RELIGION AND MAGIC—II
Creation. Origin of death. Lake Nyasa. Rain-making. Charms.
Witchcraft. Lycanthropy. Divination. Food tabus. Dances.
So far as we can get at the notions of the Bantu about creation, they
do not seem to have thought that this world ever had a beginning. All
the stories one has met with assume it as already existing, and explain
how this or that feature—mountains, rivers, lakes, animals, men—was
introduced into it. The Yaos tell that Mtanga pinched up the surface
of the earth into mountains, Chitowi—who had failed in performing the
operation himself—having called him in for the purpose. He then dug
channels for rivers, and brought down rain to fill them. The Yaos, being
mountaineers, assumed that a plain would be unfit for human habitation:
Mtanga, on first viewing their country, remarked, ‘This country is bad
because it is without a hill.’ There are also legends of the introduction
of the sun, moon, and stars, and of the origin of clouds, wind, and rain;
but all these presuppose the existence of people on the earth.
Mankind is held to have originated at Kapirimtiya, a hill—or as some
say, an island in a lake, far to the west of Nyasa. Here it is believed
that there is a rock covered with marks like the footprints of men and
animals, and that, when men were first created, the island was a piece of
soft mud, and Mulungu sent them across it, so as to leave their footmarks
there, before they were dispersed over the world. One native account says
that ‘they came from heaven and fell down below upon the earth’; another,
that they came out of a hole in the rock, which was afterwards closed by
‘the people of Mulungu,’ and is now ‘in a desert place towards the north.’
In the Bemba country, the natives speak of two such places; and one of
them was seen in 1902 by a European, who describes it in a letter to
_Life and Work_ as ‘a conglomerate rock showing what the natives call
footprints of a man, a child, a zebra or horse, and a dog.’ The Bemba
people say that these footprints were made by Mulungu (or, as they call
him, Luchereng’anga) ‘and the people and animals he brought to occupy the
country.’ Offerings of beads, calico, and beer are placed on this rock.
The writer thought the marks certainly looked like footprints, but were
merely hollows where the rain had washed out the softer parts of the
rock. The old head-man of the place, naturally enough, would not hear
of this explanation, and maintained that the marks had once been much
plainer, but were now partly washed away by the rains.
This account agrees well enough with the vague indications given by the
Blantyre people as to the direction of Kapirimtiya. It seems to show that
the Yaos and Bemba had some common centre, though the latter also say
(which is confirmed by other testimony) that they came from the west in
comparatively recent times.
The story of the Chameleon is found among so many of the Bantu as to
suggest that they derived it from a common source. Whether it came from
the Hottentot legend of the Moon and the Hare—or from the story out
of which that was developed, I do not feel competent to discuss. The
Yaos, the Anyanja, and the Atonga all possess it in slightly differing
versions. I shall give the last-named.
‘_Chiuta_ deputed the Chameleon and the Lizard (or Frog, as it is
variously given) to take to men the message, the one of life and the
other of death. The Chameleon was to tell men that they would die, but
that they would return again, while the Lizard was bid tell them that
when they died, they would die for good. The Chameleon had the start,
but in its slow, hesitating pace was soon outrun by the swift Lizard,
which darted in among men with its tale that dying they should end their
existence. A good while after, the Chameleon came lazily along and
announced that, though men should die, they would return to life again;
but he was met by the angry and sorrowful reply that they had already
heard that they must die without returning, and that they had accepted
the message first delivered.’
This is exactly like the Zulu story, where the people say, ‘Oh! we
have taken hold of the word of the Lizard, when it said, “People shall
die.” We never heard that word of yours, Chameleon—people _will_ die!’
Consequently, Zulus, Yaos, Anyanja, Atonga, and, I suppose, most Bantu,
detest the poor Chameleon, and consider him an unlucky beast. The
Anyanja never pass one without putting snuff into its mouth, ‘that it
may die,’ and any one who knows what a value they set on this commodity,
and what minute quantities they seem, as a rule, to carry about with
them, will allow that this is, indeed, carrying enmity very far. However,
the Lake Anyanja seem to take a different view of the matter from the
Blantyre people. They hold that their ancestors were grateful for the
Chameleon’s message, though it came too late—perhaps they reflected that
it was not his fault: he was not built for fast travelling;—and they give
him tobacco as a reward; so that chameleons who die by nicotine poisoning
are the victims of ill-judged kindness, not of revenge. It is worth
noticing that the creature’s name in the Lake dialect—_gulumpambe_ or
_gwilampambe_—seems to mean ‘seize the lightning’ (or ‘Mpambe’). Possibly
there is some still recoverable tradition at the back of this.
