MEDICINE MEN AND THEIR MAGIC
Number of medicine men—How to become a witch-doctor—Mayeya and his long
dive—Makwata and his talking spear—A simple trick—Female
witch-doctors—Three kinds of witchcraft—Discredited
witch-doctors—Fear of the witch-doctors.
There is not so great a variety of medicine men (_nganga_)[41] among the
Boloki as among the Bakongo of the Lower Congo, nor is the _modus
operandi_ of bewitching people and of removing the witchcraft so well
defined. Among the Boloki the medicine man is much in evidence, but he
is not regarded with much awe or respect. The office is hereditary, and
it is difficult for a person to become a medicine man who has not
already a near relative in the profession. The old medicine man teaches
his son the tricks of his trade free of all charges; and when a novice
is considered efficient he undergoes the following test: Something is
hidden and he has to find it, and having discovered the secreted article
he must then perform a magic ceremony, such as killing an animal
possessed by a spirit—a trick he has easily learned from his father, and
after that he blossoms out as a fully qualified medicine man.
Footnote 41:
_Nganga_ means medicine man, witch-doctor, doctor, wizard, soothsayer,
sorcerer, magician, etc.
If a person in whose family there has been a medicine man desires to
join the profession he goes to an old witch-doctor, and on paying a
heavy fee he is taught as though he were a son, but he must pass the
usual tests as above; if, however, a person in whose family there has
never been a medicine man wishes to join the profession, he is deterred
from so doing by being told that he must first kill all the members of
his family by witchcraft, as offerings to that spirit (_mweta_) of the
particular branch he desires to join. This results in the man refusing
to become a witch-doctor, and even if he were so callous as to still
wish it, his family would not allow him to proceed, as they believe they
would fall victims to his witchcraft. Thus the secrets of the profession
are retained in a very few families. Still, I have known a slave
belonging to a Boloki man become a great medicine man by pretending to
perform a wonderful feat, which was as follows:
Mayeya, for that was the man’s name, went one day with a lad in a canoe
across the river. By and by the lad returned without Mayeya, and on
being asked where he was, the lad replied: “Mayeya fell from the canoe
into the river, and since then I have not seen him.”
Seven days after this Mayeya walked up from the river into the town
dressed in his best cloth, etc. The people gathered around him asking
him where he had been, and he solemnly informed them that he had been
under the river for the whole of the seven days, consulting with the
water-spirits, and that now he was a witch-doctor. The people believed
in him, and flocked to him with cases from all the neighbouring
villages, towns, and districts, and by his many and large fees he became
so wealthy that he was able to pay ten men and two women—one woman is
equal in price to four men—for his ransom, and then became a slave-owner
himself and a man of wealth.
One day I heard Mayeya boasting outside my house of the seven days he
had spent under the water in company with the water-spirits; so going to
him I said: “Mayeya, I hear you have lived under the river for seven
days.”
“Yes,” he said, “I have.”
“Well,” I replied, “I will give you five thousand brass rods”—the
currency of that district—“if you will remain under the water here in
front of my house while I count them.”
He answered: “I cannot do it just now, but I will return on another day
and do it for you.” Whenever I met Mayeya after that I always reminded
him of his promise to stop under the river while I counted the rods.
The people at last used to urge him to accept my challenge and offer of
5000 brass rods. They argued with him, saying: “You have remained under
the water for seven days, surely you can stay under it while the white
man counts five thousand, for you know he counts very quickly. Go and
get your five thousand rods, and then you will be able to buy two more
wives.”
Mayeya, however, put them off with first one excuse and then another,
until at last they chaffed him about it, laughed at him, and expressed
the doubt as to whether he had stayed under the water half a day, much
less seven whole days and nights.
As he still continued to make excuses the natives lost faith in him, his
practice fell off, and the last I saw of Mayeya was his coming to borrow
of me 100 brass rods, for he was in difficulties. To his request I
replied: “No, you have cheated many people out of their money, and done
to death many a person by your false accusations of witchcraft; I will
not lend you a single brass rod, but there are five thousand waiting for
you if you will only remain under the water while I count them.”
