Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/217

Rh "esamba." Before he can become a full "ngang' a ngombo" he must learn all the tricks of his master, and it takes a clever and sharp-witted fellow to do that. Besides being cunning, he must be fearless,—afraid of nothing and nobody,—for a nganga's life is often threatened by those whom he accuses of witchcraft. When the time comes for the esamba to receive full power, his master puts his fetish in the centre of a circle, and his drum near to his pupil. He beats on the drum and shakes his rattle, and tries to drive his fetish power into his pupil. If the pupil sits stolidly taking no notice of the drum beating and rattle shaking, the master says his disciple is not fit to be a nganga; but, if the pupil sways to and fro to the rhythm of the beaten drum, jumps about like a madman, and does all kinds of stupid things (as they suppose under the influence of the fetish power that has entered him), he is pronounced a fully-initiated doctor, being now possessed by the fetish power of his master.

The nganga, whether he is a "ngang' a wuka" (medicine-man who cures by herbs, simples, and charms), or "ngang' a moko" (medicine-man who decides whether his patient is troubled by an ordinary sickness, or by an evil spirit, or by some one bewitching him), or "ngang' a ngombo" (witch-finder), must always find his way to the village and to the house of his patient without guidance or instruction, and he must also discover the sickness from which his patient is suffering, or the cause of death, without asking a single direct question.

If a person arrives at the village of a "ngang' a wuka" to ask him to go and see a woman in a certain town, who, for example, has an abscess in the leg, the nganga sends his assistant on ahead to find out where the sick woman is living. Having assured himself of the house, the assistant puts a certain kind of leaf on the roads leading from outside the town, where the nganga will enter, up towards the house. Near the house twigs are put, and, although the