The Yaos have another very curious tale, in which the Chameleon is
directly concerned in the introduction of Man into the world. At first
Man was not—only Mulungu and the beasts. Apparently the Chameleon has
been forced by changed circumstances to alter his mode of living, for, in
those days he used to set traps for fish in the river—wicker arrangements
on the principle of the lobster-pot—as natives do now. One morning,
on visiting his trap, he found two unknown beings in it—no other than
the first man and woman, who had somehow blundered into it during the
night. (I have seen a _mono_ big enough to contain one person, with
his knees drawn up, but the size of the First Parents is not stated.)
He consulted Mulungu as to what he should do with them, and was told,
‘Place them here, they will grow.’ They did grow, and developed various
activities—among others that of making fire by twirling a hard stick on a
bit of soft wood (_kupeka moto_), as is done to this day. But in the end
they set the grass alight, and thus drove Mulungu from his abode on this
earth. The Chameleon escaped by climbing a tree; but ‘Mulungu was on the
ground, and he said, “I cannot climb a tree.” Then Mulungu set off and
went to call the Spider. The Spider went on high and returned again and
said, “I have gone on high nicely,” and he said, “You now, Mulungu, go on
high.” Mulungu then went with the spider on high. And he said, “When they
die, let them come on high here.” And behold, men on dying go on high in
order to be slaves of God, the reason being that they ate his people here
below.’
That is, as soon as they had found out the use of fire, they began
to kill and cook buffaloes and other animals. No hint is given here
as to where or how these human beings originated. Mulungu evidently
knows nothing about them (while the animals, with which they have been
interfering, are ‘his people’), and makes the Chameleon responsible
for them, just as a chief at the present day would hold any man who
introduced strangers into a village responsible for their conduct. Two
other points are noteworthy—the region into which Mulungu makes his
escape is ‘above’; and the Spider, who helps him, is a conspicuous figure
in West African folk-lore and mythology. This is the only instance
except one where I have met with him in an Eastern Bantu story; but we
have numerous examples in Duala, and one at least from the Congo.
This tale seems to be a very crude form of the myth in which a divine
being is driven from earth by the wickedness of mankind—like Astræa
and the Kintu of the Baganda. The curious, and, to us, inconsistent
limitations of his power are just what one may expect to find in stories
of this kind.
Perhaps we might include among legends of creation a story told at the
mysteries (to which we shall recur later on) to account for the origin of
Lake Nyasa.
‘In old days the Lake was small as a brook. Then there came a man out
of the west with a silver sceptre.’ (The story is ‘taken down from
native lips’; I do not know what is the original wording in this place;
but we may suppose that the Lake people knew silver through the coast
traders even before they were acquainted with Europeans. In any case,
the ‘silver sceptre’ need not prove the story to be a recent invention;
one constantly finds touches of ‘actuality’ introduced by the tellers of
these tales.) ‘He married, and brought his wife to return with him to his
country. She consented, and her brother said, “Yes, and I will go too.”
But his brother-in-law said, “I will not have you go too.” Then he wept
bitterly for his sister, when he saw her cross the lake, and he grew very
angry, and he took his stick and struck the water, till it swelled up and
covered all things and became a flood. Then the woman and her brother
died, both of them together, and the corpse of the woman went to the
north, and that of her brother to the south. When a cloud weeps in the
south, the sister rests quietly in the north, and when a cloud appears
and weeps in the north, the brother rests quietly in the south.’
In another chapter we shall find a legend of a river struck with a staff
with the opposite purpose, viz., to make a passage through it. It is
possible that these may be echoes of the Biblical stories heard from the
missionaries, though, as a matter of fact, I do not think this is the
case.
In the last chapter I spoke of magic as distinguished from religion.
By the latter I mean appeals to—or attempts to propitiate—some unseen,
superior powers, whether these be thought of as ancestral spirits,
nature-powers, or what we generally understand by a Deity. Magic, on
the other hand, consists in performing certain actions which will, in
some occult way, have such an effect on natural forces as to produce the
result desired; that is to say (to put it roughly), it enables man to
control nature on his own account. I must confess, however, that I do
not always see where the line should be drawn, and have included several
matters in this chapter without attempting to decide how they should be
classified. Usually people attempt to do magic on the principle that like
produces like—as when water is poured out on the ground in the hope of
bringing rain.
It will be remembered that, when we spoke in the last chapter of
Chigunda’s people calling on Mpambe for rain, it was said that
the ceremony concluded with ‘a rain-charm.’ This is described as
follows:—‘The dance ceased, a large jar of water was brought and placed
before the chief; first Mbudzi (his sister) washed her hands, arms, and
face; then water was poured over her by another woman; then all the
women rushed forward with calabashes in their hand, and dipping them
into the jar, threw the water into the air with loud cries and wild
gesticulations.’