I was seated one day among some natives when they began to talk of the
wonderful things Makwata (who was present) could do in making his spear
shake and talk.
Now I never laughed at the pretensions of the natives, no matter how
absurd they might be, nor did I ridicule their views, thoughts, and
expressions. Perhaps that was the reason why they spoke so frankly to
me, and tried to explain their ideas about things in general. I always
dealt with them seriously and sympathetically.
I turned to Makwata and asked him whether he could do the wonderful
things his companions were talking about or not. He very emphatically
asserted that he could “make his spear shake and talk.”
[Illustration:
_Photo by_: _Rev. R. H. Kirkland_
A LIBINZA CHARM FOR PROTECTING A VILLAGE
Spirits causing sickness have been driven out of the patients into
this hut, where food is thrown to them. The sticks forming the walls
are dyed red, and ornamented with yellow spots. The elegance of the
hut and the daily sprinkling of food help to make the spirits
contented with the place.
]
“I suppose,” I said, “you will stand near the spear, or put the spear in
a lot of grass.”
“No,” he replied, “I will stick my spear on the bank by the river, and I
will sit here.”
“Very good,” I answered; “I will give you five hundred rods if you do
it.”
“I can do it in my town,” he asserted, “but not here.”
“All right,” I said; “I am coming to visit your town next Sunday, and
will bring the rods with me.” But when I went to the town at the
appointed time, Makwata was not there; he had, however, left me a
message to say that he would bring his spear up to Monsembe and do the
wonderful performance there.
Several weeks passed away, and while talking to some natives on the
verandah of my house I saw Makwata pass, so I called to him and asked if
he had brought his talking spear, for the 500 rods were ready.
“No,” he replied, “I have not brought my spear.”
Turning to my native companions I said: “Your witch-doctors will never
do their tricks before me, although I offer them many brass rods; but my
wife and I will do a trick before you without payment. I will put three
articles on the verandah, my wife shall go into her bedroom, and when
she comes out she will tell you which article you touched.”
“Oh, no!” they said in chorus; “she is not able to do that.”
The articles were arranged in a line, my wife went to her room, one of
the things was touched, and she came and pointed out which they had
touched. “Let her do it again,” they requested. It was done again and
again, until one young man thought he had fathomed the trick, and he,
with much excitement, said: “Mama looks through the window. Let someone
go into the room with her.”
“Certainly,” I at once acceded to their request, and two native women
accompanied my wife, and on their return the natives asked: “Did Mama
look through the window?”
“Oh, no,” the women replied; “she went right to the other side of the
room.”
My friends were nonplussed. They could not see through the trick, and
many came in ones and twos afterwards and asked me how many fowls or
goats did I want to teach them the trick. They never again boasted in my
presence of what their witch-doctors could do.
There are some quasi “doctors.” Men and women who have recovered from a
serious complaint set up to cure that particular sickness. They use
massage with hot or cold water, or no water at all, and simple herbs,
and there is no doubt that they do a considerable amount of good.
There are female witch-doctors who perform the same rites as the male
ones, such as the witch-doctors who conduct their ceremonies either
enclosed in a mat or out in the open; but the one who cures anæmia and
debility, makes the necessary “medicine” for pregnant women, attends
confinements, and takes certain cases of sickness among men is always a
female. Each is more or less famous in his own line, and with one or two
exceptions rarely goes beyond his own limits.
There is the general practitioner, who is not a specialist as the other
medicine men are. He is regarded, however, as knowing more than the
others, with the exception of the one who performs in a mat. He uses all
kinds of herbs, prepares the different charms for warding off diseases,
and cures divers complaints; but he never attempts to exorcise spirits
or to find witches. He is called by the natives _nganga ya mono_, i.e.
the medicine man who uses medicines, herbs, or charms. His fees are
comparatively small, and he is consulted in the first stages of an
illness in the hope that he will be able to effect a cure, and thus save
the larger fees demanded by other branches of the profession.
