They use muti

Eighth Avenue, Bez Valley, becomes Carnarvon Road in Bertrams. Behind a corrugated iron fence, crowned with giant pumpkin leaves, there is a small, crowded shack settlement. Constructed on the remains of two houses that were apparently razed to the ground eight or nine years ago, it is peculiarly elevated above the road, just a block away from the Bertrams Spar. Twenty-five-30 people live there.

I spoke to Ezra, originally from Mozambique, who came to South Africa “in 1970-something, after the wars of Mozambique.”  He told me that most of the other residents are South Africans from KwaZulu Natal or the Free State. 

They don’t like one another very much and “use muti” (witchcraft) against each other and against him, he said, which is why he can barely walk, even with a stick.  His  church, St John’s, which meets "at the Spruit”, had confirmed that he has been bewitched.

I had a quick look around with Ezra as my guide.  In between piles of rubble; washing lines of clothing blowing in dusty city wind; and squawking chickens in a makeshift metal cage, a group of women plucked the feathers from freshly slaughtered chickens, and prepared to cook them on a wood stove.

One of the oldest inner city suburbs of Johannesburg, Bertrams was named after Robertson Fuller Bertram who came to the Witwatersrand from Queenstown in the Eastern Cape in 1889, which is when Bertram Township, as it was known, was laid out on a portion of the farm, ‘Doornfontein’.

Originally conceived as a middle-class suburb adjoining Old Doornfontein, Bertrams was a favoured residential area of wealthy leaders of society.

Murderess Daisy de Melker lived here

According to a feasibility study on the Greater Ellis Park area for the Jo’burg Directorate of Arts, Culture & Heritage, "interesting people" who once lived in the area (though very briefly in some cases) include the Founder of the Boy Scout Movement, Lord Baden-Powell http://www.biographyonline.net/humanitarian/baden-powell.html, the murderess Daisy de Melker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_de_Melker, the President of the Transvaal Rugby Union, Mr. H.J. Sanderson, and the British Imperialist, Cecil John Rhodes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes.  

H.J. Sanderson lived at 18 Gordon Road

Those I spoke to were doubtful that Cecil John Rhodes ever lived in Bertrams. One expert said: “To the best of my knowledge Colonel Frank Rhodes (brother of Cecil John) lived in Doornfontein in an area which is now the Technikon. I suppose Cecil John may have stayed there on occasion, but I would have guessed that he stayed at the Rand Club.”  

http://www.randclub.co.za/History.htm

Cecil John Rhodes lived at 21 Berea Road