Congo life and folklore

“A wizard out walking one day met a boy crying bitterly. He asked him the reason of his tears, and the boy said: ‘I have lost my father’s parrot, and if you can find it I will pay you well.’ So the wizard called a hunter, a carpenter, and a thief, and told them about the loss and the reward, and they decided to search for the parrot.

“‘Before starting let us show our skill,’ said one of the four. ‘You, thief, go and steal an egg from that fowl without its knowledge.’ The thief went and stole the egg, and the fowl did not move. The hunter put up the egg as a mark, went a long distance off and proved his skill by hitting the egg. After which the carpenter showed his cleverness by putting the egg together again. Then they turned to the wizard for him to give a proof of his smartness, and after a little time he said: ‘The parrot has been stolen by the people in that vessel.’

“All four entered their glass ship^[16] and after a time caught up to the vessel. The thief went on board, and waved his charm, then he took the parrot, laid the table, and had a good feast; and when he had finished eating he picked up the parrot and returned to his glass ship.

“When the people in the vessel found the parrot gone, they gave chase to the glass ship. The captain of the vessel sent down the rain and it broke the glass ship, but the carpenter mended it, and the hunter fired at the rain and killed it. The captain sent the lightning and it broke the ship, but the carpenter mended it again, and the hunter fired at the lightning and killed it. So they eventually reached the land and took the parrot to the chief’s son, and said: ‘Here is your father’s parrot.’

“The lad was so glad to receive it that he told them to select what they liked from his wealth, ‘even to the wonderful fowl which lays beads, or anything else you desire.’^[17] They chose the fowl and went their way, but they had not gone very far before the wizard said: ‘It is my fowl, for I told you where the parrot was.’ The thief said: ‘No, it is mine, for I stole the parrot from the vessel.’ And the carpenter also claimed it, as he had twice mended the broken ship. Moreover, the hunter said: ‘Of course it is mine, for I killed the rain and the lightning.’ Thus they argued long and angrily, and as they could not agree, they at last did a thing that was amazingly stupid. They killed the wonderful fowl, and divided it into four pieces, each taking his share. Now who out of these four foolish ones should have had the fowl?”

This story excited a great amount of discussion. Some argued that this one should have had the fowl, and others argued with much gesticulation that another should have taken the fowl. Each character had his supporters; but all agreed that they were four fools not to let the fowl lay plenty of beads and share them.

Bakula was now asked again to give his promised story; and he told them--

“How the Squirrel won a Verdict for the Gazelle.”

“When the leopard and the gazelle were living in the same town each of them bought a goat--the leopard a male and the gazelle a female. One night the gazelle’s goat gave birth to two kids, and the leopard, being very greedy, went and stole the two kids from the gazelle’s goat and put them with his own goat.

“In the morning the leopard called the gazelle and said to him: ‘My goat has given birth to two kids.’ The gazelle was very much surprised at hearing this, as male goats do not have kids, and he told the leopard so; but the leopard said: ‘All right, you don’t believe me. We will call the judges and hear what they say.’ So they carried the case to the court of animals, who acted as judges, and they said: ‘The kids belong to the leopard’s goat.’ For they were very much afraid of the leopard, and thought that if they gave the verdict against him he would kill them.

“The gazelle went and told the squirrel all his troubles and how he was cheated out of his kids. ‘To-morrow morning,’ said the squirrel, ‘put a rope across your town for me to run on.’ So the next morning the gazelle put a rope right by the leopard’s house and courtyard, which were full of the folk who had judged the case in favour of the leopard. And by and by the squirrel came running along the rope at a great rate.

“‘Where are you going so quickly,’ asked the leopard, ‘that you cannot rest a little?’ ‘I am in a hurry to fetch my mother,’ said the squirrel, ‘for my father has just given birth to twins.’

“‘Ah! ah!’ laughed the leopard; ‘can a man give birth to a child?’

