BAD LUCK OF MOMBO’S VILLAGE—ASCRIBED TO WITCHCRAFT—ARRIVAL OF A GREAT
MEDICINE-MAN—HIS INCANTATIONS—THE ACCUSED SOLD AS SLAVES.
The people had been filled for some time with the fear of witchcraft.
Two men had died away from the village; and, since, they had been
unlucky in fishing and hunting. Certainly all this could not have
happened without some one wishing the village bad luck. A great medicine
doctor living far away had been sent for, and had arrived, and the
ceremony to find out who were the sorcerers was about to take place.
One morning King Mombo and all his men assembled to listen to the words
of the great medicine-man, and were seated cross-legged on the ground
around him, all looking excited and with hatred in their eyes.
The medicine-man, whose reputation for power to find out sorcerers was
known all over the country, was extremely ugly to look upon, and was
weirdly dressed for the occasion. His teeth were filed sharp to a point.
He was tall and slender, and about fifty years old. He had a treacherous
and cunning eye. I could tell by his face that he would denounce people
as guilty of witchcraft about whom he really knew nothing. His head,
chest, and arms were painted with sacred ochre of different colors,
likewise his eyelids. He wore around his waist a string of long grass
upon which were hung several bells of iron. Near the medicine-man was
the horn of a buffalo filled up with a sort of black powder made of
skins and bones of snakes, dried brains of monkeys, and intestines of
rare animals. He held in his hand a wicker rattle filled with snakes’
bones, eagles’ talons and monkeys’ nails, which he shook during his
incantations.
After each incantation the people shouted, “Ouganga, tell us who are
sorcerers amongst us, so that we may kill them.”
Another man was on the top of a slender tree, calling now and then upon
Joko, a powerful spirit, and shaking the tree at the same time.
The medicine-man remained silent for awhile, as if in deep thought; then
he made all kinds of contortions, and muttered unintelligible words. He
took a knife and cut his hands in different places. The blood fell into
a little wooden vessel, and he looked intently at his own blood, as if
trying to find out something; then he danced, the queer bells round his
waist making a strange sound. The people kept shouting: “Tell us,
Ouganga, who are the witches and sorcerers that have brought bad luck to
us in the hunt and in fishing, who made some of our people sick, and
some of our people die? Ouganga, drink the ‘mboundou,’ then you will be
able to tell us who they are.”
Then roots of a tree called the “mboundou” were laid at his feet, and
also a wooden bowl filled with water. The ouganga scraped the root of
the “mboundou” into the water, which turned the color of the root, which
was reddish, and then bubbled. He made incantations, and then drank the
potion. Soon after his countenance changed, his eyes became bloodshot
and glared. His veins swelled, and he looked as if he were drunk. Such
was the effect of the “mboundou” upon him.
A man from the village named several of their own people whom they
suspected of being sorcerers, and asked the ouganga to say if they were
the ones. The ouganga seemed at first to speak incoherently. Then he
said: “There are no witches or sorcerers in your own village. The guilty
ones are living in another village.”
At these words they shouted with one voice: “Tell us their names and the
name of the village, for we want to make war on that village, unless
they deliver up the sorcerers to us.”
Then the hollow voice of the ouganga was heard saying: “Okabi and
Aquailay are those who are sorcerers. They are full of witchcraft.”
“Death to Okabi and Aquailay!” shouted the people.
Okabi and Aquailay lived in a neighboring village, and were well known
to all present, and, moreover, whispers charging them with sorcery had
been rife for several years.
That night there was a great war dance. The people invoked their
guardian spirits. The next day they were going to get Okabi and Aquailay
and make them stand the “mboundou” trial, and if the people of the
village where these two men lived refused to deliver them up, then they
would make war upon them and take them by force. Not only must the two
men be delivered, but indemnity, in the form of slaves, must be given
for the mischief, deaths, sickness, and bad luck generally these two men
were supposed to have caused.
The next day, however, on their formal request, the two men were at once
delivered up by their people, who had long suspected them of witchcraft.
The brother of Okabi came and talked in his behalf, and finally, after a
most eloquent speech, persuaded the people not to kill them, but to sell
them as slaves. This was acquiesced in by the leading people of the two
towns, and it was arranged that the relatives of the two men should
share equally the proceeds of the sale. Both were to pay a certain part
of their goods to the families of the men who had died. The accused
could have submitted to the ordeal of trial by “mboundou”—drinking—which
is almost always mortal, except to doctors—but they preferred to be sold
as slaves.