Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/506

 464 The Congo Medicine- Man.

performed. He is obliged to observe them, as otherwise no woman would dare to marry him. When the man returns to the town, his deceased wife's sister steps over his legs. The nganga receives as his fee a demijohn of palm wine and from 50 to 100 strings of blue pipe beads.

20. Ngang' a nkisi a Kiniambe, {i.e. divine fetish).^^

21. Ngang' a bail, — {ban, divination by ordeal or testing).^^

22. Ngang'' a inanimba, {i.e. sleeping sickness). The patient suffering from this complaint who goes to a nganga is treated in the following manner : — The nganga gives him a purge, and then something hot to drink with pepper mixed in it. He occasionally drops pepper juice in the patient's eyes to keep him awake, and lets blood every four days. He also scarifies the back and legs, and rubs in a mixture of lime juice and gunpowder, and stands the patient for a short time in the sun. Very often a low state of health exhibits some of the symptoms of sleeping sickness, and such cases are helped by any course of medicine in which they have faith ; these so-called cures foster the belief of the people in the power of the nganga to relieve real cases of sleeping sickness.

23. Ngang' a nibuji, {i.e. madness).^*'

24. Ngang' a manga. A married couple, who have by death lost several children, will send for this nganga. When he arrives, the woman holds a " hand " of plantain on her head with her right hand. Her left hand being tied with a rope, she is led by a man who cries out, — " I have a person for sale." The nganga says, — " Bring the woman here, and I will buy her that she may bear children." The seller demands 3000 strings of beads, and the nganga pays 3 single beads and takes the woman, whereupon he throws away the plantain, saying, — • " Remove these plantains, for they are the reason why she does not bear healthy children, because she is carrying them on her head." He cuts the rope, and a fetish feast

^8 Vol. XX., p. 57. i^Vol. XX., pp. 187-8. -oVol. XX., p. 40.