“‘Can a male goat give birth to kids?’ retorted the squirrel. Whereat the leopard was so angry and felt so much ashamed of himself, that he went right away from the town and never returned, for fear of the animals laughing at him. And the gazelle carried the kids back to his own goat.”

When this story ended appreciative remarks were made on the wit of the squirrel, and contempt was poured on the clumsy leopard who so foolishly threw away the verdict given in his favour.

By this time the moon, full and beautiful, was riding high in the sky, flooding the village with its soft, silvery light, so Bakula proposed a dance.

Up jumped the boys and girls from the different fires; drums were carried out to an open space, seed rattles were tied round the ankles and wrists of some of the dancers, and very soon the rhythmic tap, tap of the drums were heard and answered by the clap, clap of the dancers’ hands as they formed two lines--one of girls, and the other of lads, and began a dance that only ended in the early morning, and when the performers were thoroughly exhausted with their exertions.

People believe their chief died by witchcraft--They send for the witch-finder--His arrival and antics--The ceremony of discovering the witch--Satu’s brother, Mavakala, is accused--Why was Mavakala accused?--He takes the ordeal--Proves his innocence--Other tests are forced on him--He is done to death.

During the illness of the deceased chief there was a widespread feeling in the town that some one was bewitching him, and that therefore the “medicine men” were unable to cure him. At last one of their wizards stated plainly that a witch was at work destroying their best efforts; and although they tried charms to ward off, and threats to frighten, the witch from pursuing his (or her) wicked purpose, yet their patient continued to grow worse, and at last died. And now that their chief was buried the people demanded that a proper witch-finder should be engaged to seek out the witch.

A great witch-finder was called from a distant town, and on his arrival I noticed that he was a small, active man with keen piercing eyes that seemed to jump from face to face and read the very thoughts of those who stood around.

He was dressed in the soft skins of monkeys and bush-cats; around his neck was a necklace of rats’ teeth mixed with the teeth of crocodiles and leopards. His body was decorated with pigments of different colours; thick circles of white surrounded the eyes, a patch of red ran across the forehead, broad stripes of yellow chased each other down the cheeks, bands of red and yellow went up the arms and across the chest, and spots of blue promiscuously filled in the vacant spaces. At the different points of his curious dress were bells that tinkled at every movement. The boys looked at him in deep awe, the girls and women cowered away from him, and the men, though they feared him, greeted him with a simulated friendliness that ill-accorded with their nervousness.

The witch-finder (or N gang’ a N gombo) was supposed to find his own way to the town and home of his client; for how could they believe in a man’s occult power to discover a witch if he had not the ability to walk straight, without being shown, to the house of his employer.

To meet this difficulty the witch-finder had one or two apprentices, among whose duties it was to question cautiously the messenger, and to obtain from him all the needed information about the town, house, circumstances attending the death of the person, and the relations of the townspeople to one another. If the messenger would not, or could not, give the required knowledge, then the assistant accompanied him back to his town, and, as he went, he dropped at the cross-roads twigs or leaves to guide his master--the witch-finder--right up to the house of his client.

The assistant ferreted out the quarrels of the family employing his master, and their animosities towards each other, or towards one of their number. In every family there is to be found at least one who is the object of the suspicion, jealousy or hatred of the family--the unpopular member; and all the information thus gathered is secretly told to the witch-finder and the disliked person pointed out to him.

On the appointed day a great crowd gathered. No member of the clan was absent, except those on trading expeditions. The assembled people formed a great circle, into the middle of which the witch-finder danced and chanted to the beat of the drums. It was a hot day and the sun poured down its scorching rays on the performer, making him perspire so profusely that the various colours on his face and body ran into each other, adding grotesqueness to his ugliness.

As he pranced and danced up and down the circle he put question after question, and was answered by the people with ndungu,^[18] or otuama,^[19] as he guessed wrongly or rightly about the dead man’s ways.

Presently he elicited the fact that the deceased had had a very bad quarrel with some one, and then he discovered that it was with a man in the town. By crafty questions the witch-doctor narrowed the circle of examination, the people, all excitement, really helping him though quite unaware that they did so; and at last, in a fandango of whirling skins and rotating arms and legs, he brought himself to a standstill in front of one of the men, and accused him of being the person who had bewitched the late chief to death.

