Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/87

Rh her shoulder. Above her stood the witch-doctor, who at intervals took some ointment or mess from a vessel near him and vigorously rubbed the shoulder with it. To the European this would naturally seem the effective part of the treatment, but to the native the important part lay in the noise created by two assistants, one of whom beat three small drums with his hands, whilst the other with the keenest relish was engaged in striking a battered oil-tin with sticks. The noise would drive out the evil spirit which caused the trouble. Presently the doctor paused. The woman rose, rushed full speed round a couple of huts three or four times, went into one of them twice, and then danced backwards and forwards between the fire and the nearest hut, constantly keeping her eyes fixed on the full moon, and occasionally snatching a corn-cob from a basket near the fire, gnawing at it whilst she danced. In time, however, the noise became distracting and the proceedings monotonous; and after an attempt to secure a photograph we returned to the Mission station.

Such a witch-doctor as this man would have had to pass through a long and severe course of apprenticeship to some recognised authority before he could be accepted as a practitioner. On applying for instruction, a lad would have to bring his master a cockerel just beginning to crow, and he would then be taught how to lay the divining-rods, would scarify patients who consulted his master, and would learn the names of the various gourds and vessels. Until he became fully qualified he would get no fees.

The basket, tools, and vessels which I exhibit to-night (Plate I.) belonged to a witch-doctor in the Magila district of German East Africa. At his death they were inherited by a relative who was a Christian, and through him were sent to England. They are now in my possession. The following description of them is quoted from the account (derived from the Rev. W. G. Harrison of Magila) by the Rev. F. R. Hodgson in Central Africa, a magazine of the Universities' Mission, No. 250, p. 194 (Partridge & Co.). Notice that the scarifying knife is a broken and rusty European table-knife, and that the influence of the white man's power is further seen in a rusty farthing tin lamp, which forms one of the vessels (fig. 13).

"I. is a packet, wrapped in a cob-sheath of Indian corn, of a preparation made from green shoots (called kongo) and sheep's dung. This is used by the mganga (medicine-man) before handling