Is General Butt Naked a Hero?

Conversations with a man that used to eat children

According to Thomas Carlyle, “the most important thing to know of any man is his religion.” By religion Carlyle does not mean merely whether one calls oneself a Catholic, Jew, or Zoroastrian, but rather what one’s relationship is to the unseen world. What does a man believe most deeply, at his core? Although these deepest beliefs concern things generally considered intangible, they actually determine everything about how we act in the world. Our actions are guided by our thoughts, our thoughts by our feelings, and our feelings by our relationship to the “unseen” spiritual world. To fully understand a man’s actions, you must first understand the foundations on which his soul rests.

Consider the Taliban. They believe that Allah’s martyrs are rewarded greatly in heaven, hence they fight fearlessly and tirelessly. The man who sees death as the gateway to eternal bliss will do things unthinkable to the man who sees death as nothing but a void. As a closer to home example for Westerners, consider the Mormons of Mexico, who left America in order to more freely live in accord with the laws and customs of Mormonism as laid down by its founders. This unlikely minority in Mexico fought many wars against the Mexican cartel and won on the cartel’s home turf. The belief that it is your god given mission to establish God's one true church on earth completely changes the way you act in the material world. Any ‘pragmatic’ group whose sole concern was the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of harm would quickly leave Mexico behind for greener pastures, but these Mormons have stood firm defending their way of life.

Which brings us to General Butt Naked. Since the tender age of 11 he was sacrificing children on a weekly basis. During the Liberian Civil War he fought naked, with a sword, against enemies armed with modern assault rifles. What could possibly drive a man to this? Was it madness? What was General Butt Naked’s relationship to the unseen world?

General Butt Naked’s birth was the fulfillment of a religious prophecy. Born Milton Blahyi, he hailed from the Sarpo-Krahn tribe of southeastern Liberia. His father, Kwetti, had inherited the priestly mantle before him but turned his back on tribal traditions by pursuing a Western education in the capital city of Monrovia, going on to marry a Lorma woman and fathering a son with her. In his absence, others in the tribe attempted to assume the role of priest, but they were struck dead by the tribal deity, Nya-ghe-a-weh, who would only transfer the priestly mantle to the son of the turncoat priest. Summoned by the elders, Blahyi’s father presented his mixed-tribe son, but this son was promptly cursed by Nya-ghe-a-weh, who demanded a full-blooded Krahn for his priest. Despite his existing marriage and against his protestations, the tribal elders pressured Kwetti to marry a Krahn woman, sire a son with her, then promptly divorce her and rejoin his original wife, in order to appease their god. Nine months later this woman gave birth to a behemoth of a boy named Milton Blahyi, weighing 18 pounds, putting him in the running for the heaviest African born on record.

Milton returned with Kwetti to Monrovia, where his father began grooming him for his role as Nya-ghe-a-weh’s priest. Whenever Kwetti would give gifts to his son, he would tell him that they were from Nya-ghe-a-weh, cementing a positive association with the deity from a young age. Milton quickly showed himself to be a violent child, repeatedly beating up other children. Kwetti encouraged this violence in his son, responding to each outburst by assuring his son that the cruelty and strength he displayed would make him a fearsome priest and warrior. At the age of 11, Kwetti brought Milton back to the tribe for his initiation as priest. The deity granted Milton great powers in exchange for weekly human sacrifices. From this point on he was visited by Nya-ghe-a-weh every night between midnight and 4am. In these dreams Nya-ghe-a-weh would reveal to him the names and faces of his next victim to be sacrificed. Prior to his first sacrifice Nya-ghe-a-weh told Milton to play checkers across the city and he became well known by the city’s children as a champion. But he had an ulterior motive, whilst his opponents focussed on the game he would stare into the eyes of his competitors, studying what he referred to as their “spiritual countenance,” the unique imprint of a person’s soul that is reflected on their faces. According to Krahn tradition, it is possible for a sacrifice’s soul to escape if not first captured and dedicated to the deity. When dreaming, it is said that the spirit leaves the body and goes to the astral realm, and it was here that Milton would intercept the spirits of his sacrifices and capture them before killing their physical bodies, sending their spirits to Nya-ghe-a-weh.