It was the unpopular man, Satu’s brother, who was thus publicly declared the witch, and the whole crowd was astonished that they had never thought of him before as the monster who used witchcraft to do his own brother to death.

Immediately on the declaration there was a tremendous hubbub of voices; insults were heaped on the accused, he was jostled about, weapons were raised threateningly, and each tried to outvie his neighbour in abusing the denounced man as a proof of his own guiltlessness.

Amidst the mêlée the accused protested his own innocence, and demanding to take the ordeal, he ran for his gun^[20] to shoot the witch-finder who had, by his false accusation, brought all this trouble on him. But the crafty nganga had received his large fee, and was already well on his way back to his own town. None doubted the bona fides of the nganga except Mavakala, the accused man; and how could he prove his guiltlessness except by voluntarily taking the ordeal.

What had Mavakala done to draw such an accusation upon himself? On his brother’s death he had cried as long and as loudly as any of them; he had neglected his person, worn old clothes, dressed his hair in mourning fashion, gone unwashed, and had carefully observed all the usual ceremonies of “crying” for a near relative, and yet they charged him with bewitching his brother to death. Yes, all his neighbours recalled these facts, but they interpreted them now in the light of this serious charge. Of course, he had observed all these rites simply to deceive them. He must have thought them fools to be duped by his proofs and protestations. No, he must take the ordeal, and that quickly, and the ordeal-giver must be sent for immediately. The whole of Mavakala’s family was alienated from him, for was he not accused of the most heinous crime of which a human being can be guilty--witchcraft?

What had Mavakala done to render himself so fatally unpopular? That evening the declaration of the witch-finder was discussed round all the fires, and as Bakula went from group to group I picked up many items of the indictment.

Mavakala was an energetic, successful trader, and from each trading journey he came back the richer for his enterprise. They were jealous of his wealth; but among themselves they whispered that his increased riches were really due to witchcraft and not to his ability; and were not their suspicions justified, for was he not now accused of selling his brother’s corpse to the white traders?

I heard, too, that Mavakala was a skilled blacksmith, and had made good knives out of odd pieces of hoop iron taken from old cases, and bought, by him, from traders on the river; and had even made hoes and axes out of old bale iron. Many other clever things he had done, all of which were now by these superstitious people accepted as proofs of his witchcraft. He had awakened their jealousy by his energy and smartness in business; his skill and ingenuity in smithing had aroused their suspicions, and his prosperity had provoked their hatred. In any other country his ability would have been admired and honoured, but on the Congo it was a sign of witchcraft, and always ended in death by the ordeal.

It was then I understood the reason for the backwardness of these people. They destroy their leaders and their best men, and the only hope of the people is deliverance from the curse of the witch-doctors.

The next day the ordeal-giver (or ngol’a nkasa) arrived, bringing with him the ordeal bark which he had procured from the nkasa tree in the following manner. This tree is supposed to have a spirit; hence, when they are about to cut some of its bark for ordeal purposes, they address it in these words: “I come to take a piece of your bark, and if the man for whom it is intended is a witch, let my machet bend when I strike you; but if he is not a witch, let my machet enter into you, and let the wind stop blowing.” The machet had bent under the blow, and the omen being against Mavakala the ordeal-giver made his preparations with smug satisfaction.

Mavakala, accompanied by many of the men and lads of the town, was led to the bare top of a neighbouring hill, where a rough shanty of palm fronds was built. The accused was pushed into this, and told to stretch out his arms, and not to touch anything. The ordeal-giver pushed a stone towards the poor wretch, with twenty-seven pieces of nkasa bark on it; and then he ground each piece of bark and slowly fed Mavakala with the powders.

During the process the accused man vomited three times, and should therefore have been set free and carried back to the town with shouts of honour; but was not the omen against him? and besides, was he not obnoxious to his jealous and superstitious neighbours?

