How is swinging beef connected with penis snatchers?
Last week, we had the bull balls, and this week, we have penis snatchers. What do they have in common? Nothing, nada, zip. The bull ball story meant to illustrate the connections between food and culture or, in other words, the connections between what we have learnt to see as edible and what not. This learning is, of course culturally constructed, and I tried to show this by telling the story of being served "swinging beef" in Southwestern Alberta, Canada. The penis snatchers have nothing whatsoever to do with this. October is witches month in the history department of Suite 101 (at least it was last time I heard) and in my first article on "witches", I explore contemporary witch-hunt. Yep, you read it correctly. Witch-hunts are not a thing of the past. In fact, some people suggest that thousands of people die each year as the result of violence related to witch-hunting in countries such as Cameroon, Kenya, Congo, Sierra Leone and South Africa. Now what do penis snatchers have to do with this? Well, while you might have thought that witch-hunting would be an activity exclusively aimed at women, this is not necessarily so. Supposedly, eight men in Accra, Ghana, were accused of using witchcraft to snatch penises. They allegedly planned to return them in return for cash." Turns out this was a bad move. The penis snatchers were attacked by mobs. Two snatchers died and six were seriously injured. The penises of all victims turned out to be just fine, but the victims had firmly believed that the sorcerers had the power to make their genitals shrink or disappear completely. So, there you have it. Two entirely different subjects connected by male genitalia. To read them both, click here , and then here.
See also this great article on penis snatching!
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