But, as Milton soon learned, it was not always easy to capture the souls of those to be sacrificed. Mammy was a 6 year old girl that Nya-ghe-a-weh demanded for his weekly sacrifice. Milton tried thrice to overpower her soul on the astral plane but failed all three times. Milton was resigned to failure and asked Nya-ghe-a-weh to choose another victim, but Nya-ghe-a-weh persisted, insisting that the spiritual link between him and Milton would be severed if the sacrifice did not occur. As Blahyi now explains, this girl was a Christian, and the souls of Christians were heavily defended against his black magic (according to Blahyi the souls of Muslims had no such protection). In order to capture this Christian soul, he would have to resort to deception. Milton visited the girl’s house and gave a coin to her mother. Charmed by this act of seeming kindness, she laughed and asked what the gift was for, to which Milton replied that it was a dowry for her daughter. The thought of this young boy paying a dowry for her daughter, when marriage was quite far off for both of them, was a very funny one, so Mammy’s mother accepted out of sheer amusement. Little did she know she had now invited Milton in past their spiritual defenses, and Milton succeeded in capturing Mammy’s soul that night and quickly carried out the sacrifice.

The Liberian Civil War started in 1989 when Charles Taylor led a rebellion against President Samuel Doe. As is often the case with conflicts in Africa, it was fought along tribal lines. President Doe was Krahn, and his regime was unpopular with other tribes and the Americo-Liberians, who sought to eradicate the Krahn. Krahn communities themselves were routinely massacred, and even non-Krahn families that harbored a single Krahn member would be slaughtered. Refugees streamed back and forth across the country during the brutal civil war, and would often be stopped and asked to speak their tribal dialect to prove that they weren’t Krahn, on pain of death. Many Monrovians only spoke English, but were assumed to be Krahn hiding their identities and thus killed.

In 1991, two years into this extermination campaign against his people, an 18 year old Blahyi joined the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) in an effort to defend his people. As predicted by prophecy, he was a fearsome warrior, and quickly rose to the rank of general. He fought with an army of child soldiers, all of them naked, earning him the name General Butt Naked, and his boys became known as the Butt Naked Battalion. Still, he continued his service to Nya-ghe-a-weh. Before each battle, General Butt Naked would strip a child naked, tie them to a post, and hack down their spine with a cutlass, reaching into their thoracic cavity and ripping out their still beating heart. The heart would be cut into many pieces and consumed by the child soldiers, who believed that doing so would grant them magical powers. These magical protections rendered clothing and armor useless. General Butt Naked was said to be made invulnerable to bullets and able to disappear at will. Having then been whipped up into a frenzy of bloodlust, General Butt Naked and his boys would take the edge off with some heroin before rushing into battle. General Butt Naked rarely used a gun, relying mostly on his cutlass, because it drew far more blood than bullets, and he believed that when he killed with it, the blood of his victims would flow directly into the spirit world to slake Nya-ghe-a-weh’s thirst. This magic of course seems horrific and ludicrous to us, but as General Butt Naked survived battle after battle, his enemies grew to believe that he indeed possessed the magical powers he claimed. They were so convinced, in fact, that they stopped shooting at him altogether, believing it a waste of valuable bullets. Upon hearing “Butt Naked is coming” his opponents often laid down their arms and fled, their guns were useless against him and would only slow them down. 