Consequently, when the ordeal-giver proposed that further tests should be applied, there were none to lift up their voices in protest against the injustice of continuing the cruelty.

Mavakala was dazed with the narcotic effects of the drug that had been forced on him, and his wits were dulled and muddled. He was taken with rough hands from the temporary hut and made to stand by himself, a swaying, lonely, pathetic figure--a type of all those who have been persecuted or have laid down their lives for the sole crime of being in the vanguard of their generation.

While Mavakala stood swaying there, six twigs in rapid succession were thrown at his feet, and he as quickly had to name the trees to which they belonged. This he did successfully, and then he was told to name the birds and butterflies that were sailing by. Again he unerringly gave each its proper name; but now, just when he wanted his eyes to be at their keenest, he could feel them becoming blurred with the dregs of the drug he had been forced to take. His tormentors called on him to name the ants crawling at his feet. He faltered, stammered confusedly, and in stooping, that his poor, hazy eyes might have a better chance to recognize them, he fell, with a moaning cry, to the ground.

In an instant the heartless, superstitious crowd was on him; sticks and machets, knives and guns, soon did their work on the poor mangled body. None was too poor or mean to kick his carcass and spit in his face, and his bruised, gory corpse was left unburied upon the bare hill-top--a feast for the beasts of the forests and the birds of the air.

By and by the stars peeped out, half ashamed to look on a world where such tragedies were enacted, and as they looked they saw that thing there upon the bare hill-top. It was covered with wounds, and every wound had a tongue that cried to its God, and to their God: “How long, how long, shall darkness cover the land, and gross darkness the people?”

The dulness and pettiness of native life--Arrival of two visitors--Bakula questions them about the white man--They relate the little they know about him--Old Plaited-Beard stirs the people up against the white man--They exchange their views about him--They agree to oppose him--The white man is seen approaching--He is driven from the town and has to sleep in the bush.

The excitement of the funeral festivities, and of the hunt for and murder of the witch had passed away, leaving a deadly dulness on the town. The men suspiciously snarled at one another, and the women quarrelled with monotonous regularity. Their lives were petty, mean, and there was not enough dignity in a whole village to supply one man. For generations they had lived on a low level, with their eyes, thoughts, and hearts on the ground, and apparently the art of looking into the infinite spaces of God above and around them had been lost in their animalism.

Daily the women went to the farms, or to the markets to barter their produce; and the men went to the forests, to the markets, or to the hunt.

But one evening the town was set agog with the news that a white man was visiting the various villages, and would soon arrive in their town. The men who brought this news had much to tell about the coming visitor, for he had spent two or three days in their village. They were the “lions” of the evening, and their only regret was that they had not larger stomachs to accept comfortably all the invitations to the evening meals that poured in on them.

The visitors had come to transact business with the chief; consequently Satu’s fire was the centre that evening of a large and interested gathering. Men and lads crowded near the chief and visitors, while the women and girls hovered about the outskirts of the circle picking up such scraps of information as filtered through to them.

My owner, Bakula, was there, and put the first question, or rather series of questions: Who is this white man? What is he like? Where does he come from? What is he doing in this country? And Bakula stopped not because his curiosity was exhausted, but from sheer lack of breath.

Bakula had put into words what all were longing to know, so they sat quietly, while one of the visitors said: “We don’t know who this white man is. He is not one of the traders whom we have seen at Mboma,^[21] for he is new to these parts, but he speaks our language very well, though at times he makes stupidly amusing mistakes. His carriers say that he comes from Congo dia Ngunga^[22]--the king’s town away south. He will not sell us things like a trader, for he only barters for food for himself and carriers, and not for ivory or slaves. He offers to give us medicine, but we are afraid to take it, for who knows but it may bewitch us to death. He has invited some of our boys to his school, and has promised to teach them to read and write, and also how to make doors, windows and bricks, like white men. He even promised to clothe and feed them; but we shall not let any of them go. What we cannot understand is this: Why should the white man take all this trouble? Why should he offer to feed and clothe our children, to teach them, and to give us medicine?”