This, however, might be taken as prayer and not magic, if we are to
understand the water to be thrown into the air as a sign that water is
wanted. Sometimes people smear themselves with mud and charcoal to show
that they want washing. If the rain still does not come, they go and wash
themselves in the rivers and streams.
In 1893 the rains were unusually late. In the West Shiré district we only
had one or two showers up to December 12—by which time the crops should
have been in the ground in the ordinary course of things; and though that
day and the next were wet, the weather cleared again—except for delusive
thunder and lightning which led to nothing. After about a week of this,
I happened to go to a village, and found all the women busy cleaning out
the well whence they obtained their usual water-supply. It was a large
hole, three or four feet across, and perhaps ten or twelve feet deep,
and pegs had been driven into one side, by which even the white-haired
old grandmother of the party ascended and descended with the greatest
agility. They had already dug out a large heap of mud, and seemed serious
and preoccupied, and none of the men were to be seen—in fact, the huts
appeared to be deserted. But it never struck me that they were doing
anything else but digging out their well because the water had come to an
end.
Some years later, when I read M. Junod’s _Les Baronga_, a passage in it
forcibly recalled this scene, and showed that it had a meaning which
had never occurred to me at the time. The Ronga women, it appears,
have a solemn rite of clearing out the wells in time of drought. For
this, they lay aside all their usual garments, clothing themselves only
with grass or leaves, and start for the well, with special songs and
dances. I did not notice anything special about the costume of the women
at Pembereka’s, nor did I hear any singing, but probably that would
accompany the dance, which would have taken place before they actually
got to work. As the well was quite close to the huts, there would be
no marching in procession—two or three of the women may have come from
other kraals, but there were so few in all that the ceremony must have
taken place on a very small scale. Not knowing of the Ronga usage, I
could not ascertain whether or not the Anyanja women carried it out on
the following points: (1) Before starting for the well, they go in a body
to the house of _a woman who has had twins_, and pour water over her out
of their calabash dippers; (2) When they have finished cleaning out the
well, they go and pour water on the graves in the sacred grove.
It will be remembered that the ceremony at Chigunda’s was conducted
(though in the presence of the chief and all his people) by women only.
I did not hear of any case of twins among these people during the time
of our stay, and do not know how they are looked on. I have been told
that the Yaos, when twins are born, kill one, but this is an unsupported
statement (made by a native, however), which I have not been able to
test. It seems clear that the Atonga and other tribes by the lakeside
consider them unlucky, and act on that belief in varying degrees.
We do not find a special class of rain-doctors apart from the ordinary
sorcerer, diviner, or ‘witch-doctor.’ Public ceremonies are conducted—or
at least presided over—by the chief, though no doubt the ‘doctor’ is
frequently consulted. M. Junod, in the account above referred to, says
that the chief gives orders for the women to go out and clean the wells,
after having ascertained, through lots cast by the principal diviners,
that such a step is necessary.
There is no bar, however, to the exercise of special powers by
individuals who possess them. Sir Harry Johnston speaks of an old
rain-maker named Mwaka Sungula, at the north end of Lake Nyasa. His power
extended to wind as well as rain. He was once resorted to by the native
crew of the _Domira_ when she stuck on a sandbank, and, as the wind
changed during the night following his incantations, he had a triumphant
success.
There are charms, as might be expected, not only for bringing rain, but
for keeping it away. When travelling from the Upper Shiré district to
Blantyre towards the close of the rainy season, I found that one of the
carriers was provided with _mankwala a mvula_ (rain-medicine) to ensure
fair weather during the journey. I inspected this talisman, and found
it to consist of two sticks, about a foot long, firmly lashed together
with strips of bark, and, inserted between them, a piece of charred wood,
and perhaps some other things which I could not clearly make out. He had
paid the local practitioner a goat for it. He kept it in his hand on the
march, and, from time to time, pointed it towards the quarter from which
rain might be expected. It is a fact that none fell till we were within a
few miles of the Mission; and Chipanga might have argued that the power
of the charm was here neutralised by the more powerful influence of the
white men.
This brings us to the subject of _mankwala_, variously translated
‘medicine,’ or ‘charms,’ and including what we understand by both
terms. I have never been able to ascertain the etymology of the Nyanja
word _mankwala_ (a plural without a singular); in Yao, _mtela_, ‘a
tree or plant,’ is, like the Zulu _umuti_, used with this meaning.
Native doctors, both men and women, often have a very good knowledge of
medicinal herbs, but it is the other kind of ‘medicine’ with which we
have to do just now.
