years. He runs a business there. I live in Al Nahda 1, on the Dubai side, so our homes are very close to each other, one on each side of the Dubai–Sharjah border.

On that December evening, Bobby and I were sitting at a quiet spot near the border. The weather was lovely, with a free, fresh wind and no noise at all. Think about it. You are sitting beside a brother you respect, and the stories he is telling are about African black magic. Who would not want to listen? I could not resist. I sat there spellbound while Bobby told me about the mysterious black magic of Nigeria.

At one point I asked him, “Brother, all these things you tell me, do they really happen?” Bobby smiled and said, “Give me your right hand.” I held it out. He took it and said, “Now close your eyes, and keep them closed.” About two minutes later he said, “Now open your eyes.” Then he asked me, “Is the centre there?”

I looked up and my heart sank. The huge shopping mall that stands right at the Dubai–Sharjah border, the Sahara Centre, had been in front of us all evening. Now it was gone. I searched all around. Everything else was in its place, but the Sahara Centre was simply not there. I was also a little scared. I had never imagined I would have an experience like this in my life.

Bobby saw that I was nervous and put his hand on my shoulder. “Relax,” he said, before I could say anything. “This is an illusion, a magic of the eyes. There is nothing to be afraid of. Close your eyes and look again, and everything will be fine.” He was still holding my hand. I closed my eyes, opened them again, and there it was, the Sahara Centre, right in front of me. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life.

“So are you some kind of native doctor?” I asked. “You can think of me as a small one,” he said. I told him that an illusion like that did not sound small to me. He said it was a very ordinary thing, the most basic magic compared with what he knew.

Then he told me something I had not known. In Nigeria and other African countries, he said, there are four ranks of native doctors, or sorcerers. In their language they are called Tinel, Omni, Puna and Noa. Tinel is the fourth rank. They usually perform magic shows in villages, know a few small spells, and can solve small problems.

Omni is the third rank. They usually run social and religious ceremonies, and many of those ceremonies involve black magic, like voodoo and Gungun. I will tell you about Gungun a little later. Besides voodoo, they are fairly skilled in basic black magic, and they can solve many problems.

Puna is the second rank. These are very experienced people who perform terrifying black magic, such as killing people with spells or capturing fearsome spirits and forcing them to work. There is more to them, but I will come to that later. Noa is the first rank. They are the master native doctors, the chiefs of their clans’ native doctors, and they practise the highest forms of black magic. That includes trapping souls, trapping spirits in mirrors, bringing back a soul or a qareen, working black magic on jinn, even red magic. They can also solve very complicated curses. Among the Noa there are two kinds, ordinary and experienced, and the tribal elders are usually the experienced ones.

Bobby told me he had been a fourth-rank native doctor. He had wanted to become a great one, but something happened to him, and after that he gave up the practice completely and came to this country. I told him that if he shared his story with me, I would write it and send it to a popular Bangladeshi horror platform, Bhoot.com. He agreed.

From December until February, I learned many things from Bobby about African black magic. I made short notes so I would not forget. I honestly do not know where to begin, but I will use whatever little knowledge I have to put the events in order as best I can. So let us start the widely discussed story of African black magic. These events took place in Nigeria, in West Africa.

Before the main story, I should share some information about Nigeria’s peoples, because it will help you follow what happens. I asked Bobby’s permission first. I told him that Bhoot.com never belittles or praises any country or people. It is purely an entertainment platform that presents true scary stories. Bobby said there was no problem. This world used to be full of superstition, he said, and a lot has changed over time, though many things still go on in some places. What you tell people in your country about our country is history, he said, and nobody can change history. So Bobby gave me a lot of information about his country and his people, and I am passing it on. If anything here seems offensive or upsetting, I apologise in advance to the platform and its listeners.

Nigeria has more than three hundred ethnic groups, big and small. The three main ones are the Hausa, the Yoruba and the Igbo. Bobby is Igbo, and he is a Christian. Of these three, the Hausa are the largest, about 31 percent of the population. The Yoruba are about 16 percent, and the Igbo about 15 percent, so the Yoruba and Igbo are almost equal in size.

Each region of Nigeria is shaped by a different people. In the north the Hausa are the majority and the others are minorities. In the west the Yoruba are the majority, and in the east the Igbo are. Bobby’s home is in the west, where the Yoruba are the majority and the Igbo are a minority. For good reasons I will not name the place.