“I know why they do all these things,” shouted the old man with the plaited beard. “They want to bewitch you; they desire to take your spirits away, and then they will buy up your bodies and send them to their own country to turn, by their great magic, into slaves. You know what I told you on the road;” and with angry, burning words and vehement gestures he repeated to the whole crowd what he had told the few around the fire the first night I spent among them; and then, with foaming lips and glinting eyes, he cried: “This is the kind of white man against whom I warned you. If he comes here let us kill him.”

The women clapped their hands in horror of the wicked white man, and held their children tightly to them, and the men shifted nervously in their seats, and loosened the knives in their belts.

If, at that moment, the white man had walked into the town he would have been murdered, and his mutilated body thrown into the bush.

It was some time before they had so quieted as to continue their interrogations of the visitors. “Well, you have not told us what this white man is like,” called a voice from the back of the crowd.

“No, I have not,” replied the visitor, “because Tata stopped our talk with his horrible charges against the white men. This man who is coming is a white man, and you have all seen white men. This one is neither short nor tall, he has no beard, but he has tin saucepans to cook his food in, and a funny thing called a frying-pan, which always makes a lot of noise when it is put on the fire. He is a dirty white man, for the two days he was in our village he never washed more than his hands and face, and he smells just like all the other white men.”^[23] And the speaker and others held their noses with expressions of exaggerated disgust.

“I do not think he is dirty,” chimed in one of the listeners. “When I was last at the coast I asked one of the white man’s boys if his master was dirty, and he said: ‘No, he takes a bath every day in his house.’ You see this white man is travelling, and has no bath-house with him, and consequently in front of you he only washes his hands and face.“

“Oh, is that it? Perhaps you are right,” answered the visitor in an unconvinced voice.

“I will tell you something else,” continued the first speaker. “Once when I was at the coast I was talking to one of the interpreters there about this very matter--the smell emitted by white men; and he said: ‘They give off a bad odour, I know, but one day I heard one of the white traders say: “Those wretched niggers do stink badly!”’ So after all it may be that we smell as badly to them as they do to us, therefore we must not complain.”

The man with the plaited beard eyed the speaker for a few moments in angry contempt, and then he burst out at him in such a tirade that I feared his words would choke him.

“You dog,” he cried, “you witch, are you in the pay of the white man that you should thus speak for him? You white man,^[24] you bewitched our chief to death; not Mavakala, I always said he was innocent and he vomited the ordeal three times, yet they would kill him; but you are the witch; you sold our chief’s spirit to these cursed white men, and now he is slaving for them, and we shall all die through your witchcraft and greed.”

By the time the old man had finished his invectives the two chief actors in this scene were standing by themselves in a circle of anxious, terror-stricken faces. They were types of the old order and the new--the old order, slaves to witch-doctors, charms and superstitions that demanded the continuance of things as they are; the new order, men and lads upon whose minds new ideas were dawning and struggling for the mastery against their crude, superstitious fears,--men who were yearning for they knew not what, and were restless through strange strivings in their hearts.

There, flooded by the glorious, soft moonlight, stood the two men glaring at each other. Murder was in their hearts, and their hands were on their knives. A few moments more and the pent-up feelings of the surging crowd would have burst their strained barriers and much blood would have been shed, for each had his adherents, when Satu, the chief, stepped between the two men.

He was still dressed in mourning for his brother, and the thick coating of oil and soot on his face--a sign of his sorrow, had not yet been removed. He was a superstitious man and much travelled, a man in whose soul what-he-had-seen was struggling with his ignorant, superstitious fears.

In a few calm words he poured oil on the turbulent passions of his people. He scouted the idea that because a man related what he had seen and heard that therefore he was a witch; and he soothed the old man by promising to oppose the white man.