This may be divided, roughly, into offensive and defensive. You enter
the little courtyard and see growing in the space between the huts,
a cherished bush of cayenne peppers, to which is tied a protective
apparatus consisting of a small wooden hoop with a goat’s or ram’s horn
filled with heaven knows what messes, fastened into it. Or a string is
hung at the door of a house, which is supposed to turn into a snake
if any one enters to steal. Or a bamboo is set up close to the garden,
with a horn on the top of it; or a string is run round the crops, or you
may see ashes laid beside the path which passes by them; or, again, the
medicine may be buried. Snail-shells and bundles of leaves may be used in
this way. Those who attempt to steal in spite of these contrivances will
either die on the spot or be taken ill afterwards.
The word _winda_, which means to protect a garden (or anything else)
in this way, is also used of women letting their hair grow while their
husbands are on a journey, lest any ill should befall the travellers.
They are also supposed (among the Yaos at any rate) to refrain from
washing their faces or anointing their heads till the absent ones return.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the different varieties of
‘medicine.’ I believe there is some preventive of every ill likely to
befall mankind, and those who understand such things can do a profitable
business. The Shiré people venture recklessly into the water if they
are provided with ‘crocodile medicine’; and there are medicines against
lions, leopards, and, I suppose, every variety of dangerous wild beast,
not to mention the ‘gun medicine,’ which enables the hunter to shoot
straight, and which, perhaps, ought to be classed in the ‘offensive’
category, but that it is free from sinister associations. Most European
sportsmen, if at all successful, have been importuned for this, and it
used to be firmly believed that the late Mr. Monteith Fotheringham, who
was a very good shot, wore a belt charged with exceedingly powerful
‘medicines’ next his skin. There are also ‘medicines’ to make a man
bullet-proof, like Chibisa, the Nyanja chief, who was brought down at
last by a sand-bullet, as Dundee was with a silver one at Killiecrankie.
Some natives once assured me that Chikumbu, a Yao chief, who at one
time gave the Administration some trouble, was invulnerable by shot or
steel; the only thing that could kill him—since he had not been fortified
against it by the proper medicine—was a sharp splinter of bamboo. This
reminds one of Balder and the mistletoe. The East African Wadoe have a
legend about a magician who could be killed by one thing only—the stalk
of a gourd. But as the gourd-stalk was ‘a forbidden thing’ to him, this
suggests the subject of _miiko_ or tabu-prohibitions, which we must take
up presently.
Various seeds, nuts, claws of animals, and other things are worn round
the neck as ‘medicine’ of this kind. Sometimes it takes the shape of
wedge-shaped wooden tablets, or bits of stick about an inch long, which
are also seen strung on the band which people wear round the head as a
remedy for headache—a kind of combination of ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’
means, as the string is supposed to give relief by pressure.
As for ‘offensive’ medicine, there are various kinds. Some are ‘buried
against people’—usually in the form of horns—by the witch (_mfiti_) who
wishes to do the said people a mischief. I have no doubt that horns are
really sometimes buried with such intent; but it more frequently happens
that they are _un_buried by the witch-detective who has probably the best
of reasons for knowing where to find them. Then there is a very immoral
kind of medicine which, like the Hand of Glory, enables thieves to steal
without detection, by throwing the owners of the stolen property into
a deep sleep, or even (adding insult to injury) forces them to answer,
unconsciously, any questions as to the whereabouts of their wealth. There
are several kinds of this charm, but I do not know the composition of
any; though, in some parts of East Africa, a plant with the botanical
name of _Steganotaenia_ is supposed to possess these marvellous
properties. There is also a charm by means of which thieves can make
themselves invisible; but as it might also enable honest men to escape
from their enemies, it ought perhaps to have been enumerated in the first
category. One kind, at least, of this medicine is the drug _strophanthus_
(obtained from a plant locally called _kombe_), and with this the chief
Msamara poisoned himself in 1892, imagining that it would enable him to
walk unseen out of prison at Fort Johnston. He had previously taken off
all his clothes, reasoning that the drug would not make them invisible.
I remember being told that native burglars (I understand that such exist,
but cannot say I have come across them personally, and do not believe
that they are common, except in the coast towns), when setting out for
their night’s work, strip and oil themselves all over. This, I understood
at the time, was to make it difficult for any one to get a grip of them,
if caught; but it has since occurred to me that it was also part of the
process for rendering themselves invisible—the medicine being applied
externally as an unguent.
Secret theft is looked on with horror, as probably connected with
witchcraft. Natives are so ready to share everything they have with their
neighbours, that a person who stealthily takes what he might have for the
asking lays himself open to suspicion of yet darker dealings. It is the
Bewitcher, the _Mfiti_, who is the great terror of native life.
