Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/493

Rh bewitches me with this bad disease," as the case may be. This is the whole science of the Congo medicine-man's "black art."

Now all diseases, bad luck, misfortune, sorrow, and death are caused by witchcraft, i.e. by some one lokanga e nkisi against a person or a member of his family. For example, if a piece of cloth is stolen, the owner pays a nganga to loka e nkisi against the unknown thief. If the thief hears of it, and through fear returns the cloth, he will pay compensation and ask the nganga to lembola e nkisi, i.e. to soothe, appease the fetish, and thus remove its curse from working against him. Supposing the thief does not hear that the robbed man has called in the nganga to loka e nkisi, or feels so secure either in his disbelief in fetishes or in the protective power of his own charm that he retains the cloth, then the spell will work either on him or on one of his family. Hence, when a man is suffering from a disease, no one knows whether that disease is the result of a curse invoked on his own evil doings or on a member of his family who has injured some one so badly that they have paid a nganga to loka e nkisi. A robbed man will call upon the ngang’ a nkosi (p. 462 infra) to curse the unknown thief with some severe lung trouble, and for this he is paid a fee by his client; by and by a man in the neighbourhood is troubled with a chest complaint, and, all other remedies failing, he asks and pays the ngang’ a nkosi to use his good offices with his nkosi fetish to lembola it, to appease it so that the curse may be removed, and he may be cured. It is evident that either the man or one of his family is the thief, or why does the man suffer from such a disease? The same nganga practises his black magic to loka his fetish to curse a man with a disease, and uses his white magic to lembola his fetish to remove the curse, i.e. cure a man of a disease. He draws pay from both parties. Hence loka e nkisi is to invoke malignant spells