White and black magic—Albinos—Causes of disease—Those easy to diagnose—Non-professional healers—Discovering a troublesome spirit—Various remedies—Cupping—The clyster—Ligatures for snake-bites—Snake-men—Rubbing things out of a patient—Ignorance of physiology—White man’s difficulty—Dangers of buffalo-hunting—Ravages of crocodiles—Escaping crocodiles.

The medicine man’s white magic, i.e. those means employed for curing the people of their mental and bodily ailments, may, to us, seem foolish and inadequate, but there is nothing to condemn in its practice except that it often deceives the people. Whether the medicine man deceives himself—believes in himself or not—is another matter.

Undoubtedly, through generations of inherited knowledge concerning herbs, etc., they possess some remedies that do their patients good; and there are many faith cures—the results of an implicit belief in the medicine man and the means he uses. I have noticed that the Congo medicine man cures just that class of ailments that the different branches of “faith healers” cure in Europe and America.

The Congo system of white magic is founded on quackery, but like quackery in other parts of the world the remedy sometimes meets the disease, and such successes are remembered and talked about, while the many failures are forgotten. Black magic, i.e. those means employed for inflicting pain, misfortune, and death on an enemy, is to be found in all parts of the Congo. Although black magic is so widely practised, yet it is condemned by the natives in as strong language as that used by the white man. Every native condemns it in everybody else, and excuses it in himself. Those who practise it must do so in secret, or the hatred of the village and the district will fall upon them.

In the Appendix will be found a fairly complete list^[42] of the diseases from which the people suffer. In addition to the complaints there mentioned, the natives suffer from stomachache, toothache, soreness of gums, sympathetic buboes, ulcers caused by jiggers (chigoes), etc., the children from wind, teething, convulsions, etc.

There are rare cases of albinos (yeme), and they are regarded with respect, and although they marry, yet there are many women who, through fear, refuse to have them. The skin is a dirty white with a distinct tint of pink in it. The hair is curly and very light, with a glint of red, and the eyes are red and intolerant of light. Albinos are somewhat repulsive looking, and one is glad to turn the eyes quickly in another direction. Those I have seen were men, well-developed and healthy looking, except that the skin had a pimply rash on it, which may have been due to the strong rays of the sun on a delicate skin. They suffer considerably from the direct rays of the sun on their skin, probably as much as a white man would suffer who had to go about in tropical Africa in a nude condition.

Among the people there are cases of auburn hair, but the eyes are not different from those of other people. With the exception of supernumerary toes and fingers, the deformities I have seen have been due to disease. People with a sore on the under part of the heel often walk on the toes, or side of the foot, so long that at last they are unable to walk properly.

The Boloki attribute diseases to several causes, such as broken taboos, curses, witchcraft, to disembodied spirits (mingoli), to the spirits of disease (mēte), i.e. those spirits that give individual complaints, to those spirits (mieta) that give family complaints or epidemics, and to the spirit (ejo) of wealth, which inflicts severe diseases, and when the sufferer dies he (or she) is regarded as taken by this spirit, or, as sacrificed to the spirit of wealth.

The general name for medicine is mono, and it may mean a daub of simple pigment on the affected part, a poultice of leaves, or a complicated concoction that has taken a long time to prepare and some thought to arrange.

It will be seen from a study of their diseases that they fall into two classes: (1) Those of which the symptoms are observable and easily diagnosed, as diarrhœa, insanity, etc.; and (2) Those of which the symptoms are difficult to diagnose, as great debility, sleeping-sickness, etc. The former are regarded as simple sicknesses, called bokono; but the latter are put to the credit of the various spirits, or to the malignant influence of witchcraft. When the sickness is simple (bokono), herbs are employed, medicines prepared, and taboos imposed on the patient; when, however, the illness is caused by one or other of the spirits, then a medicine man whose work it is to deal with that particular spirit is called. The functions of the various witch-doctors have already been described, and also of the spirits that either send or impart diseases. Some sicknesses are especially regarded as the result of breaking a covenant and falling under the curse that follows, as dysentery; or as the result of a broken treaty, as wounds and death in a fight; or as the consequences of a wife’s unfaithfulness while the husband is away at a fight, as severe wounds.

