ABSTRACT
The lynching of Jorge Mario was the direct result of local gossip that targeted him as he embodied an inter-generational shift. As young Todosanteros returned from the United States wealthier than their parents, their destabilising behaviour came under greater scrutiny. Gossip escalated and soon saw Jorge Mario accused of gaining wealth through highway robberies. While gossip is intimate, rumour is more generalised. It was regional rumour that played into the attack on Tetsuo Yamahiro as a bus tour coincided with the crystalisation of a rumour regarding Satanic child sacrifice. These rumours were related to wider national and regional fears regarding adoption and organ theft that have been written about by Scheper-Hughes (2000; Adams 1999) as a form of resistance against global inequalities. This chapter explores gossip and rumour as parallels to the processes underlying witchcraft allegations and explores the similarities between Todos Santos’ attacks’ wider issues of moral, panic-driven collective violence in other contexts. This chapter explores the role of hearsay as the mechanism at the heart of the scapegoating and targeting seen in vigilantism on a global scale.