Within these groups there are people of different religions, and there are conflicts between the groups and also inside them. Among the Yoruba, for example, there are Muslims, Christians and followers of other faiths. There are also sub-tribes, and each sub-tribe has its own religion and follows its own culture. The Yoruba have disputes with the tribal Yoruba, with big differences in religion and belief. And when it comes to black magic, Bobby said, the tribal groups have always been the most experienced and have held the highest standing. The same thing can be seen among the Hausa and the Igbo.

You may know that Nigeria had a civil war in 1967. One of its main causes was ethnic conflict. Bobby said that in almost every region, the people who are the majority there lord it over the minorities, and the minorities suffer terrible discrimination. These conflicts have become much rarer today, but you can still find traces of them in many places.

A great deal of black magic is practised in this country. Bobby told me that a large number of people in Nigeria follow what he called the voodoo faith. In their language, he said, voodoo stands for wisdom and well-being. It is quite different from other religions, because it carries its own philosophy and ideals. Its most important feature is that it is both pantheistic and monotheistic at the same time.

Bobby said that once a year, on a special day, the followers of voodoo hold a Gungun festival. One person is dressed in a special costume for it. The person in the Gungun costume wears long robes of many colours and goes from house to house. People believe that on this day the spirits of their ancestors come back. But there is a terrifying rule. When the Gungun walks from house to house, everyone must keep a good distance from him. If someone goes near the person in the Gungun costume by mistake, then both of them, the one in the costume and the one who came near, will die together.

Bobby told me about one time in his own area when two people died together at a Gungun festival. One of them had touched the Gungun by mistake, and the two of them died instantly, as if they had been hit by an electric shock, burned in a moment. Bobby saw this with his own eyes.

He said that people there use black magic in almost every part of life, for a good job, for love, for peace at home, and so on. And, of course, for harm too. Football is a very popular game in Nigeria, and Bobby said that many of the big football stars have gone to native doctors at different times. According to him, apart from Roman Catholic Christians and practising Muslims, almost everyone practises black magic directly or indirectly, or lives with the fear of it.

The most frightening thing, Bobby said, is that one people uses black magic against another people. Now you may understand why I said so much. Today’s story is about the black magic war between two of these peoples, the Yoruba and the Igbo.

The Goat, the Contract, and the Blood Curse

Bobby worked out his age and told me that, as far as he knew, this story began in the late 1980s. The two sides had been in conflict for hundreds of years, and he could not tell me about every earlier black magic incident, but he could describe the events of that period in detail.

The Igbo were facing terrible discrimination from the Yoruba, so they decided to do something the Yoruba would remember for the rest of their lives. The Yoruba were the majority there, and the Igbo could not match them in strength. So they decided to use black magic on the Yoruba who hated the Igbo most, the most aggressive ones.

To make the story easier to follow, I will use pseudonyms. Let us call the head native doctor of Bobby’s Igbo clan Kevin. Kevin was a Noa, one of the masters. All the Igbo living there came to him and said, “Kevin, do something. We cannot bear the cruelty of the Yoruba any more. Teach them a lesson.” Kevin said, “All right, I will deal with the Yoruba. But give me one day to think about what magic to use on them.”

The next day Kevin called all the Igbo leaders and said, “I will send some blood-drinking spirits, a kind of pishach jinn, against them. These creatures will drink all the blood in their bodies, and in time they will die with no blood left.” The work was done through a ritual.

On the day of the ritual, Kevin wore a special robe. After dusk, he and his twelve disciples began the ritual in the courtyard of Kevin’s house. In the middle of the courtyard, Kevin brought a goat, whispered spells over it, and kept blowing on it. He placed three plates in front of the goat. On one plate there was red powder, a kind of colour. On another plate there was a glass bottle full of water. What kind of water it was, nobody ever found out. The third plate was empty.

Kevin’s disciples formed a circle around the goat and began a strange dance, just bouncing on both feet as they went around it. Kevin took some of the red powder, whispered spells, and smeared it on the goat’s body. Every now and then he took water from the bottle into his mouth and sprayed it at the goat, so that the drops scattered over its body. This went on for about ten minutes.

Then Kevin brought out a long, sharp machete. The disciples began to beat a kind of wooden instrument. It was round like a bowl but sounded something like a drum. They danced around the goat in a circle, beating the instrument and chanting one word over and over. Its meaning was “Come, come.” Kevin meanwhile waved the machete in front of the goat.

