Excuse me?

The Shiyeyi word for 'the making of excuses' is shikutaako. The example that Sarah gave for shikutaako was of a boy in her school who would steal all the time. You couldn't leave anything lying around or he'd just take it, no matter what it was. He was at one of the drumming churches in the area, where they prophesied over him that he was witched and that it is why he steals all the time. Now, he still steals but, when caught, he says, “I can't help it: I am witched.” As if that made everything explainable and OK! Everyone at school calls him “I'm witched” because he says it so often. We laughed pretty hard when she told me this one.