Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/57

Rh beads (matadi mankolo), and blue glass pipe beads (nzimbu za mdombe). The latter (nzimbu za mdombe, or nzimbu for short) are so plentifully used that they are really the equivalent for money, and the standard of all prices, especially around San Salvador.

When the white men had built their stations at the coast, the natives began to take peanuts, palm kernels, ivory, and slaves to them for sale, and about 1877 they started the trade in rubber. It was about that time that the chigoe (or jigger) first appeared. It was brought back from the coast by those who travelled there with rubber. It was then called "ntanda" (the insect beneath the skin), and, as these chigoes hopped after they came from the feet, they were called "ntand' a ndangwa" (the bounding or jumping chigoe). They were associated with the rubber, which also bounced about.

When a caravan of native traders was ready to set out for a white man's trading factory, they would call a "nganga mpungu" or luck-giving medicine man. He came with his bundle of "mpungu," which was a small mbadi bag containing pieces of leopard's skin, hyaena's skin, lion's skin, and, in fact, a piece of the skin of every strong animal he could procure, and also some albino's hair; and he took with him his "sole kia mpungu," ("sole" being a wooden image with some grass tied round its neck, knotted back and front). The nganga sat in the middle of the caravan, which stood round him with their bundles tied ready for the journey, and put the "sole" in front of him. The nganga spoke to the "sole," telling it to give the traders good luck on the road and at the trading factory. A man then took a fowl by the head, and the nganga took it by the body and cut its head off and let the blood drop on the "sole." The fowl was then cooked and divided among the traders for them to eat. This fowl was cooked and eaten outside the houses, and during and after this ceremony no one must go into a