What do you think Kevin was about to do? You would think he was going to sacrifice the goat right then and use the sacrifice to send a jinn against his enemies. I thought so too. But that was not the plan. Bobby explained that the ritual was meant to trap a powerful, evil spirit. The spirit would be forced into the goat’s body, and then the spirit inside the goat would be killed.

So they went on dancing and beating the drums and chanting “Come, come, come,” calling the spirit. After some time the goat began to roar where it stood. We all know what sounds a goat can make, but this was nothing like that. It sounded like some terrifying beast. When they heard it, everyone knew the spirit was now trapped inside the goat, and they began to cheer with joy.

Notice that. They were celebrating because a terrifying spirit had been trapped in front of them. If this happened anywhere in our country, and we realised that a terrible spirit was inside the goat in front of us, how would we feel? You can understand how ordinary things like this were to them, like rice and lentils. Truly frightening.

Strangely, although the goat was roaring with rage, it did not move from where it stood. It looked as if something unseen was holding it tightly, so that it could not move at all. It only looked from side to side.

I asked Bobby, “Everyone was dancing around the goat, playing drums, smearing colour on it, and spraying water at it, and it just stood there? Whether it could escape or not, shouldn’t it at least have tried to run?” Bobby laughed and said, “Little brother, that is black magic. The goat had been completely bound.”

At last Kevin swung the machete and cut the goat’s head off with one blow. The moment the blow fell, the goat let out such a scream that the whole house shook. That scream was really the spirit inside the goat. Kevin placed the severed head on the empty third plate. One of his disciples brought a clay pot and collected the goat’s blood in it. Then Kevin took the head and the pot of blood and went to his small ritual hut. African native doctors, it is worth saying, have a separate room where they carry out their work.

It came out later that, the night before, when the Igbo had given Kevin the names of the Yoruba to be cursed, Kevin had spoken with a powerful pishach jinn. This was contract magic. In contract magic, the native doctor makes a deal with a jinn to get work done. First the native doctor decides what kind of magic he wants. Then he calls a jinn suited to the job. For example, some jinn can drink a man’s blood. Some can drive a man mad.

Kevin decided he would kill the aggressive Yoruba by draining their blood, so that nobody would easily understand what was happening. As he planned, he summoned a pishach the night before, one that could suck the blood from a person’s body and drink it. Answering Kevin’s call, a jinn came to him. Kevin said, “I need a job done.” The jinn asked, “What job?” Kevin said, “I will tell you the names. You will drink their blood. What do you want from me for this work?”

The jinn said, “It is true that I like to drink human blood. But if I do this work, you will have to do two things for me.” Kevin asked, “What two things?” The jinn said, “Just as you want to kill your enemies, I too want to kill one of my enemies, through you.” (Among humans there is enmity, and jinn have their enmities as well.) Kevin said, “I will do your first job. I will kill your enemy, whoever you want to kill. What is the second?” The jinn said, “I want to drink the fresh blood of my enemy, and I want to chew his head.” Kevin said, “All right, it will be done.”

The spirit that was trapped in the goat and sacrificed was that enemy of the jinn who had made the contract with Kevin. That is how the Igbo chief native doctor made a deal with a jinn and put a black magic curse on the Yoruba. Afterwards, it is said, many of the Yoruba died of blood loss because of this magic.

What do you think? The Yoruba did not understand at first that the Igbo had cursed them. Then they found out. And then they cast black magic on the Igbo in return. One thing is worth saying here. In the field of magic, nobody is weaker than anybody else. The Hausa, the Igbo and the Yoruba all have their own books of black magic. These are true black magic stories as Bobby told them to me, and I am only retelling them.

As revenge, the Yoruba put a terrifying black magic on the Igbo. It is called suicidal black magic. It means that the person it is used on kills himself. They say that this time more than ten Igbo took their own lives together. It was not a natural thing for so many people to do that at once. The Igbo understood that something was happening.

I am sorry. I could not find out how this curse is performed, because Bobby could not tell me. But Bobby did tell me how it was broken. When the Igbo were attacked by the Yoruba’s black magic and began taking their own lives, Kevin realised that the Yoruba had sent terrifying jinn against his clan, jinn that control people and force them to end their own lives. Now a solution was needed. What was it, and how was it done? I will describe it now. The only solution was to kill the jinn the Yoruba had sent.

