Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/502

 460 The Congo Medicine- Ma7i.

the third morning, he kills it at once, as it is evident that the ndoki is very persistent and should be punished. It does not matter if the insect is found in a different trap each time. When he squeezes the insect in the trap some one else gets the illness of the patient, and, as this is the only way to catch this particular complaint, it is evident that the first patient got it by trying to bewitch some one else. This is supposed to be the only way in which this lung trouble is imparted and cured. Some women when confined send for this 7iganga to keep all 7idoki from entering their babies. It is interesting to note that these ndoki can travel about disguised as insects, and the folk they represent suffer in proportion to their own suffering. In this nganga we have the black and white art operating at one and the same time, in curing and in giving a complaint.

II. Ngang a masaku. A person suffering from dropsy in the stomach sends for this nganga, who on arrival calls together the relatives of his patient, and to some of them he gives light branches, to others rattles, and to one of them the fetish image masaku. The nganga puts the drum by the side of the sick man, and, while the nganga is playing it, the relative who has the fetish image beats it and calls on it to use its power to cure the patient, and punish those who are causing the disease ; those with the rattles shake them vigorously, and those with the branches beat the body of the sick man with them. After keeping up this performance for some time, the nganga leads them outside the town, and the branches are all heaped together and left. The nganga then procures some sweet-smelling herbs, and boils them in a large saucepan, which is put under the patient ; a large blanket is put over the man and the saucepan, and thus he takes a vapour bath and perspires most freely. This is repeated many times. Here again in the same ceremony are exercised both the black art and the white art.