Witchcraft is not, so far as I can make out, thought of as a system of
compelling the unseen powers (whether dead ancestors or nature-spirits)
to work one’s will. The _mfiti_, however, employs certain animals as
messengers—the owl, and the jackal, whose bark summons him to midnight
orgies; but I do not know that he intrusts these creatures, as Zulu
sorcerers are said to do the baboon and the wild-cat, with ‘sendings’
to injure an enemy. Besides bewitching, as aforesaid, by means of
‘medicines,’ the things one most frequently hears of his doing are
turning himself into a hyena, leopard, or other animal, and digging up
graves to eat the flesh of corpses. But I am not sure that the latter
ever happens without the former, it being usually for this purpose
that the hyena shape is supposed to be assumed. So much of the funeral
ceremonies is connected with this belief that we shall have to treat it
more fully when we come to them.
Witchcraft and cannibalism are synonymous. ‘Why did So-and-So have to
drink _mwavi_?’ ‘_Chifukwa wodiera antu_—because he was an eater of men.’
This need not imply that he actually has eaten any one, only that he
has caused (or tried to cause) some one’s death with the intention of
eating the corpse. It is the reverse of the vampire superstition, where
the corpse will not stay dead, but gets up and feeds on the living; and
as there was a recognised remedy for this evil in the Middle Ages, so
there are various ways of preventing witches from getting at the graves,
as we shall see in due course. It has been said that cannibalism of
this sort is actually prevalent among the Anyanja; but the statements
on this subject require to be carefully sifted. The Yaos were thirty
years ago in the habit of using certain parts of their slain enemies as
a charm for producing strength and courage; they reduced them to ashes
and mixed them with gruel, which had to be eaten in a particular way.
Ordinary cannibalism may have been practised in times of scarcity. But
the Europeans who were in the Shiré during the terrible famine of 1862-3,
heard of no such cases, though nine-tenths of the Anyanja population
perished, many committing suicide in despair. There _may_, of course, be
some foundation in fact for this very widespread belief, but it is quite
capable of flourishing on little or none.[15]
Certain medicines (called _mphiyu_ by the Atonga) have the power of
turning those who take them into some animal—each kind, leopard, hyena,
crocodile, or what not, having its own particular medicine. The Atonga
belief presents some interesting features.
‘The living man might inform his friends that he had medicine to change
him into a crocodile, and if after his death a crocodile made its
appearance in a pool where crocodiles had not often been seen before, it
was of course believed to be their friend come back. If these animals
took to killing people, a representation would very probably be made to
the relatives of the dead to go and attend to their spirit, and have
it appeased. That a man-eating lion or other beast of prey was a real
_mzuka_ (one risen from the dead under another form) people could easily
tell, when the corpses were left uneaten: a real lion, it was thought,
would be sure to devour its victim. If this killing went on after
complaint had been made to the supposed relatives of the _mzuka_, the
issue would probably be a _mlandu_ with these on account of their alleged
carelessness of the rites due to their dead. People who were known to
have eaten _mphiyu_ were not mourned for in the ordinary way with loud
wailing and outcry. They were silently wept for by their relatives, the
only sound of mourning that might be heard being the mimic pounding in
the empty grain-mortar into which pieces of rubber were thrown from time
to time to still further deaden the sound. When after a time they heard
lions or leopards roaring in the bush, the villagers said, “There’s
Karakatu (_i.e._ one risen), he’s mourning for himself.”’
Not only do the natives firmly believe that their neighbours can thus
on occasion transform themselves, but occasionally a man is found to be
convinced that he can do so himself and has actually done it. Du Chaillu
mentions a case like this in West Africa, and Sir H. H. Johnston has
recorded another. A number of murders had taken place near Chiromo in
1891 or 1892, and were ultimately traced to an old man who had been in
the habit of lurking in the long grass beside the path to the river,
till some person passed by alone, when he would leap out and stab him,
afterwards mutilating the body. He admitted these crimes himself.
‘He could not help it (he said), as he had a strong feeling at times
that he was changed into a lion and was impelled, as a lion, to kill and
mutilate. As according to our view of the law he was not a sane person,
he was sentenced to be detained “during the chief’s pleasure,” and
this “were-lion” has been most usefully employed for years in perfect
contentment keeping the roads of Chiromo in good repair.’
An Englishman who had lived for some time in the Makanga country told
me that these people credit the were-hyena with a human wife, who lives
in a village and performs the ordinary work of a native woman by day,
but by night opens the door of the goat-kraal to admit her husband, and
then goes away into the bush with him to join in the feast. A goat was
carried off one night from the village near which the narrator lived, and
the people showed him, in the morning, the hyena’s tracks, and, running
parallel with them, the print of bare human feet. It was in vain to point
out that some one might have attempted to pursue the hyena and rescue his
prey, or, at any rate, have run out to see what had happened—they were
positive that the footprints were those of the hyena’s wife. Rats, too,
may be wizards in animal shape, which is a reason for their nibbling the
toes of sleepers.