On the day Kevin killed those jinn, he and his twelve disciples began a ritual at dusk. Kevin brought many wooden dolls, about twenty of them. He placed one doll in the middle of the courtyard and arranged the rest in a circle around it. The disciples scattered flower petals, a little at a time, over the head of each doll. They put a few more petals on the central doll than on the others. Then Kevin told everyone present, “Go home now. Tomorrow everything will be fine. Nobody will take his own life again.” With that, Kevin went into his small hut with his disciples, and the dolls were left lying in the courtyard.

I asked Bobby what Kevin did inside that room. Bobby said Kevin sat there, read his spells, and called some terrifying jinn. Late that night, they say, a number of lights came and entered the dolls in the courtyard one by one. Then the dolls began to move like humans, and after a while they vanished into the air. A neighbour of Bobby’s saw this scene, and he told everyone about it later. Bobby could not tell me what kind of jinn they were, or how exactly they stopped the suicides and killed the Yoruba’s jinn. But through this ritual, Kevin, the chief of the Igbo native doctors, managed to break the Yoruba’s black magic.

After that, the two sides went on fighting with black magic many more times. Each side put terrifying magic on the other. Bobby told me about much of it, but for good reasons I am leaving most of it out. I will tell you the most terrifying one, and how it was solved. Before that, I need to say a few words about old beliefs, because they are part of this story.

Bobby said that every people there has many kinds of old customs and superstitions. Among the Yoruba, he said, there is a custom of giving one’s life willingly. The person who is sacrificed does so of his own free will, a little like someone who gives his life for his country in a war. In the same way, the Yoruba would offer their lives for the good of their own tribe.

Among the Igbo, Bobby said, there was a custom of sacrificing twin babies. Parents who had twins believed they were very lucky, because the Creator had given them a pair of children. So they felt it was right to dedicate the twins to the Creator, and they would offer them up willingly. And among the Hausa, he said, there was a custom, at a particular time, of choosing a girl, marrying her to one of them, and then sacrificing the bride. Bobby told me that all of these were part of their old magic and beliefs.

At one point the British came there. During British rule they strongly opposed these customs, and they were able to stop most of them. But Bobby said that in some places they still go on, very secretly. I am only repeating what Bobby told me about the history and beliefs of his region, and I do not claim these are the practices of every Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa person.

Bobby also said that the black magic fights between the Yoruba and the Igbo have happened many times, and they are still going on today, even in 2025. One day the Yoruba put a terrifying black magic on us Igbo, and many Igbo died. Breaking that curse took a great deal of effort.

The Dream That Killed in the Night

One morning, Kevin suddenly began vomiting blood. We heard the news and everyone rushed to him. When we got there, we saw blood everywhere, from inside the house to the whole courtyard. The strangest thing was that Kevin kept vomiting, and only fresh blood came out, yet nobody was holding him. Instead of taking him to the hospital, people just stood around watching.

When some of us stepped forward to hold him, Kevin said, “Stay away from me. You cannot save me. I am about to die.” We were shocked and heartbroken. We asked him, “How did this happen?” Kevin said, “The Yoruba did it. This time, none of us will survive.”

Even though Kevin told us not to, we grabbed him by force and set off for the hospital. He died before we got there. A shadow of grief fell over our whole Igbo clan that day, because Kevin was the chief of the Igbo native doctors. His body was buried according to his religion.

Two days after Kevin died, three young men of our Igbo community died in exactly the same way, vomiting blood. Before they died, all they wanted to say was that in the night they had eaten something in a dream. The amazing thing was that all three had seen the same dream. They had gone to a feast together and eaten their fill of meat. Then they woke up with pain in their stomachs. The pain started after the meat in the dream, and it kept growing, from sharp to sharper. At one point they began to vomit blood.

So with Kevin and the three young men, four people were dead, and fear spread among the Igbo. They understood that the Yoruba had put a terrifying black magic on them again. The Igbo became desperate to escape it, and they ran to the big Igbo sorcerers and native doctors.

The day after the three young men died, the Igbo brought in a well-known Igbo native doctor from a neighbouring area. In Bobby’s area, this man was a master and a very experienced native doctor. To make the story easier to follow, I will use a pseudonym for him too. Let us call him Henry.

