Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/221

 Customs of the Lower Congo People. 187

was a man — perhaps her brother, or son, or husband, or a distant relative. By crafty questions he narrows the circle, the people, all excitement, really helping him, and at last he declares it is such and such person, and the whole crowd is astonished that they had never thought of him before as the monster who had used witchcraft to do a person to death. If they had only thought for a moment, it could assuredly have been no one else but he who is denounced by the ngang' a ngombo. This nganga has now finished his part, so he takes his liberal fee and departs. The mode of giving the consequent ordeal has already been described.

The " ngang' a bau " (medicine-man using tests or divination) employs the following recognised methods :

1. Divination by the nkasa bark (bau kia nkasa) is used for discovering a witch, for proving or disproving a serious charge of theft, and for bad cases of adultery. The mode of giving the nkasa ordeal has been described in a previous section. The other ordeals are used for lying, petty thefts, and ordinary cases of adultery.

2. In divination by a hot knife (bau kia mbele), the knife is made hot and either is passed three times over the skin of the leg, or is passed once down the side of the leg by the calf, over the arm, and down the cheek. If the person is not burnt, he is innocent.

3. Divination by boiling palm-oil (bau kia maji). The accused has to put his hand and arm in a vessel of boiling oil three times and bring out each time a piece of kwanga (native bread). If not scalded, he is innocent of the crime charged against him. The nganga procures some bark of the baobab-tree and presse'^ the juice out of it, and rubs the juice on the hand and arm of the accused, who can then dip his arm in with impunity. If the accused does not pay the nganga well enough, the latter will rub on some other decoction, which is not protective.

4. Divination by bracelet (bau kia nkangu) is the same as the previous one, except that a bracelet is put in the oil