When rain is falling, and for some reason or other it is not desirable,
the rain-doctor takes a small leaf and puts it on the closed fist of his
left hand, and extending the arm in the direction from which the rain is
coming he waves it to and fro in a semicircle; he then strikes the leaf
with the open palm of the right hand, and should the leaf burst at the
first smack the rain will stop in “one paddling,” i.e. the time paddlers
paddle on one side of a large canoe before changing to the other
side—this is about twenty minutes; if the leaf does not burst at the
first smack but at the second, then the rain will not stop for “two
paddlings,” i.e. forty minutes, and so on; but if the leaf does not
burst at all after repeated slaps, then the rain will not stop for a
very long time. When rain is threatening, this ceremony is performed in
order to ascertain how long it will be before the rain will fall. If the
leaf breaks at the first blow the rain will begin to fall in twenty
minutes, and so on to two blows and three blows. They will start a
journey or remain at home according to the indications of this
performance. The lads have often asked me to postpone a journey because
the divination of the leaf predicted rain.
When a storm threatens to break during the funeral festivities of a man
the people present will call the beloved child of the deceased, and
giving him (or her) a lighted ember from the hearth with a vine twined
round it, they will ask him to stop the rain. The lad steps forward and
waves the vine-encircled ember towards the horizon where the storm is
rising, and says: “Father, let us have fine weather during your funeral
ceremonies.” The son after this rite must not drink water—he may drink
sugar-cane wine—nor put his feet in water for one day. Should he not
observe these prohibitions the rain will fall at once.
When it is desirable to have rain the native takes down from the shelf
some sticks which have “medicine” bound round them and plunges them into
water mixed with arrowroot leaves, and then the rain will soon begin to
fall. It is rarely that they have to resort to the rain-doctor to bring
rain, as the rains fall with great regularity all the year round; they
employ him more frequently to predict when the rain will stop, or to
stop it with his charms. On the Upper Congo throwing salt on the fire
will cause a superabundance of rain to fall, but on the Lower Congo salt
is a charm for stopping the rain.
When a family is troubled with much sickness or frequent deaths the
medicine man of the mat (_nganga ya bwaka_) is engaged, who, on his
arrival, puts some stakes in the ground and ties a mat round them, thus
making an enclosure in which he sits while performing his ceremonies. A
string is stretched from the roof of his client’s house to one of the
stakes of this mat enclosure, and the end of the string drops inside;
dried plantain leaves, twigs, etc., dangle from the string, and outside
the mat sit some young men and lads with drums and horns, and the
various folk interested in the rites stand or sit around.
When all is ready the medicine man enters his enclosure and pulling the
string, he shakes the leaves and the lads beat their drums and blow
their horns, and the men and women sitting around chant a chorus in
admirable time. Directly the leaves stop shaking the drummers and
singers understand it as a sign for them to remain quiet. The medicine
man then begins to speak to the various spirits, and answers himself in
assumed voices, thus pretending to hold conversations with them. As
often as he feels tired with his efforts he shakes the leaves, and the
drums are beaten, and the folk chant until he has recovered his breath,
whereupon he starts the pseudo-conversations again. These conversations
he maintains through the whole day (sometimes for two or three days),
but generally towards the afternoon of the second day he comes out of
the enclosure holding a bleeding head in his hand, and assures the
family that he has killed the animal in which the troublesome spirit was
residing, and now the family will no more be afflicted with sickness and
death. To vary the ceremony the medicine man sometimes rushes out of the
enclosure into a house, or behind a house, or into the adjacent bush as
though in chase of something, and he returns with a bleeding head, and
says that he has slain the spirit-possessed animal.