When Henry arrived, they told him everything, how Kevin and the others had died. Henry said, “Let me first see what kind of black magic the Yoruba have used on you.” Then he laid out a mat, sat on it, closed his eyes, and began to murmur something. After a while it seemed that Henry had fallen fast asleep, sitting there. A little later he opened his eyes and stood up.

“The Yoruba have taken a terrible revenge on you,” Henry said. “They brought a very experienced tribal Yoruba native doctor, a chief, to wipe out your whole clan with black magic. That Yoruba native doctor was a very experienced Noa. He told the Yoruba there, ‘A solar eclipse will happen in a few days. During it, if one of you is willing to be sacrificed of his own free will, I can use that sacrifice to put a terrible black magic on the Igbo, one that they will never be able to remove.’ One of the Yoruba agreed to be sacrificed willingly.

“So on the day of the eclipse, the Yoruba native doctor sacrificed one man and put a terrifying black magic on you. That day they performed a ritual, and through it they sent three powerful sorcerer jinn against you. These three jinn know Adama magic. Adama magic is a kind of knowledge that lets the practitioner make his body completely non-existent for a short time, if he wants. Even other jinn cannot find them. Think of air. Air exists, and you can feel it, but you cannot see it. This Adama magic is much stranger and more terrifying than that. The moment it is used, a jinn can make his body vanish entirely, even right in front of someone.

“That is why the tribal Yoruba chief knows well that it is impossible to kill these three jinn. If a jinn stronger than they are comes to catch or kill them, they use Adama magic, make themselves non-existent, and escape. After that, nobody can find them again. And the most terrifying thing is that these three jinn are nomadic jinn. They live apart from jinn society, in the jungle. Jinn, too, have a social order just like humans, but these three are outside it.”

Then, as Bobby told me, Henry explained what Adama magic really is, and who Adama was. Around the 1700s, in some country of West Africa, a woman named Adama was born. Bobby could not say exactly where she was born. Everyone knew her as Princess Adama. Many people in Africa say she was born into a royal family. Others say she was born into an ordinary, poor family.

But all agree that Adama was an intelligent and beautiful young African woman. She was always involved in social welfare work, especially women’s rights, and that made her many enemies. To protect herself from them, and to teach her enemies a lesson, Adama began to practise terrifying black magic. How she learned magic is not known. But she became very skilled, and above all she became skilled at making herself non-existent in front of any force, visible or invisible.

Because of this power, some thought she was extraordinary, but many people of her time disliked her. Some say she practised satanic knowledge, a witch’s knowledge. Bobby said this is as close as he could get to the black magic origin of this particular art, a short account of Adama.

Henry said that the three jinn learned this art of hiding from Adama herself. Adama had tamed these three jinn and made them do all her magical work. Now that Adama has died, the three jinn have been set free. So they are independent.

A question may come up. If they are free, why are they working for the tribal Yoruba native doctor? The answer is that it is a contract. Under that contract, the three jinn promised the Yoruba native doctor that they would kill all of you. The Yoruba’s anger was greatest against Kevin, so they asked their native doctor to kill Kevin first. As they asked, the Yoruba chief put black magic on Kevin first.

“On the night Kevin was killed,” Henry said, “he was shown the same dream as the three young men who died, a feast, plenty of meat, then stomach pain, then vomiting of blood, then death. In truth, these three jinn feed their victims a kind of raw meat inside the dream. That meat is what killed these four. From now on, every day, three of you will eat the meat these three jinn give in your dreams, and once you eat it, there is no way to survive. That is how they will kill all of you.

“There is only one solution, and that is to kill the three nomadic jinn. That will be very hard for me. But give me a little time. Let me see what can be done. For now I am leaving, and I will come back tomorrow. Let me see tonight whether I can find some way.”

Henry left, but before he went he told everyone, “Tonight, nobody should sleep, not even by mistake. If you fall asleep, three of you will be killed in your dreams by being fed meat, just like last night. If you stay awake, this problem may not happen.”

That night, nobody dared to sleep, as Henry had said. But unfortunately, toward the end of the night, three more young men began vomiting blood, and after a while they died. Before they died they said that at some point they felt someone come to them and force some raw meat into their mouths. They tried to scream but could not. They had no strength to move.

