ROCKY RHODES: AN ROADS POLITICS BREWS ALICE'S WITCHCRAFT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73-00475R000301630001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 31, 2014
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: August 13, 1964
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/01/31 : CIA-RDP73-00475R000301630001-4
? ?UPI Telephoto
Mrs. Alice Lenshina surrendered
to government forces, a report
from Lusaka, Northern Rho-
? desia, said, but no reprisals
have been ordered against her
followers. The report said Mrs.
Lenshina had made a tape re-
cording asking her followers to
halt resistance.
Declassified in
AUG 13 1964
Rocky Rhodes: an Roads
Politics
By RICHARD H. BOYCE
Scripps-Howard Staff Writer
There is more than distorted
religious faith behind the .fanatic
Lumpa cult killings in Northern
Rhodesia.
Part of the answer is politics.
The Lumpa leader, Mrs. Alice
Lenshina, became unhappy when
some of her followers stopped
attending church and started at-
tending meetings of the United
National Independence Party or
the African National Congress
Party.
- That was last December,
when elections were at hand.
There were killing g then, too,
tho not as many as in the past
two weeks.
RED CHINESE
Now Premier Kenneth Kaunda
has hinted that "outside influ-
ences" may have tried to take
advantage of the current blood-
letting. Western observers say
the "outside influences" may be
communist Chinese. They doubt
the Reds have made any serious
rews
_
lice's WHchcraff
back to life so she could do so.
Alice called the church Lumpa.
It means "above all others."
She preached no smoking, no
drinking, no dancing on Sun-
day, no more than one wife,
and no politics. This, she said,
meant Lumpas would go to
heaven.
WITCHCRAFT
Into all this Alice mixed black
witchcraft and white missionary
teachings.
To prove herself to her, flock,
she told them one day to undress
during a rain and they would be
washed clean of sin. Any whose
, souls were launder-proof would
be struck dead, Alice prophe-
sied.
Lumpas to this day insist
?
,
lightning killed two on the spot.;
This sold Alice practically over-
night and her following grew!
'by thousands.
From time to time Lumpas? ;
clashed with the government, .
but they did not slow the march ?
toward independence from Brit- ,
ain. As last December's elec-
tion neared, Alice thought too
many Lumpas were sinning by
taking part in politics. She went
off alone into the mountains. y
Three days later she returned '
contending she had talked again
with God. She even recorded His -
voice on tape, she said, ?She
turned on her recorder and a
booming male voice blared, de-
nouncing polygamy and politics.
"You have heard the voice
ol God,", Alice screamed. ;
inroads.
Alice, now 41, founded the'
cult 11 years ago. Its dogma is ri
based on resistance to the
change brought to the tribes by ,
Northern Rhodesia's moye away
from colonial status toward in- ,
dependence.
In short, Alice and the Lum- '
pas and their defiance of mod-';
ern authority are a roadblock ,
to Northern Rhodesia's progress.
Alice told kin and friends in
the Chinsali region of northeast
Northern Rhodesia she died and '
went to heaven where she talked
with "a big black god." L
He told her to found a church.
Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2014/01/31
I
: CIA-RDP73-00475R000301630001-4