It is this medicine man who searches for the witch (_moloki_) in the
family of the sick one. If a layman charges another with witchcraft the
accused can demand that the accuser shall drink the ordeal with him; but
if this witch-doctor charges a person with witchcraft he himself will
not take the ordeal, and no one expects him to do so. The accused must
take the ordeal alone, and should he (or she) fall repeatedly he is
condemned, and is left either to die as the result of the large doses of
ordeal or is hung on a tree. The corpse is left unburied—it is the body
of a witch, the most hated being in all Congoland.
This medicine man of the mat in killing a spirit troubling a family
works hard and earns his money. After spending several hours a day in
the mat discussing with the spirits and trying to discover which is
menacing the family, he at last decides on one, and when the right
moment arrives the medicine man makes a terrific noise inside the mat,
as though he were fighting for his life. Shouts, screams, derisive
laughter, whacks, thuds, and smacks proceed from the interior of the
mat, and at last the witch-doctor rushes out panting and sweating
profusely, holding in his hand a bleeding head, and declaring that he
has killed the animal possessed by the particular spirit that was
troubling the family. With the bleeding head he rushes to the river and
throws it far out into the running water. The family is supposed now to
recover its health, the medicine man pulls down his mats, receives his
fee, and departs.
What is the bleeding head? On one occasion some of our school lads
chased one of these medicine men who came from his mat with a bleeding
head. He ran for the river, but they headed him off, and in desperation
he ran to a pool of water and threw the head into it. The boys entered
the water, and bringing it out they found it was a lizard’s head. On
another occasion it was a rat’s head. Thus the family had paid a big fee
to have a rat or lizard killed, and the bleeding neck shown to them. Up
to that time the folk had always believed that it was some mysterious
animal which the medicine man dug up from the ground inside his mat,
killed by his occult power and threw into the river so that it could
never more harm his clients.
This medicine man who operates in a mat is the most feared and respected
of all the witch-doctors. It is believed that he can see the disembodied
spirits, i.e. ghosts, also the souls of people, and the different
spirits of disease, and hold communication with them. He bottles in
calabashes or imprisons in saucepans the local spirits that will
otherwise hinder the hunters trapping the wild animals; he makes the
dogs keen hunters with his charms and medicines; he gives the reasons
for the floods, and indicates the best way to cause them to subside; and
he also has very close dealings with the spirit of wealth.
There is another class of medicine men that scorns to perform its
ceremonies inside a mat, but practises its craft in the open before all
the people. These are called (_nganga ya libanda_) medicine men of the
open, outside. A family suffering from much sickness has called in one
medicine man after another without experiencing relief, and they may
have had even the “mat witch-doctor” and felt no better after having
paid him his large fee, so now they try again with this one who works in
the open.
He arrives dressed in monkey skins, bush-cat skins, etc., and well
decorated with charms. Men beat drums, sing chants and choruses; the
medicine man dances about, working himself into a frenzy. He peers here,
there, everywhere, looking for the spirit that is troubling the family.
He sees it in a plantain tree, hurls his spear at it, but no, he misses
it; he sees it on the roof of a house and away darts the spear, only to
miss it again. He prods his spear into the different parts of the
outside of the house, but he misses the elusive spirit every time; he
is, however, working it towards the doorway. At last the spirit takes
refuge in the house, the medicine man springs forward with alacrity,
enters the house, darts his spear in all directions, yelling loudly and
screaming terrifically; then a frightful cry is heard, and in a few
moments the medicine man comes out with the blade of his spear well
smeared with blood. He has killed the spirit, or rather the animal
possessed by the spirit.
I have often watched this performance, and they always killed these
animals possessed by spirits _in_ the house. I often wondered why, and
from whence came the blood on the spear. The son of one of these
medicine men told us that when his father wanted blood to smear over his
spear-head, he dug his finger-nail into his gum and procured from thence
the blood for the purposes of this trick. On showing the spear thus
stained with blood he asserted that he had destroyed the spirit that was
troubling the family, he received his fee, and went. The semi-darkness
of the native hut rendered a trick of this kind quite possible.