So seven lives were lost in this way, and a shadow of grief fell over our whole clan. They sent word to Henry again, and he came. When he saw the state of things, he was deeply sorry. “I thought that if you did not sleep, this problem might not happen,” he said. “But now I see this is more terrifying than I imagined.” Everyone present said to him, “Henry, do something, or none of us will survive.”

Henry said, “Last night, through my magic, I learned that there is a way to solve this problem. But it is very hard.” Everyone asked, “What is it?” Henry said, “The magic of four ancestors.”

The Magic of Four Ancestors

“What is the magic of four ancestors?” everyone asked. Henry said, “There once lived a famous native doctor in Africa. His name was Gou. Gou was called the emperor of native doctors. He knew how to break every kind of black magic. Last night, through a ritual, I learned that the solution to this problem lies only with Gou.”

Let me say something here. In Africa, a native doctor’s son becomes a native doctor too. It is a rule there, and you can see it in many countries around the world. Gou’s forefathers had been native doctors, so Gou became one by family line. But Gou had practised things that other native doctors are afraid even to think about, such as capturing the souls of the dead and making them work for him. By soul, here, we mean the qareen.

The problem was that Gou had died a long time ago. His son and the next three generations were dead too. Gou’s living descendant was far away, and it was impossible to go to him overnight and make him do the job. Besides, it was doubtful whether he had gained the kind of experience Gou had. “So I have decided to perform the magic of four ancestors,” Henry said.

Everyone asked, “What is the magic of four ancestors?” Henry said, “I will bring back Gou’s soul and learn the solution to this problem from that soul. But this work is not easy at all. To bring back Gou’s soul, I must first bring back the souls of the three generations after him. First I must bring back the soul of Gou’s grandson’s son. Then, riding on that soul, I must bring back the soul of Gou’s grandson. Riding on that soul, Gou’s son will return. And riding on that soul, Gou’s soul will return.” This is called the Magic of Four Ancestors.

Before I describe how this magic was done and how the souls came back, I want to say something, because this subject may start an argument. I do not want Bhoot.com to end up in any such situation because of me, and it is my duty to be careful about it. Look, we are Muslims, and most of the people who listen to this show are Muslims. We believe that when a person dies, the soul goes to the life of Barzakh, and there is no way for it to come back from there.

We also know that every one of us has a qareen jinn with us. This qareen jinn becomes attached to each of us at birth. Even when we die, the qareen lives on. How long it lives, I really do not know, but it lives on. From many incidents we have learned that qareen jinn have been summoned, and some people have worked with the help of a qareen. The main point is that through certain methods a qareen jinn can be called, and work can be taken from it. What we know as a qareen jinn, Africans, and people in many other countries, call a spirit.

I have noticed something about Bobby too. When he eats or drinks anything, say he takes a soft drink, he opens it and pours four small drops onto the ground, and only then drinks. When I asked why, he told me that he believes his four ancestors are still in this world, and that they are always around him.

Now to the main part of this story, the Magic of Four Ancestors. That day Henry left for a while, then came back with five more experienced native doctors. He brought some things with him, four pigeons, some bird feathers, four human skulls, coloured powders, candles and a few other items. Henry said, “When the sun is directly overhead, at high noon, my five colleagues and I will begin our ritual. I need an empty space where nobody except us can come. You must make sure of that.”

Bobby said that, as Henry asked, Kevin’s house was left to him, and everyone watched his work from far away. When the sun was straight overhead, Henry cut the throats of the four pigeons and kept the blood of each pigeon separately. Then he took out the four human skulls and poured the blood of one pigeon over each skull. In the heat of the sun, the blood on the skulls dried after a while.

Then Henry burned some bird feathers in a fire and made ash. He mixed some colour into the ash, added a little water, and made a kind of ink. With his fingers he began to write something on the blood-stained skulls that had dried in the sun. When he had finished writing on all four skulls, he dried them in the sun again.

When the skulls had dried, Henry and the other native doctors carried the four skulls to the room where Kevin used to do his work, and there they began a ceremony together. Bobby said the six of them lit a fire in a clay pot, placed the four human skulls beside the fire, chanted their spells, and displayed all the magic they knew. From noon until dusk the six native doctors carried out this ritual. They say it was through this that the souls of the four ancestors were able to gain their full strength.

One thing is worth saying. These four human skulls were really the skulls of the four ancestors of one of the native doctors, for example his father, his father’s father, and so on up the line. This magic can only be completed with the skulls of four such ancestors, a father and his forefathers.

