Paranormal record / 1906
Natal, 1906. A Catholic mission school halfway between Umzinto and Ixopo. Clara Germana Cele, an orphan, had lived there since she was small. Now she was 16. On 20 August 1906, the sisters watched her tear at her clothes and growl like an animal. She seemed to talk with beings no one else could see. What followed was written down by the priests who fought it. Sounds no lion could make. Latin from a girl in the grip of a fit. A dress that caught fire as nuns held her. And a body that, witnesses said, rose from the ground and drifted toward the sanctuary. Two exorcisms later, the case still divides those who read it.
St Michael's Mission sat halfway between Umzinto and Ixopo, in the hills of Natal. It was called "the oldest Catholic native mission in Natal," and was later run by the monks of Mariannhill. That same year, 1906, Natal was shaken by the Bambatha Rebellion against the poll tax.