Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/500

 45^ The Congo Medicine- Man,

{sumbi fowls). The possessor of a zumbi charm selected a fine healthy cock, and gave it a small portion of the zumbi charm to swallow. That fowl then became his fetish, and he treated the fowl like a fetish. No one was allowed to beat or offend it, and it was respected like a chief. The zumbi fowl told its owner of coming events, such as danger to the town or to himself, and by its crow it also foretold the future, and in that way brought luck to its owner, as only he understood the information given by its crow and could take advantage of it. When the fowl became old, the zumbi charm was given to another, and the first one was killed, but eaten only by its owner. Drums were used in driving the zumbi power into a person, but the fowl simply swallowed a piece of the charm.

The zumbi is a bundle of charms, or an image that has had some of the charms put into it, or a fowl, or an animal as indicated above. The power of the zumbi is derived from the great mpungu charm. Nsusu (fowl) a zumbi, nsusu a sole, and nsusii a mpungit are all the same in their operations, getting their power, however, origin- ally from the last, — mpungu.

9. Ngang a Jikwiya. This nganga pretends to control, punish, and even destroy the nkwiya, evil spirits that cause all diseases and death, for the nkwiya is the evil spirit by which the 7idoki (witch) is possessed. If the ngang a bitodi (No. 3) is unsuccessful in persuading the spirits to let the sick man alone, the ngang" a nkwiya is called, and, when he has ascertained what spirit it is that is troubling the man or family, he tries to drive it away by cursing, threatening, and firing his guns at it, and, as a last resort, he digs up the body of the person whose evil spirit is accused of being the cause of the illness or epidemic and burns it. By burning the body it is believed that the spirit is effectually destroyed, but this is done only when the evil spirit of the person is