During my residence among the Boloki, although many folk submitted to the ordeal for various reasons, and among others for bewitching people, yet I heard of only one or two taking it for bewitching a person to death. The verdict generally given by the witch-doctor is: He died by his own witchcraft while trying to bewitch someone else. And many a time I have heard the friends of the deceased protest against this charge—for they considered it an insult to the memory of their departed friend—and insist that he died “by an act of God.”

In simple complaints medicines are prepared from herbs for inward and outward applications, fomentations are applied, and massage is employed, and in many cases charms and amulets are supplied to the patient. In the more serious kinds of illness, as smallpox, dropsy, etc., a person who has recovered from the sickness very often sets up as a healer of the same—for who knows better how to cure an illness than he (or she) who has had it?

These healers of specific diseases are not witch-doctors, nor are they, by the natives, respected as such; and if they fail to cure, the patient is removed to a medicine man as the last resort. The fees of the former are as moderate as a quack doctor’s compared with the fees of a professional man. Of these healers there is a large number, and it is impossible to give an outline of their practices, for each follows his (or her) own method, and tries to keep that method a secret; and even when fomentations or herb decoctions are used, the ingredients are known only to the compounder. Simple massage is a favourite operation, and seems to be much enjoyed by the patients; and its curative qualities are not placed to the credit of friction, warmth, or magnetism, but to the fetish power of the rubber.

As stated above, most of the diseases in the list are regarded as bokono = simple sickness, illness, complaint; and it is only when they do not yield to ordinary, simple treatment that they are viewed more seriously as the result of witchcraft, or possession by one or other of the spirits, e.g. an ulcer shows itself, and is treated with fomentations, etc., but it happens that the ulcer spreads and drains the strength of the patient; a medicine man is called in, and the cause sought for either in witchcraft, the breaking of a taboo, the operation of a curse, or in the malignant action of a spirit. The complaints called debility, sleeping-sickness, very bad rheumatism, ague fever, or boils, are supposed to originate in one of these ways, and it is the object of the medicine man to discover in which way, in order to use the right means.

The witch-doctor beats his drum near the patient, talks excitedly, chants various phrases, the sense of which the people often do not understand, but the lilt of the metre, together with the rhythm of the drum, causes the patient to sway to and fro and has an hypnotic effect on him.

When he is worked up to the right pitch the medicine man asks him: “Have you eaten anything?” i.e. Have you broken a taboo? The patient takes no notice.

“Have you done anything?” i.e. Have you broken a covenant and so come under a curse? is the next question, but the man takes no notice.

“Are you bewitched?” or, “Are you bewitching anybody?” To these questions no answer is given.

“Have you a spirit (bwete)?” The patient jerks and twitches his body, beats his arms, and sways more vigorously, and thus it is known that the sufferer is possessed by a certain kind of spirit.

The next thing is to discover whether the spirit is that of debility, sleeping-sickness, etc., and that point being decided by the jerking of the patient’s body as the questions are put to him, the medicine man proceeds to make the necessary charms and put the man under the proper taboos. The whole of this ceremony of diagnosing a patient’s case is called mobalu.

There are modifications of this ceremony in which only rattles are used, and not drums, and many women sing and shake rattles round the patient, who lies in the middle of the ring, well anointed with oil; or there may be only a few present, and the drum is beaten and the patient taken inside a mat enclosure with the medicine man, but the principle is the same.

The following are some of the remedies employed: Kuta is to heal quickly the cuts of a badly wounded man by placing him on a shelf and lighting a fire under him, so that the smoke enters the wounds. Ngele are leaves for drawing boils and abscesses to a head. Moteba leaves are boiled and rubbed on a person suffering from sleeping-sickness. Longele = a brass rod; some medicine is tied to a brass rod, and it is then worn to strengthen the arm or the leg—some wear it for rheumatism. Makulu matuki leaves are good for sores and wounds, and the juice of the leaves is dropped into sore eyes to heal them; and some eat the leaves to induce pregnancy. Makalala are small sticks of powerful “medicine” for soothing the violently mad. There is a word, yengola, which means to kill or drown a person who is too ill to recover.