There was no more talk that night about the coming white man, for very soon after Satu uttered the above diplomatic words the people separated, and went either to whisper their fears to each other around their own fires, or to spread their mats for sleep. Several times during that night women woke from horrid dreams, screaming that the white man had stolen their children, or was trying to throttle the souls out of them.^[25] In the morning as the women went to the farms they related to each other the dreams of the previous night, but instead of regarding them as nightmares caused by the exciting events of the preceding evening, they were taken as undeniable proofs of the devilish designs of the white men to carry out the awful predictions of the old man with the plaited beard.

A few evenings after these happenings the much-talked-about Mundele wa N zambi (or white man of God) was seen descending the hill on the other side of our valley. The women, screaming, snatched up their children and fled; the men beat some loud sounding notes of alarm on the drums; and then, picking up their guns, machets, knives, sticks, and any weapon to hand, went hurriedly to bar the entrance to their town. We saw the white man hesitate, stand still a moment, and then come on slowly and deliberately. He evidently knew the meaning of those excited thuds on the drum and the screams of the women.

Bakula, with a heavy stick in his hand--how he longed to have a gun so as to have a shot at those cruel white men!--ran with the men to the road by which the white man must come. As we hurried forward we could hear the men discussing what was to be done. Some were for killing the white man at once, but the majority said: “No, we will hear what he has to say. We will smell out his wickedness first, and then if there is cause we will help you to kill him.” Satu said: “We will neither hear him, nor kill him; but send him back the way he has come.”

The white man was now mounting the hill. It was a narrow, difficult, rough track that led to our town. He was panting by reason of the steepness of the ascent; and seemed utterly wearied with his long journey. He saw the ugly demonstration in front of him; he heard the yells and screams of rage and defiance; but he came quietly on--a lonely man to a surging torrent of wild, uncontrollable passions. His carriers and boys hung back, for they were overawed by the threatening aspect of the crowd.

As he drew near the white man held out his hand as a sign of his friendship; but Bakula, filled with the terrible stories he had heard about white men, struck at the proffered hand, and missed it in his blind rage.

Then arose a babble of curses, contradictory shouts, and threats to kill him if he did not go back. They hustled him about like a battledore. They tore his clothes; but he was so mixed up with them that they could neither use guns nor machets without great risks to their friends, and he was not worth that. When their fury had somewhat spent itself, the undaunted white man calmly asked them for permission to sleep in their town.

“No, we don’t want you,” the people screamed.

“I have only come to do you good,” he said.

“No, you have not, you have come to bewitch us to death,” they shouted.

“If I wanted to bewitch you to death I should have brought guns and soldiers, but you see I have neither. I want to speak to you about the great and good God Who sent His Son into the world to tell you of His love, and to save you,” was his quiet reply.

“You are a cunning, crafty witch. We want neither you, nor your goodness, nor your talk about God, therefore go away,” they cried.

“It is nearly dark, and the next town is a long, long way, and my people and I are very tired. Let me sleep here outside your town!” he pleaded.

“No, not here,” they said. “It is too close to us; go and sleep by the stream in the forest.”

“It is cold and damp there, and plenty of fever and mosquitoes are in that place. Let us sleep here, we shall not harm you!” he smilingly said.

“No, not here. Down there is good enough for a witch. Keep the fevers and mosquitoes away with your magic,” they sneeringly retorted.

Sadly and wearily the white man retraced his steps, and as he went down the hill he called his carriers and boys, and that night they put up some waterproof sheets to serve as a tent to protect them from the heavy dews and dripping trees.

Well, it might have been worse, and through his God-given calmness the white man had come out of a very difficult and dangerous position with only a few rents in his clothes and a few bruises on his body. We heard many things about the white man next morning when his boys came up to the town to buy some food from the people.

All through that night the natives in the town danced around their fetishes to keep them alert in protecting them from the white man’s devilry: drums were beaten and gongs sounded to frighten the evil spirits away; and guns were occasionally fired to warn off witches, and the lonely white man down in his camp, as he heard the various sounds, prayed: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do,” and especially did he pray for the lad who struck at his outstretched hand.