By dusk Henry and the others had finished the long ritual and came outside. Henry called all of us and said, “Please, nobody leave your houses. The moment the sun sets, I will begin my real work, the magic of bringing back the four ancestors’ souls. The weather outside may seem completely different then. To some of you it may seem like a terrible storm. Please do not be afraid. And never come near this courtyard. If anyone does, he does so at his own risk, because he could come to great harm.” After hearing Henry, we assured him that nobody would go there. “You go on with your work,” we said.

After sunset the real work began. Bobby said they watched from a hidden place to see what Henry was doing. After the problem was solved, Henry told us everything, and to keep the story in order I will tell it now, how it was done and what was done during the calling back of the four ancestors’ souls.

That day Henry spread a cloth in the middle of the courtyard and set the four human skulls on it. In front of each skull he drew a straight line. He scattered some colour on the lines and set candles on top, arranged almost like an assembly line. Then he lit the candles. Henry and the others sat in a row in front of the skulls, and they all began to chant spells.

For hours they kept on chanting. After some time, a storm rose all around. It felt as if it would tear everything apart. The amazing thing was that even in all that wind, the candles kept burning. A terrifying atmosphere took hold.

Then, in the middle of the storm and wind, the candles of the first row went out one by one. A few seconds later, a light came and entered the first skull. The moment it entered, all the native doctors stood up together. Then, in a melodious voice, they began to sing one line. In English, its meaning is “Bring your father.” After they had sung for a while, the light came out of the skull and went away.

A few minutes later, the candles of the second row all went out one by one. A light came and entered the second skull. As the light entered it, all the native doctors sang the same song again in the same tune. After a while the same thing happened, and the light left the skull.

Then all the candles of the third row went out, and another light came and entered the third skull. As soon as it did, the native doctors sang the same song again. After a while the third light left the skull too. When the third light was gone, the surroundings became even more terrifying, as if everything would be flattened in a moment. A fierce wind was blowing all around.

At that moment the candles of the fourth row went out, and four lights, one after another, entered the four skulls. The moment the lights entered the skulls, the native doctors stood up again and said together, “O great one, save us. Save us.” This went on for quite a while. Then the four human skulls began to speak like humans. They said, “How dare you disturb us?”

Henry said, “Forgive us. We are so helpless. We had no other way. We were forced to call you.” After that, Henry talked with the four ancestors for a long time, and in the end he managed to calm them. At one point the fourth skull, the one in which Gou’s spirit was, said, “Why did you call us? Tell me.”

Then Henry told him everything, how the Yoruba had cursed the Igbo with black magic, and asked what the solution was. After listening to it all, Gou said, “The solution to this problem is mirror magic.” Then Gou told Henry how to perform that mirror magic.

Gou also said, “Tonight three young men will die. If you want to save them, they must be kept in water. The magic of these jinn does not work in water. If those three spend the whole night in water, they will survive. And tomorrow you will use the mirror magic. You will trap those three jinn inside mirrors and kill them.” Gou taught Henry the whole process. Then four lights rose one by one from the four human skulls and flew away. That is how the Magic of Four Ancestors ended.

When everything was done, Henry called all of us again. We went to him, and he told us everything. Then he told the three young men who would otherwise be killed that night to spend the night in a pond. As Henry said, the three young men stayed in the pond water all night. And they survived.

The next afternoon Henry came alone, carrying three mirrors. As soon as we saw him, we all went to him. He asked if we had had any problems. We said no, nothing had happened that day. From that afternoon Henry began a ritual, which he performed sitting in Kevin’s courtyard. It was mostly a kind of worship and prayer, which for good reasons I do not wish to describe.

After sunset that day, Henry drew a circle and sat inside it. In front of him were the three mirrors, and he began to recite spells. After reciting for a while, three lights came together and entered the three mirrors. Then Henry took a knife and struck one of the mirrors. The moment he struck it with the knife, a terrible scream came out.

Bobby said the sound of that scream was as loud as lightning striking very close. Everyone present felt as if their eardrums would burst. One after another, Henry struck all three mirrors with the knife, and each time the same scream came out. When it was over, Henry called us all. He said, “The problem is solved. From today, you are free of the Yoruba’s black magic.”

That is how Henry solved one terrifying problem. After that, the Yoruba and the Igbo went on fighting each other with black magic many more times. Both sides used terrifying magic on each other.