Not only are the directions altered in the Southern hemisphere, but the
seasons change with latitude. I don't know how far south of the equator you
are, but the practice of any nature orientated worship has got to be
influenced by the prevailing climate. In England, 50ish degrees north and
warmed by the Gulf stream (mostly!) the contrasts between summer and winter
are very noticeable, but not wildly extreme, and in these times dont present
much of a danger due to bad weather and the harvest. The sun moves very
noticeably along the horizon  with the year's cycle, the moon more so,
especially in this coming year of the lunar standstill. There is still a
feeling for me of the death and rebirth cycle that we are moving through all
the time. How does that manifest in equatorial regions?

In the press in England there have been occasional flurries of concern over
"Muti killings", bodies of mutilated children linked with 'African
Witchcraft'; I don't know if these fall into the same rumour/ folk myth as
the satanic abuse cases in Scotland, where no concrete evidence seems to
have been presented: at least as far as I'm aware. Curiously in another
group I frequent, there's been a discussion of the witch trials in Europe,
and the number of executions/ burnings that resulted. It sounds (from the
little reports that I've read) that the South African variety  of
witchcraft, practiced by the healers is probably closer to that practiced in
Europe by the cunning-folk, and their  take on their craft was very
different from out retrospective and romanticised view of what they up to.
Tim

> My point also is that within the emergent (neo)Pagan community there have
> been some tendencies to include indigenous traditions firstly, as Pagan,
> and, secondly, without any real understandings of the changes those
> communities have undergone in our ghastly history.  For one, the negative
> reality of witchcraft in their culture.  In a way, there is a
> romanticizing
> of many aspects of those cultures.  I am acutely sensitive that another
> minority White group re-identifies the same peoples with a term that was
> always a negative allocation, depriving people of the right to
> self-identify, without any depth in understandings of the reality
> of those lives and spiritualites.  The _Africanness_ in these modern forms
> I see more in the following of a southern seasonal cycle and in the
> subsequent ritual adjustments.  Of course there are a myriad of other
local
> adjuncts such as the use of indigenous herbs and incenses as well as the
working
> with local energies.