The luck-giver is called to bring prosperity on the town--His mode of procedure--Satu and some of his people go on a visit to a great chief--Good and bad omens--The game at “Antelope”--Bakula narrates a story: “How the Fox saved the Frog’s Life”--Another lad tells why inquiry should come before anger--The difficult road--Bakula and his friends dress themselves--Their mixed wardrobes.

Satu, the chief, wished to have a healthy and prosperous town, and his people were one with him in this laudable desire. Now the only way they knew of obtaining their object was to send for the luck-giver (or, ngang’a zumbi), who possessed a bag of charms consisting of pieces of the skins of various animals and reptiles, bits of herbs, and powders concocted of indescribable messes. These were supposed, when properly used, to impart good health to a town, good luck in breeding animals, and prosperity in trade. The people clubbed their moneys together, for, as all were to share in the good fortune to be conferred by the charm, all were expected to give towards its expenses; and as the benefits would be large the cost would also be proportionately great.

I had observed that people who owned little fetishes and expected small benefits only from them made small offerings to them, such as a little blood from the foot of a frog, or from the toe of a chicken that cost them nothing. Those who wanted larger boons killed fowls and poured their blood over their fetishes; and those who wished for greater advantages sacrificed goats every month--their expectations were in proportion to their sacrifices.

The fee having been collected, the luck-giver was called. He was a wizen-faced, withered man with small, crafty, shiftless eyes. His appearance seemed to belie his cornucopian office; but, perhaps, he could give to others the good fortune that he had apparently failed to procure for himself.

On his arrival he very carefully selected a hard wood log and cut a hole in it, and into this hole he put bits of all the articles from his bag so as to make the log an effective charm. A hole was dug in the ground on the outskirts of the town by the side of the road along which the women passed when fetching water from the stream. A goat was then killed and the head put in the hole, and the fetish stick erected on it--this was supposed to preserve the post from the attacks of the white ants,--and then the blood from the slain goat was poured over the charms in the post; and over the hole containing the charms was tied a piece of palm-tree gossamer, which also was drenched with the goat’s blood. Earth was rammed round the stick, and the fetish was now completed, and ready to work.

But there was one prohibition that the luck-giver said must be scrupulously observed: nothing tied in a bundle could be brought into the town, or the charm would become ineffective, and its luck-giving power destroyed. Women returning with firewood must untie their bundles before reaching the fetish; men with bundles of thatching-grass must take off the bands; carriers with loads must either loosen all the cords, or make a wide detour to avoid the town; and the people must remove their girdles and belts.

This was a very cunning prohibition, for, if the town had good health, the animals bred well, and the trade prospered, then the luck-giver received all the credit for making such a wonderful charm; but if no good results followed the expense and trouble of setting up such a costly fetish, then some one had broken the taboo and nullified the luck-giving properties of the fetish post.

As the luck-giver was there Satu and some of the head men thought they would invest in a luck charm for their own private use. My owner, Bakula, longed to speculate in one, and he counted his little store of savings, but found that he had not near enough for the fee, etc.

The necessary arrangements having been made and the fee paid, Satu and the head men selected strong, young cocks and carried them to the luck-giver, who took out of his bag of charms a small portion of each and pounded them carefully into a well-mixed paste, and a little of this “medicine” he gave to each cock, and thereupon they became the very embodiment of luck and all kinds of good fortune to their happy owners.

As only rich men could afford such luxuries as these expensive charms the superstitions respecting their wealth-giving powers were fostered and maintained. From that time these fowls were treated as fetishes. No one was permitted to beat or hurt a luck fowl (or nsusu a zumbi). It was respected like a chief, and strutted about the town crowing aggressively, as though it were fully cognizant of its own importance.

This fetish fowl was supposed to tell its owner of coming events as danger to the town or to himself. By its crow it predicted the future, and, as only the owner was able to rightly interpret the crow, he had therefore exclusive information which he could use for his own advantage. I found afterward that when these fowls grow old they are killed and eaten only by their owners, and the charm is given to other fowls; and sometimes the charm is put into a billy-goat or into a male pig, and they are then treated with respect like the fetish fowls, and tell their masters by their bleatings and gruntings of future events.