We have seen in the preceding chapter on spirits that certain spirits
cause certain diseases, and that the names of many diseases are really
the names of those spirits that are supposed to cause them. To deal with
the spirit of extreme debility there are “doctors,” who are always
women, and these are engaged to treat both men and women suffering from
this complaint. The “doctor” in dealing with this spirit dances, chants,
and shakes a rattle, until the patient says he has the spirit (_bwete_)
of debility stirring in him; he knows it by the way it jerks and sways
his body. The medicine woman prepares the post (_etoli_) and invites the
spirit to go and reside in it and not trouble the patient any more.
These female “doctors” attend the women of certain totem families, whose
children five days after birth have their ears pierced; such families
are supposed to be patronized by a parturition spirit (_bwete bwa
boweya_) that will help the child to grow strong, fat, and healthy if
its ears are pierced on the fifth day with the proper dance and
ceremony; but will cause the child’s death if the mother when _enceinte_
does not use the proper medicines under the guidance of this female
“doctor,” or does not have its ears pierced in the proper way.
When a man is troubled with a sickness which has failed to yield to
other means, or one in whose family there has been a death and he cannot
afford to hire a witch-finder, he goes to a medicine man whose fee is
comparatively small, for his operations are simple and his paraphernalia
small. He, on being hired, brings out his fetish saucepan of water, and
placing it in a good position he pours some sugar-cane wine by its side,
for souls or embodied spirits are very fond of this drink. He then calls
the spirits by putting a leaf on the closed fist of the left hand and
striking it with the palm of the right hand; thereupon they show
themselves one by one in the fetish saucepan (_likenge_), into which
only the witch-doctor is allowed to look.
A spirit appears, turns, and shows its face when challenged to do so,
and shakes its head negatively, and as the showing of the face is
regarded as a proof that it belongs to an innocent person, it is told to
pass. By and by a spirit appears in the saucepan that persistently
refuses to show its face after being repeatedly ordered to do so by the
medicine man, therefore he stabs it with a splinter of bamboo, and the
owner of that spirit, who is the witch, is now supposed to die very
soon, and thus release this medicine man’s client from its malign
influence. It is interesting to note that a person’s soul can be called
from him by a witch-doctor, for the word used in this connection is
_elimo_, and that means the _soul_ of a living person. It is also
noteworthy that they expect more truthfulness in the soul of a person
than in the person himself.
The Boloki folk, like others more advanced in civilization, are very
anxious to know about the future, so they have a soothsayer whose
special function it is to predict coming events. This diviner dances to
the beat of drums and chants, the chorus being taken up by all who are
present. When he has worked himself and his audience up to a certain
pitch of excitement he looks into his fetish bag of medicines, and from
what he sees there he foretells war, or the reverse, its success or
failure, and other events, such as the success or non-success of a
trading expedition, fishing and hunting parties, etc.
The natives, both male and female, are not always successful in their
love affairs, hence they have a special medicine man who makes their
love philtres. A woman takes the nail-parings, hair-cuttings, and chewed
pith of the sugar-cane of the person whose love she desires, to this
particular “doctor.” He makes them into a medicine which, after well
drying, he pounds into a powder. This powder the woman takes and blows
over the object of her love while he is asleep.
The man procures the nail-parings and hair-cuttings of the woman he
loves, and carries them to this maker of love philtres; but instead of
the powder being blown over the sleeping object of his passion, he mixes
it with sugar-cane wine and gives it to her to drink. A slave will use
the same method to gain an easier time from his master or mistress; and
this philtre is also used on people to cause them to forget a wrong or
grant a request.
