Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/501

 The Congo Medicine-Man. 459

persistent in its attacks on the health and comfort of the individual or family.^^

10. Ngang' a munkanda, {i.e. trap). This nganga works with a bundle of charms and some small traps. The bundle contains powdered chalk, palm nut, and small garden eggs, and the bag is called nkutu a maswa ; on the outside are six traps. The leaves etc. are nlakaji, lumbuzii, fuunjila-njila, mundondo, dintata, and tendi kia ndungn. If a person spits blood, or has a bad chest complaint, the nganga takes makaiya (leaves) 7na himbuzu, some dintata, and some of the chalk powder, crushes them together, and adds a little palm wine, and gives the mess to his patient to drink. Then the nganga puts several of the nkanda (traps) about the doors of the sick one's house or room, having first put a little fowl's blood or some sweet herbs in them to attract insects, spiders, cock- roaches, etc. In the morning he looks to see if anything has entered them, and, if he finds a cockroach is right at the end of the trap, he knows the witch belongs to a distant branch of the family, and without more ado he crushes the cockroach, believing that the sickness will now pass from his patient to the ndoki represented by the cockroach. His patient will now get better. If, however, the cockroach is only half-way up the trap, he knows the ndoki is of very near kinship to the patient, and, as he does not want to pass the sickness on to a near relative, he warns the cockroach, and lets it go. Should a cock- roach be found in the trap the next morning, he believes it is the same one (or, if it is a spider, that it has only changed its form) ; he will either warn it and threaten it more strongly and let it go, or he will keep it shut up a few days without food, and will watch to see if a near relative of the patient becomes thin, and, if no one becomes thin, he will vehemently threaten the ndoki in the insect and let it go. Should he find an insect in the trap on "Vol. XX., p. 60.