One day Satu told his people that he was going in eight days to visit the great chief of a distant town, and he asked some of his people to go with him. He had fourteen wives, but he promised to take only six of them. He reckoned to be absent about a fortnight, or, as they put it, four nkandu,^[26] i. e. sixteen days. Great preparations were made for this visit of ceremony. All who owned bits of finery brought them out of their hiding-places and furbished them anew. Cassava roots were dried, peanuts were shelled, and as the day of departure drew near kwanga^[27] bread was made ready for the journey. Messengers had been sent to inform the chief of the coming visit, and had returned with greetings and words of welcome.

The day at last dawned on which Satu was to pay his important visit to a brother chief. Bakula, with a bundle of Satu’s best cloths, cosmetics and trinkets, led the way; then came some ordinary town-folk carrying sleeping-mats, food for the journey, small bottles of palm-oil, and cakes of camwood powder. Following these was our town band, consisting of five ivory trumpets and three drums. Whenever we drew near to a village or town our band played to notify the folk that some great men were coming. Behind the band came Satu with his six wives, other head men followed with contingents of wives from their harems, and Old Plaited-Beard brought up the rear with three of his wives.

We had not gone very far when a snake darted out of the grass on one side of the road, but instead of crossing the path, it turned up towards the oncoming party. Bakula, terrified at the evil omen, called a halt and sent word along the line to ask Satu what was to be done.

While Satu was hesitating Old Plaited-Beard came up, and as soon as he heard of the ill omen he insisted that the whole party should return and start the journey over again. Many protested at this foolishness, but others, swayed by superstitious fears, agreed that the only wise course was to return at once.

Fortunately we were not far from our town, and before the sun was very high we were back at the starting-point, where we rested for a short time, and received the condolences of those left in the town.

If the snake had only turned the other way it would have been an augury of good luck. Bakula, directly he saw it coming out of the grass, should have shouted, and then the snake would have directed its course the opposite way. He might have turned, by prompt action, an ill omen into a good augury, and we should have been saved all this trouble.

After a rest we again started, and as a bird flew along the path in the direction in which we were going everybody began to laugh and crack jokes, for this omen of the bird was entirely in our favour.

About the middle of the afternoon we reached a village, where we decided to spend the night. The chief of this village, being a man of no family, paid homage to Satu, and gave him and the other head men houses for the night, but the ordinary members of the party slept in the open. Satu also received from the chief presents of different kinds of food, as bunches of plantain, baskets of cassava flour, a few fowls, and two demijohns of palm-wine, which was fizzing loudly with fermentation and was strong enough to make them drunk, only fortunately there was not enough of it.

While we were resting I noticed the youngsters in this village played an amusing game called “Antelope,” and they did it in the following manner: All the players but one ran about on all-fours with their faces upwards, one person alone being allowed to stand up, and he was called the “antelope,” and the others were called the “hunters.” They scuttled about in this ridiculous attitude, and each tried to touch, or kick the “antelope” with his foot.

A large court had been marked out on the ground, and the “antelope” was not allowed to go outside it, and the “hunters” tried to hem him in a corner; but when the “antelope,” to avoid being touched, ran out of court all the “hunters” got on their feet and chased him, and he who first pretended to cut him up with a knife became the “antelope.”

A general mêlée usually ensued, for every one pretended to cut him up with shouts of “a leg for me,” “head for me,” “some flesh for me.” The game excited much laughter, and all seemed to enjoy it thoroughly.

After the evening meal was over, and the men had lit their pipes and gone to hold high converse on politics, woman, and sundry other important matters, Bakula was called upon by the young men of the party to tell a story or two before they rolled themselves in their mats for the night.

Nothing loth, he told, with all his usual grace and sprightliness, the following story, perhaps suggested by the fact that they themselves were on a journey. He called it--