There are to be found among them witch-doctors to help them in every
emergency of life, and not the least curious is the one who aids them to
vanish in the midst of danger. The medicine man who thus serves them
takes his name from the charm he makes, which is rubbed on the body, or
tied on the wrist or leg of his client, who, when thus protected, can
walk right among his enemies, and if they catch him they find only his
cloth in their hands, for the person in the cloth has vanished. This
charm (called _ndemo_) is largely used in times of war, as the possessor
of it can fight and kill without being seen by the enemy, and it is also
in great favour with thieves. The charm consists of a yellow pigment
rubbed on the temples, or “medicine” mixed with the pigment and fixed to
brass wire and tied round the wrist, the leg, or the waist.
They frequently told me of the wonderful power of this charm in
rendering a thief invisible; but they never accepted my challenge to put
the matter to the test. I offered to allow any one of them to keep any
article he could steal in my rooms; the conditions were that I was to be
in the room and the thief was to take the article while I was present
and yet be invisible to me—I should simply see the thing move,
apparently of itself, out of the room. They said it could be done, but
they never proved it.
When there is smallpox in a district the nervous go to a medicine man,
who makes small cuts on his client’s body and sucks out some blood,
which he spits on to a leaf and examines very carefully. If some small
threads are seen in the blood, the “doctor” points them out to the
others present, and says that “as I have sucked out the witchcraft
(_likundu_) the person will not die, although he may become infected
with smallpox.” Should no threads be seen and by and by the person
catches smallpox, his relatives will tell him that he cannot recover
unless he confesses to having bewitched one or more persons. Under
pressure of constant nagging the patient will confess (and who among
them has not desired the death of one or more enemies and
acquaintances?) to his mother, or father, or to an intimate friend, that
he has bewitched several persons, and will even mention them by name;
and after this confession he may become better.
It is a very crafty performance. The person’s blood is sucked, and the
threads are shown, and if he does not have smallpox, then the “doctor”
has the credit of having drawn all the witchcraft out of him. If,
however, he has smallpox, then he has his own witchcraft in him and that
has caused the illness, and the only way to ensure recovery is to
confess his guilt—this exonerates the “doctor.” If no threads are seen
in the blood and the person has smallpox, then his own witchcraft has
given it, and he must confess; and here again the “doctor” is cleared.
Now if a person has not been operated upon by the “doctor” and gets
smallpox, he must confess to bewitching others, and should he recover,
well, his confession has cured him; should he die, then either he has
not fully confessed, or someone else has bewitched him to death. If a
person does not catch smallpox, then he is not bewitched by anyone, and
he himself has no witchcraft.
During an epidemic of smallpox at Monsembe in 1893 it was absolutely
impossible to isolate patients, for, according to their belief regarding
infectious diseases—that no one would have it unless he were bewitched
to have it—there was no need for isolation. I have seen the hut of a
patient literally crowded with women, lads, and girls, giving advice and
showing sympathy with the sick. Many died from the loathsome disease.
This particular “doctor” also looks at the arteries in the stomach of a
dead person to discover whether the person died by his or her own
witchcraft, or by the witchcraft of another. For full details see the
chapter on “Death and Burial,” where it deals with death by witchcraft.
A person suffering from sleeping-sickness has his own special “doctor”
to look after him. He scarifies the body of the patient with numerous
cuts, and then sprinkles hot water over him, rubs pepper paste into the
cuts, and puts a drop or two of pepper juice in each eye. This
practitioner is called by the natives _nganga ya luwa_—the medicine man
of sleeping-sickness, or of the spirit that causes that complaint.
There are many cases of debility, lack of energy, and anæmia in which
the symptoms are somewhat similar to sleeping-sickness, such as
drowsiness, no desire to move about, loss of appetite, etc. Such cases
are greatly benefited by the massage of warm water and pepper paste, and
by the change of scene and life necessitated by the visit to the
“doctor’s” village; and when the patients return to their own towns
after four or five weeks’ treatment, much better and sometimes quite
well, they are regarded by the natives as cured cases of
sleeping-sickness. The pepper juice in the eyes causes great agony, but
it keeps the patient awake and moving about. The “doctor” puts various
taboos on his patients, both as to what they shall eat and how their
food shall be cooked.