General Butt Naked continued on in this manner until 1996, when, in the middle of another one of his countless sacrifices, a figure of brilliant white light appeared over his shoulder. “My child, why are you slaving?”, asked the voice. “Who is this calling me a slave,” retorted Butt Naked, “I should be king! People who I say should die get killed, People who I say should live get left alone.” “You’re right to say that you should be a king,” the voice went on, “but right now you are a slave. You have two choices. Repent and live, or refuse and die.” And so ended General Butt Naked’s vision of Jesus Christ. Nonplussed, General Butt Naked carried out the sacrifice and went on to signal the start of the battle as he usually did, by firing a handgun in the air, but the gun jammed. He grabbed another gun but it also jammed. When the third gun jammed, General Butt Naked felt more uncertain than he ever had before and retreated for the first time. Troubled, General Butt Naked was still trying to understand what had occurred when a ceasefire came into effect. During this time he was laying low in Monrovia, where an Evangelical group was told by God during their prayers that General Butt Naked would be his servant, whereupon they went and proselytized to him. Repeatedly they visited his barracks and prayed for him, urging him to join their services. This confused and angered the General. Then, for the first time since his initiation, a full night passed without a vision from Nya-ghe-a-weh. Instead, General Butt Naked had a heavenly vision that left him feeling more curious than cruel toward these missionaries, and he finally attended the Christian service. He turned his back on Nya-ghe-a-weh and devoted himself to God, renounced violence, became an Evangelical preacher, and was rechristened as Joshua Milton Blahyi.

Now a Christian, Joshua learned not only that God sees all sins, but that the only way to be liberated from sin is to admit your wrongs and beg forgiveness. So Joshua traveled the country, seeking out those he had injured, the loved ones of those he had killed, children he had conscripted, women he had raped, and apologized to them. Understandably, not all were quick to warm up to the man they once knew as General Butt Naked (Joshua survived many assassination attempts in the years after his conversion), but many were able to forgive. In 2008, the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) was held to bring to light the events of the Civil War and recommend sentences for those involved. This body had no legal authority itself, so of course none of the warlords showed up to self-incriminate. Except the former General Butt Naked. As a Christian, Joshua believed that through faith in Jesus and unqualified repentance, any sin could be forgiven. He gave the Commission a detailed crime of all the battles he fought, all the men he had killed, all the women he had raped, all the children he had sacrificed. He admitted that his actions were responsible for the deaths of 20,000 people. He gave this testimony fully expecting to be hanged, or imprisoned for life at the very least. And yet, when it came time for the Commission’s recommendations, they were moved by his honesty and convinced of his sincerity, recommending amnesty for him. Blahyi was so shocked by this, and felt so undeserving of it, that he sentenced himself to community service, starting a rehab clinic for former child soldiers, many of whom fell into lives of crime and addiction after struggling to reintegrate into their communities. I’ve spent the last few weeks in Liberia and have visited Blahyi’s rehab clinic, where many vouch that he has turned their lives around for the better. “If he can change, so can I” is a common sentiment among the residents.

Is Joshua Milton Blahyi evil? Your answer depends on your moral framework and your connection to the unseen world. From a traditional West African perspective, human sacrifice has existed since time immemorial, and serves the vital function of placating the gods. Many sources have told me that to this day, Liberian politicians sacrifice children in the leadup to elections. No one I spoke to has admitted to seeing it happen, but all confirm that it is common for children to go missing before elections. Blahyi estimates 90% of Liberian politicians engage in human sacrifice, as they believe doing so activates powerful magic that will give them an edge in elections. Blahyi is the authority on such matters, having been called to the presidential palace before the civil war by President Samuel Doe to carry out sacrifices on his behalf. Knowing this, we can start to learn more about Blahyi’s personal motivations. From his perspective, he was simply serving the god of his forefathers, not an abstract god he “believed in” because of some theological or religious argument, or stubborn continuance of tradition, but a god that appeared to him every night, and even when awake. Just the same, when Blahyi converted to Christianity, he was prompted by a vision of God himself, never doubting his course. At every step, Blahyi has been sincerely living out his spiritual beliefs, to the extreme. And sincerity, according to Carlyle, is the defining characteristic of a hero.

I asked Evangelist Blahyi if he still experiences this spiritual dimension to reality. He told me that angels regularly appear to him in human form. He told me how the devil always tries to tear down the greatest of human beings. He perceives spirits and evil energies all around him. He told his boys how to recognize spirits in human form. While looking at someone, close your eyes. If you can still see them with eyes shut, then they are a malevolent spirit. I asked him what he saw when he closed his eyes and looked at me. “I see nothing,” he said, “you are natural.”