Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/496

 454 '^^^ Congo Medicine- Man.

brother's right hand, and, having pretended to spit on it^ said, — " Ovw^ e nsambu yo inalawn " (May you have bless- ings and good fortune). This particular blessing is called taulwila, from taula, to spit. The nganga in this case, to prove his power, heated a matchet red hot three times and licked it each time. He received as a fee for his services an amount equal to 24s,

The next nganga in importance is the one called in on the death of a person, and is named —

4. Ngang' a 7igombo, — {ngombo, guessing). The special work of this nganga is to guess at or point out the witch {ndoki) who has caused the death of the deceased.^ This nganga is sometimes, but rarely, engaged to discover the witch who is troubling a sick man, especially if the said sick man is influential and wealthy, — a chief of importance. Usually, however, he is not sent for until the person is dead. This nganga must not belong to the same family or clan as the deceased.

5. Ngang a nzaji. Thunder is supposed to be made by the nzaji fetish, which also has the lightning under its con- trol, and both lightning and a thunderbolt are called inbw a nzaji (the dog of nzaji), Nzaji is represented by a wooden image, and is believed to possess tremendous power. When a person has been robbed and cannot discover the thief, he sends for ngang' a nzaji, who brings his wooden image, and asks the suspected persons if they have stolen the article. If they all deny the theft, the nganga goes outside the house, taps with his knife several times on the stomach of the image, and raises and lowers it three times. Nzaji is thus incited to strike the thief with lightning.^ The man who has a skin disease called tiya twa nzambi (fire of God), in which the skin puckers up and blisters as though burnt, is thought to be under the ban of nzaji, and when he dies he is buried at or near a cross road. The fear of nzaji is so great that a thief will return

8 Vol. XX., p. 186-7. *Vol. XX., p. 475.