Watching the grass-fires one night towards the end of the dry season, I
remember seeing a strange, sudden blaze on Nyambadwe Hill; the flames
rushing to an enormous height—whether from some change of wind, or
because they had caught a large dead tree, I do not know. I happened
to speak of this next day to an old man (a good-for-nothing old man he
was, by the bye, though that is nothing to the present purpose), and
he said that he had looked out of his hut and seen it too, remarking,
cryptically, that it was due to _afiti_. He went on to tell me that he
sometimes heard them passing by at night—they flew over the tree-tops
with a great whirring of wings. In fact, it appeared that they could do
‘most anything.’ The boys, who dared not go out at night for fear of
_afiti_, asserted that they carried a light which you could see afar
off, but put it out when you came near them, and that they could make
themselves large and small instantaneously. Some held that it was good to
pluck up heart and address them; others, that if you spoke to them, you
would become dumb like Mœris, when the wolf saw him first. I did not at
the time understand the precise connection between the witches and the
fire; but it appears that the grave itself becomes luminous when they
gather there. ‘When a fire is seen on a distant hill, where no fire can
be accounted for’—that is the place of their assembly. They call the
dead man by his childish name (which none ever uses after he has once
passed through the mysteries), and he cannot choose but come out of the
grave—then they tear him limb from limb and eat him. When you consider
that people believe this, not as a piece of curious folk-lore, but as a
solid conviction forming part of everyday life, it is hardly surprising
that they think no treatment too bad for the witches—if they can be
caught.
This may be done in various ways—most, if not all of which, we must
remember, are used for the detection of other things besides witches.
There is the Mabisalila or Mavumbula, the woman who dances herself
into a state of frenzy, and reveals the name of the guilty person. She
comes to stay at the village which has requisitioned her services, and
so gains time to glean all the gossip of the place before pronouncing
her opinion, and also to bury the horns during her nightly prowls,
ostensibly undertaken for the purpose of spying on the Witches’ Sabbath,
and seeing who leaves the village to attend it. She is able to make
her investigations quite undisturbed, as no one likes to venture out
after dark during her stay, lest he should meet her and be fixed on as
the culprit. When her preparations are complete, the people are called
together by the sound of the great drum. Then she begins to dance,
working up herself and the spectators to a furious pitch of excitement,
rushes round, smells their hands to see if she can detect any traces of
strange food eaten at the unholy banquet, and at last calls on the guilty
person by the name she pretends to have heard him addressed by at the
grave. When no one answers, she says ‘So-and-So is known in the village
by such and such a name,’ and then leads the way to his house, where the
horns are dug up. The enraged people usually lynch the accused on the
spot.
The ordeal of the mwavi is resorted to when people are suspected
either of witchcraft or of some other crime, such as theft; and as
it is a regular form of judicial procedure, it is perhaps best to
consider it more fully under that heading. Here I need only say that
the poison is administered to the suspected person; if he dies, his
guilt is established; if he recovers, he is _ipso facto_ acquitted. In
some districts the poison used does not cause death, but the guilt or
innocence of the accused is decided according to the different symptoms
produced.
Under the heading of ‘oracles’ we may include a great many different
processes of divination, some partaking of a judicial character, such
as the following, of which a very curious description is given by an
eye-witness, the Rev. H. Rowley. If there was no cheating, it seems to
have been a case of what is known as ‘motor automatism.’
‘Some corn had been stolen from the garden of one of Chigunda’s people.
The owner complained to the chief, who employed the services of a
celebrated medicine-man living near. The people assembled round a large
fig-tree, and the magician ... first of all produced two sticks, about
four feet long, and about the thickness of an ordinary broom-handle;
these, after certain mysterious manipulations and utterings of
unintelligible gibberish, he delivered, with much solemnity, to four
young men, two being appointed to each stick. Then from his goat-skin
bag he brought forth a zebra-tail, which he gave to another young man,
and after that a calabash filled with peas, which he delivered to a boy.
The medicine-man rolled himself about in hideous fashion and chanted an
unearthly incantation; then came the man with the zebra-tail, followed
by the boy with the calabash, moving, first of all, slowly round the
men with the sticks, but presently quickening their pace and shaking
the tail and the calabash over the heads of the stick-holders.... Ere
long the spell worked. The men with the sticks were subject to spasmodic
twitchings of the arms and legs. These increased rapidly, until they
were nearly in convulsions; they foamed at the mouth; their eyes seemed
starting from their heads.... According to the Mang’anja notion, it was
the sticks that were possessed primarily, the men through them.... The
men seemed scarcely able to hold the sticks, which took a rotary motion
at first and whirled the holders round and round like mad things. Then
headlong they dashed off into the bush, through stubborn grass and thorny
shrub, over every obstacle—nothing stopped them; their bodies were torn
and bleeding. Round to the gaping assembly again they came, went through
a few more rotary motions, and then, rushing along the path at a killing
pace, halted not until they fell down, panting and exhausted, in the
hut of one of Chigunda’s slave-wives. The woman happened to be at home,
and the sticks were rolled to her very feet.’ She, however, vehemently
asserted her innocence, and offered to take mwavi to prove it, which she
did by proxy, the poison being administered to a fowl. The second oracle
reversed the decision of the first, and the defendant was acquitted;
but, curiously enough, no one’s faith seems to have been shaken by the
contradiction between two infallible ordeals.