My wife had a girl about fifteen years of age who fell a victim to
sleeping-sickness. She was smart in her house-work, intelligent and
quick in school, and neat and clean in her person. She gradually lost
her smartness, forgot all she gained in school, and became dirty and
slovenly in her dress, etc. She also had a temperature every morning of
about 100 degrees that yielded to no treatment. It was an undoubted case
of sleeping-sickness, but as it occurred in 1894 not much was known of
the complaint, and there were very few suggestions as to treatment.
Those suggestions, however, we followed, and the patient became no
better for tonics, bromide of potassium, etc. I was then told about this
kind of “doctor,” and finding there was nothing really objectionable in
his mode of procedure I asked the girl if she would like to undergo his
treatment. She readily expressed her wish to be put under him, and
seemed to have great faith in him. The girl went, and I watched the
treatment with much interest. At first she brightened up under the
pepper massage, but at last she died in our house, for finding the
treatment failed we brought her, at her own desire, back to our house.
It is needless to say that I never came across a single case of true
sleeping-sickness cured by this class of “doctors.” There are some
curious contradictions about this complaint. In some cases there is loss
of appetite, and in others a ravenous hunger; in some great drowsiness,
and it is almost impossible to keep the patient awake, in others entire
insomnia; in some saneness to the last, but others exhibit insanity and
even violent madness.
When a boy or girl is very thin and weakly, his father kills a monkey,
or buys a large piece of meat or a big fish and sends for the medicine
man, who has a reputation for conversing with the spirits of unborn
children (called _bingbongbo_), and interpreting their demands. On his
arrival he shuts himself up in one of his client’s houses and is heard
to speak with these spirits. After a time he comes out and tells his
client that the spirits complain because he has never given them a
feast, and that if he desires to see his son improve in health he must
at once prepare one for them.
[Illustration:
_Photo by: Rev. R. H. Kirkland_
A CHARM FOR INCREASING THE BIRTH RATE
The scarcity of children in the Libinza Lake villages alarmed the
inhabitants considerably, so they paid a large sum to a witch-doctor
to set up this fetish that their progeny might be increased.
]
The father gives the monkey, meat, or fish he has procured ready for
this demand. It is cooked and the medicine man takes the food on a plate
into the house, puts it down on the floor and, coming out, shuts the
door. After a time he again enters the house, brings out the plate and
shows that the food has partly disappeared, and that the edge of the
plate is smeared with the food (there are always plenty of rats and mice
in a native hut). This is accepted as evidence that the spirits have
partaken of the feast, and the patient will get better as the offering
has been accepted. The medicine man gives the patient a new name—if a
girl, Bolumbu, and if a boy, Loleka.
The spirits of unborn babies are supposed to be supplied to the family
preserves (called _liboma_) by the disembodied spirits of the deceased
members of the family. These are responsible for keeping the preserves
well filled with spirits awaiting birth. The preserves may be a pool on
an island, a pond in the bush or forest, or a great bombax tree.
The “doctor” who deals with madness has simply a saucepan of water in
which he mixes some medicines, and the patient immerses his face every
day in it, and then he drops some juices from plants into his eyes until
the person is cured of his madness. Madness is called _mokalala_, and
the “doctor” who treats it is named by that title also—the “doctor for
madness.”
When the death of a prominent man has occurred, and the “doctor for
witchcraft” has inspected the entrails of the deceased and has stated
that the departed one was bewitched to death, the family then calls in
the witch-finder to point out the person guilty of that detestable thing
called witchcraft. The usual fee is one slave, but if the witch-finder
is a very famous one he will demand and receive two slaves. He insists
on receiving his fee before he begins operations, as he may have to rush
off with undignified haste directly he has pointed out the witch, for
the accused person does not always take the charge quietly, but
sometimes rushes off for spear or gun to kill his accuser, hence the
demand for the fee first.