Cupping (nyunya) is often practised. Sometimes it is simple bleeding by snicking the part affected, and at other times it is cupping proper with horn and suction. The part to be benefited is cut with a knife, and the large bottom end of a horn, which has a hole at the small upper end, is put over the cuts. The operator puts a pill of clay or soft wax into his mouth, sucks at the hole, and with his tongue puts the wax pellet over it. This he repeats until the air in the horn is exhausted, and then the blood will run freely from the cuts.

The clyster (called njango) is used for relieving pains in the stomach. A calabash is filled with water in which some herbs have been boiled. The patient lies on his stomach and a reed is inserted, and the liquid in the calabash is poured into the reed; but sometimes they use a calabash with a very long neck, and this is inserted, and the liquid allowed to gravitate into the bowels.

Ligatures are tied—one above and the other below the wound—for a snake-bite, some bitter plant (bololo) is given to the bitten person to chew. A medicine man also “scrapes the wound to remove the teeth left by the snake.” There are persons, and even families, who handle snakes with impunity, and these are supposed to possess snake medicine. Such a person is called if the patient is suffering severely from a snake’s bite, and on his arrival he and the bitten person clasp each other’s right wrist, and the snake-man will beat the other’s arm to drive the poison (ngenge) from him into himself. I have never heard of a death from a snake-bite, but I have seen nervous people very much scared after being bitten by a snake.

There is another mode of curing a sick person called bowa. The patient lies on his back and the medicine man, taking a saucepan of boiling water, kneels by the side of his patient. He shakes some leaves over him, dips his hand into the water, rubs the stomach of the sick one, and in a short time shows a palm nut, as having come from the patient. This performance is repeated again and again, and each time a palm nut, or a stone, or a piece of iron is shown as coming from the patient, and is taken as evidence that the sickness is being expelled.

Natives endure the heat much better than the cold. The palm-oil and red camwood powder used so freely as a cosmetic protect their bodies from the direct rays of the sun, and are also, I believe, a protection from the cold air and light showers of rain; but a really cold, sunless day seems to crumple them up, and they lose all energy. Blood-poisoning is very rare, and wounds from knives and spears heal rapidly.

The natives are practically ignorant of physiology, and their firm belief for generations that diseases are due to witchcraft and evil spirits has kept them from making any progress in the study of that science. I remember many years ago a man coming to me complaining of an acute pain in his side, which he regarded as the presence of an evil spirit in him. After due consideration I thought it was probably due to a touch of pleurisy, and administered a flying blister (a lotion applied with a feather) to the place, and told him to go to bed. Early next morning the man came hurrying to me, and pointing to the blister that had come up in the night, he said: “White man, look where the evil spirit has come out.” He thought that as all pain had gone, and there was a blister over the place where it had been, the evil spirit had come out there, and the blister was the result of its exit.

One of the greatest difficulties we encounter on the Congo is that of diagnosing a disease. The natives have never been in the habit of describing their symptoms, consequently when we commence medical work in any new district we are at a great disadvantage, and it takes long training before the people will clearly state the nature of their pains, or anything that will really help us to diagnose their complaints. While in the language we find the names of a large number of diseases, yet it is very poor in words describing symptoms, and this paucity of symptom-words arises from the fact that for centuries the witch-doctors, in their own interests, have fostered the belief that complaints are caused by evil spirits which they alone can drive out of them. Not only is there this lack of words describing symptoms, but there is a reticence on the part of the patient to explain his pain, etc., as he thinks that the “doctor” who has any pretension to healing a person should certainly be able to discover what is wrong. Their witch-doctors do not closely question their patients, but at once proceed to the cure; why, therefore, should the white man make so many inquiries?

On the Lower Congo we have a large number of gun accidents. The cheap, common guns, the barrels of which are usually made out of old gas-pipes, frequently explode and do much damage to the firer. Occasionally during the hunting season one hunter mistakes the rustling in the grass made by another hunter as the movements of an animal, and fires in the direction of the noise, only to find, when too late, that he has wounded a fellow-hunter. Very often when crawling through the grass after game the hammer of the gun catches in the grass, and in pulling it free the gun goes off, and the man behind receives the full charge into his body, and the lifeless corpse is carried back to the town; or, if severely wounded and not dead, the man is brought to us for treatment.