The Rev. Duff Macdonald alludes to this kind of divination, but very
briefly; it seems to be more Nyanja than Yao. He says that the sorcerer
‘occasionally makes men lay hold of a stick which, after a time, begins
to move as if endowed with life, and ultimately carries them off bodily
and with great speed to the house of the thief.’
I have never heard of this oracle of the sticks in the Blantyre or Upper
Shiré district. Of course, it by no means follows that it is not used;
but from various indications I fancy that the witch-detective, the
_Mabisalila_, whose operations have already been described, has been more
popular since the time of the Yao settlement. The ‘sticks’ are still in
vogue on the Lake. The Rev. H. B. Barnes, of the Universities’ Mission,
was told of a man at Ngofi who possessed this charm, and ‘had bought it
with much money at the coast.... It was described to me as consisting
of two short pieces of wood, with a large feather behind the second.
The master of the charm sets it on the ground near the place whence
the disappearance has taken place, and keeps his hand on the feather,
following it as it moves off on the track. It is also used when war is
threatening, in order to ascertain the safest direction in which to
flee.’[16]
There are various methods of divination besides those already referred
to. The sorcerer puts bits of stick and pebbles into a gourd, shakes them
up, and throws them out, deducing his answer to the questions put from
their position as they lie on the ground. I am sorry to say I never saw
this done, and cannot discover from any of the native accounts before me
whether there is a system of interpretation which allows one to get an
answer out of almost any possible combination of the ‘pieces’—as among
the Delagoa Bay people; but it is probable that the diviner follows
some such rules. Neither the ‘divining tablets’ of the Mashona, nor the
knuckle-bones of sheep and goats seem to be used—their place is taken
by small pieces of wood (_mpinjiri_), sometimes neatly cut into shape,
and the claws of the tortoise, which are divided into four pieces—the
front or tip of the claw being halved to make a ‘male’ and a ‘female’
piece (which are marked on the under side), and in like manner the back.
One way of consulting this oracle is to spread all the pieces on a dry
skin and then knock it from underneath, and catch in the hand the piece
(if any) which jumps off; if the same piece comes twice running, it is
a conclusive proof that the person whom the diviner thought of, when he
made the inquiry, is the correct one. Another way is to put the lots into
a jar, cover it up, and leave it for a time; if they still keep their
relative positions when next looked at, the omens for the journey or
other undertaking inquired about are favourable. Mr. Macdonald found that
the Yao professional diviners were usually very intelligent men, who gave
sensible advice according to their own lights, and invested it with a
certain impressiveness by means of the ‘lot,’ thinking people would care
nothing about it, or perhaps take offence, unless they could attribute it
to a supernatural source.
Many men consult the oracle on their own account, especially on a
journey, either by means of the flour-pyramid, as already described,
or by sticking a knife into the ground and leaning two small sticks
against it, or laying two sticks on the ground, and a third across them.
If they fall down, or are disturbed from their position, the omen is
unfavourable. There are many other omens which would cause a party to
turn back, unless very much set on an expedition—such as one of them
striking his foot against a stump (a common accident, to judge by the
number of ulcerated toes one sees), or certain creatures crossing the
path—some kinds of snakes, the chameleon, etc.—the partridge’s cry, and
so on. The evil-smelling _mdzodzo_ and _mtumbatumba_ ants, on the other
hand, are supposed (perhaps by the rule of contraries) to be of good
augury.