The people gather on the appointed day in a large circle, and the
medicine man, dressed as a woman in skins and cloths fantastically
arranged, his face, legs, and arms decorated with pigments of various
colours, takes his place in the centre and dances throughout the whole
of the first day to the beat of drums. Towards the end of afternoon of
the second day he points out the witch, and then hurries at once to his
waiting canoe. The accused must take the ordeal and abide by the result.
The “doctor of the mat” very often performs this ceremony of discovering
the witch.
There is another class of medicine men who scrape their eyes with the
sharp edge of the sugar-cane grass, which operation clears the vision
and enables them to see spirit witches afar off and frustrate their evil
designs. He pretends to see the witch at night running off with the soul
of a person, and this soul he rescues and restores to its owner. The
next day the medicine man will go to the owner of the soul he rescued
and say: “Last night I saw a witch spirit running away with your soul,
and I stopped it or you would be dead by now.” And then he demands a
present, which is at once given through fear; for if they refuse to
satisfy this medicine man he will allow the witch spirit to escape
another time with the soul, and death will be the result.
Now a man who has many and powerful enemies needs someone to help him,
and there is a special branch of the profession created on purpose to
render him assistance. Such a man goes to a proper medicine man, who
will give him a medicine that will overawe or soothe his enemies so that
they will no longer desire to work him any harm. They will become
subject to his will and influence. This medicine man (he goes by the
name of _nganga y’ elembia_ = overawe, subdue, soothe) also initiates
his clients into various tricks for striking awe into the onlookers that
they may fear their power, and respect them accordingly.
When a man is ill, or has lost a relative by death, he may in his
vexation accuse the other members of his family of witchcraft. They of
course indignantly deny the charge, so the accuser challenges them to
drink the water from a fetish bell. Should anyone refuse to drink from
the fetish bell he is regarded as guilty of witchcraft. If, however,
they agree to accept the challenge the particular kind of medicine man
who operates with the fetish bell is called, and on his arrival he gives
to each person a draught to drink from his fetish bell. And it is firmly
believed that the one guilty of witchcraft will soon die from the
effects of the bell medicine, whereas the innocent will suffer no
inconvenience from it.
It will be seen from the above-mentioned medicine men that the natives
have a medicine man to help them in every emergency of life, and also
one to control, soothe, or destroy every kind of spirit that is likely
to do them any harm personally, and bring any sort of misfortune or
ill-luck upon them. However, witchcraft is at the bottom of all their
fears, and it will be noticed that the majority of the different
branches of medicine men deal with, or pretend to avert, that most
dreaded and hated thing witchcraft.
There are three kinds of witches among the Boloki people, viz. the
_active_, that is the person who fees a medicine man to kill his enemy
or procures some medicine to do him to death. The _passive_, that is the
person who in a temper, or because of some grievance, wishes So-and-so
were dead, or in a curse shouts at his tormentor and oppressor: “May you
die quickly”; but takes no active measures to procure the death of the
said person. There is scarcely a person who has not wished for the death
of one or more persons; and when the ordeal of the fetish bell is
administered and the drinker of the “bell water” has not desired the
death or illness of that particular person he feels secure; but if he
has desired the death of that person he feels nervous, doubtful, refuses
to drink the ordeal and is accused of witchcraft or drinks it and
perhaps dies from sheer fear. The third kind of witch might be called
the _self-inflicted_ one, that is, a person in utter misery desires to
die, and the witchcraft works in him and he dies; the natives think that
many people die by their own witchcraft. On the Lower Congo I found no
idea of suicidal witchcraft among the people.
I think many of the medicine men thoroughly believe in themselves; and
even those who assert that they see spirits or have performed such
wonders as living under the water for seven days, or making their spear
shake and talk relate the incident so often that they come to believe
that they really did it. Many of the people before we went there had no
faith in the medicine men; but they were afraid to oppose or ridicule
them for fear of being charged with witchcraft, so they pretended to
accept all that was said and done by them. Our presence inspired many
with the courage to test the witch-doctors, and finding them frauds they
turned from them with contempt.
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