Both on the Lower Congo and the Upper there are serious accidents from buffalo-hunting—more to be dreaded than leopard-hunting. One case brought to us on the Upper Congo was that of a man who had fired at a buffalo which took refuge in a clump of trees. He thought, after waiting a time, that he had killed it, but on venturing to investigate too closely the infuriated, wounded animal came out at him and tossed and tumbled him about in its rage as a cat does a mouse. It was at last frightened away by the hunter’s companions, and when they brought him to us it took me nearly an hour and a half to sew him up and bandage his many wounds—he querulous and abusive all the time, complaining that I was giving him more pain than the buffalo did. He, however, made a good recovery and was duly grateful.

On the Upper Congo the crocodiles inflict the greatest damage on the natives. Here is a canoe with a few folk paddling quietly along, when a crocodile shoots up by its side so suddenly that the occupants are startled, and leaning too much to one side to get as far as possible from the ravenous jaws, they upset the canoe, the brute takes one and goes off. There is much wailing, a charge of witchcraft, and perhaps another death is the result.

A considerable amount of fishing is done by the women in the shallow waters, and while they are thus busily occupied the crocodile has its opportunity. I have often met women who have asked me for medicine for wounds on their legs, and on looking at them I frequently found that the wounds were teeth marks. On inquiring how they came by them, their answers, generally given nonchalantly, were always the same: “A crocodile caught me by the leg while I was fishing.”

“How did you escape from the creature?” would be my next question.

“Oh, I rammed my thumbs into its eyes,” was the invariable reply, “and it let me go, and I was able to escape.” And suiting the action to her words the woman would turn round and show me how it was done. It needed great presence of mind, and undoubtedly those who did not possess it were carried off; and those also who were caught in such a way that it was impossible for them to turn, were dragged under water, drowned, and eaten at leisure.

One morning a woman left Monsembe in a small canoe to fish on the shallow bank of a neighbouring island. As she had not returned by sunset about twenty men came to borrow our large canoe that they might go in search of her. About 9 p.m. they returned, and by their shouts in the distance we learned that they had found the missing woman. On landing her we discovered that she was severely wounded with crocodile bites—the worst case I had ever seen. We set to work to clean the wounds, and sewing up some we bandaged her and left her as comfortable as we could for the night. We afterwards heard the story of her adventures.

It appears that while fishing she saw a crocodile coming for her, so she ran for a tree, and as she climbed the brute raised itself and snapped at her, tearing her fingers, her thighs, and legs, but not getting a sufficient grip of her to pull her down. There she sat, wounded, bleeding, and faint with hunger and loss of blood, through the long day, with the crocodile lying in wait at the foot of the tree. Occasionally she cried out, but there was no one near enough to hear her shouts. She at last heard the paddles of the canoe and the calls of the men, and, responding to them, she guided them to the tree where she was sitting. As the men neared the tree they heard the splashing of the water as the brute made off in the darkness. She fully recovered, and after a time seemed none the worse for her painful experience.

At Boma I saw the skin of a crocodile that measured 25 feet long. The trader who killed it showed me twenty-two brass armlets and anklets, weighing 11½ lbs., that had been taken from its stomach, a proof that in the course of its life it had killed and eaten several people. But there are times when the laugh is on the other side. A colleague of mine fired from a steamer at a crocodile that apparently was asleep on the sandy bank of the river. The bullet struck the head, and as the beast did not move everybody thought it was killed. Some of the steamer’s crew jumped into the water, swam ashore, and just as they caught hold of the tail to turn the creature over preparatory to cutting it up, the crocodile regained consciousness (for it had only been stunned by the bullet grazing the top of the head) and started for the river. Such a tug-of-war was never witnessed before—there was the crocodile struggling to gain the water and some men hauling it back by the tail, while others, quickly procuring some chunks of wood, were beating the reptile’s back to break it. The men won the contest, and that night feasted on their enemy the crocodile.

At all our stations we have good dispensaries, and at some, well-equipped hospitals; and we do our best to alleviate suffering and save life. As non-medical missionaries we can always comfort ourselves with the thought that what we do medically for the natives is far better than they can do for themselves, or have done for them by their medicine men. We are glad, however, to say that we have now three fully qualified doctors in our Mission, whose up-to-date scientific knowledge, joined to their kindly sympathy with the natives, is doing much to relieve pain and save life. Our only regret is that we have not a doctor on every station.^[43]