beaten by a coffin

One of my first medical successes was a man admitted 4 days ago to the
wards. One of the local superstitions/customs is to throw a traditional
'medicine' on the coffin of recently deceased people; the coffin then
acts like a Ouiji board and seeks out the person who was responsible for
the person's death. That person is usually attacked, often fatally, by
the coffin and the men carrying it. In effect, every death is
accompanied by an act of assault and often murder, making the scene
doubly tragic and also perpetuating a vicious cycle of death, with the
victims often being the elderly that cannot flee quickly. On Monday, a
70 year old man was the victim of this, presented agitated and bleeding
from his right ear, and eventually lapsed into coma. After medical
treatment and prayer, however, he came around 3 days later, and is now
awake and talking and eating.

It's often hard to know what to do, and I had debated to drill holes in
his skull to relieve the pressure, but as he never localized I decided
not to, and in retrospect am glad that I didn't. Interestingly, the
police were involved, but very little action gets taken in these
situations. Several of the long-term missionaries are convinced this is
demonic possession; even if not, the retributive murder of innocent
people is obviously something to speak out against, and something to
pray about as well.