There is a certain system of abstinence from different kinds of food
which is probably connected originally with totemism; but either no one
has succeeded in getting at the matter except in a very fragmentary
way, or else the natives of the present day have forgotten the reasons
for the practice, and it only survives in a number of apparently casual
and isolated usages. Certain people will not eat some particular kind
of meat, either ‘because it makes one ill, or because of some religious
scruple or vow, or because one’s mother has for no apparent reason
decreed in one’s infancy that a certain food is to be tabu to one.’ It
might be more correct to reduce these three alternative reasons to one,
because, as a matter of fact, people who have been forbidden some food
in their infancy usually become ill if they eat it; and it is no stretch
of language to say that they are transgressing ‘a religious scruple’ in
doing so. Further inquiry is needed before we can decide whether or not
there is a reason behind these prohibitions; quite possibly, as already
stated, the people have forgotten that there ever was one, and have
no notion of any relationship supposed to exist between them and the
forbidden animal or plant, such as the Bechwana clans recognise in the
case of the lion, the crocodile, etc. The Rev. D. C. Scott says: ‘Each
tribe or family has its particular abstinence from certain foods.’ The
Achikunda, so my boatmen told me on the Zambezi, don’t eat hippo; the
Apodzo do, as might be expected, they being a tribe who get their living
by hunting that animal. This really resolves itself into ‘Apodzo and
not Apodzo,’ because the Achikunda are not really a tribe, but a mixed
multitude of slaves brought into the country by the Portuguese; and a
good many different tribes look on the hippopotamus as sacred. Some of
the boys at Blantyre mission-school ‘did not eat hippo’—but on what
exact tribal or family grounds, I never made out. The practical result
was that some other food had to be provided for them, when one of the
teachers arrived from the River with a supply of this meat sufficient for
the whole school. The Machinga are looked down on by some other tribes
because they eat fish, which the Angoni, _e.g._, never touch. Rats are
forbidden to women, and to those who offer sacrifice; they are considered
‘uncanny,’ for very comprehensible reasons, though this does not prevent
their being a very popular article of diet with those not so restricted.
Doctors or others who have to treat a patient by scarifying, or, as the
natives say, ‘cutting medicine in,’ must not eat elephant. ‘In other
cases the individual himself objects to certain meats as being bad for
him, specially producing heat and spots all over.... God, they say, made
men with these necessities in them; people can’t make mistakes in what
abstinence is essential for them.’ On the whole, the various regulations
one can find look like scattered parts of a system no longer understood.
Doctors, as on the Congo, prescribe abstinence from various things when
their patients are recovering from illness. The animals most generally
avoided are those which we should class as unclean feeders, such as
crocodiles, hyenas, vultures, etc.; because they are _afiti_—feeding on
the dead.
Folk-stories frequently refer to such prohibitions. Thus, in one, when a
girl is married, her mother tells the bridegroom that she must never be
asked to pound anything but castor-oil beans. His mother, determined to
overcome this fancied laziness, insists on the young wife’s helping to
pound the maize; she does so, and is immediately turned to water.
Various ‘dances on several occasions,’ which are important items in
native life, ought, perhaps, to be mentioned in this place, since they
undoubtedly are religious ceremonies; but they can be considered more
fully in the course of the following chapters. The same may be said
of the _unyago_ or _chinamwali_ ‘mysteries’; but one or two points in
connection with the latter may be just touched on here. The _zinyao_
dances held in the villages of the Anyanja on these occasions perhaps
embody some tradition, though what it is, no one, so far as I know, has
yet made out. Figures are traced by scattering flour on the smooth ground
of the _bwalo_, representing animals, usually the leopard, the crocodile,
and, strangely enough, the whale. What the word _namgumi_, which is thus
translated in Dr. Scott’s dictionary, really means, or is derived from,
it would be interesting to know—though reports of such an animal may have
been received from the coast people. Never having seen the _zinyao_, as
these figures are called, I can form no opinion as to what the _namgumi_
is intended to represent. The word is common to Nyanja and Yao; perhaps
adopted by the former from the latter, in which it means ‘a large fish,
the picture of which is drawn on the ground by the head-instructor on
the day of sending the boys back to their homes.’ But some light may
be thrown on the matter by the fact that Mr. Lindsay (of the Limbi,
Blantyre), passing through the bush where one of these ceremonies had
been held, saw a huge clay model (he thought about forty feet long) of
some creature which the English-speaking native with him told him was
‘a whale,’ but which was more like one of the extinct saurians of the
Oolitic period. He was certain it was like no living creature he knew of.
One observer describes circles filled with geometrical patterns traced
on the ground, but makes no mention of the animals, except from hearsay.
Besides the drawing of these figures, dances are performed by men got
up as various animals. This is done by means of real heads carefully
preserved and mounted on sticks, while the bodies are represented by
calico stretched over wooden hoops. One such figure—say that of an
elephant or buffalo—requires several men to move it, of course hidden
by the draperies. Other performers wear masks of plaited grass, and are
weird figures supposed to represent the spirits of the dead. These dances
are held by moonlight; and the explanation generally given is that they
are intended to frighten and impress the young people who have that day
come of age. What ideas are embodied may be a matter of conjecture, but,
for the present at least, nothing certain can be said on the subject.
_Note._—Since the above chapter was written, I have learned
from a correspondent in Nyasaland that there are secret
societies among the Yaos, which practise cannibalism, and that
the practice has been spreading of late years. In the absence
of further particulars, it is impossible to determine how much
of this was ceremonial in origin and how much due to a depraved
taste in certain individuals which may have originated in a
time of famine. See also Sir H. H. Johnston, _British Central
Africa_, pp. 446, 447.