Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/449

 Bavili Notes. 391

Nkicici} It is the only animal having the title of Fiimu [chief]. Its skin is used as a charm against smallpox, and the Mankaka's (captain, executioner) hat of office is also made of it.

In 1902 the writer was standing near to his house when a crowd of natives passed him carrying the body of a dead leopard to Loango for sale. The head of the beast was covered with a cloth so that its eyes should not be seen. And a lady called Ngo, who was standing near to him, began to cry.

" Why do you cry .'' " the writer asked. " Ah," she answered, " the brutes would not have treated my name- sake in this rough way in the olden days with impunity."^

That the leopard is connected with witchcraft is certain, even if the words '' Ndo/igo" and "■ NdoxV did not so clearly point to the fact, for we were warned by Mam- buku ^ at Ximoko that someone with Ndo7igo in his


 * [/.iE. of the first class of Nkici, having inherent fetish power.]

^In Seven Years among the Fjort I gave part of the custom attending the killing of Ngo, and in Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort I (p. 80) supplemented this. Many of the stories there also throw some light on the character of this animal. The skins of the leopard are sent to Bunzi when rain is wanted by the king for his people. See "Laws of the Bavili," African Society's Journal, 1902, p. 281.

' Extract from my Journal of an expedition in search of a Nko^sa tree. — "While at my frugal meal, outside his hut, Mambuku, who had been squatting on the ground near to me, got up and left me. I lit a cigarette, and walked up and down in the moonlight by the side of the bananas Mambuku had planted as a kind of fence around the cleared space within which his dwellings and outhouses were built. At last I retired to rest upon the bed of boards prepared for me, but just as I was falling to sleep the midnight silence was suddenly broken by a shout, I recognized the voice of Mambuku immediately, and thought at first that he must have met with some accident. Another grunt-like shout, and I knew that Mambuku was simply calling the attention of his people to something he had to say to them. And this is what he said :

" ' Ur ! ur ! ' (to wake his people up).

" ' Nuvula ! ' (listen !)

" ' Ngonde moci u bakana kubella mukulu, abu mimibakana ku bella mu luzala.' (Last month my mother had a bad leg, now she is sick in