Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/473

 Traditions of (he Bagauda and Bushongo. 439

Mawanda, the twenty-second king, and his official queen were once sent for by the ghost of Kintu, who desired ari interview with them at his temple. Unkickily, a certain chief named Namutwe (who perhaps was curious on the subject of spooks) intruded, contrary to orders, just when the ghost was about to utter his message. Kintu at once fled and was seen no more. This is told to account for the practice in accordance with which the Namutwe (for the name seems after all to be an official title) always wears small bells on his legs or garment, so that spooks and men are now warned of his approach and safe from his prying.^^ Kyabagu, the twenty-fifth king, put a chief to death for killing Mawanda, and was haunted by his ghost. The medicine-man ultimately caught it ; and when the king recovered from his sickness it had caused he made a feast. But the medicine-men stood on the etiquette of their pro- fession. They complained because the feast was not con- fined to them ; the common people were positively invited also. The king, however, was not going to put up with such nonsense as that. He ordered the priests and medicine-men to be put to death, and destroyed some of the temples. The god of the lake, Mukasa, then thought it time to put his oar in. He sent a plague of rats, which bit and killed, not the king, but a number of his innocent. wives. Nor was the plague stayed until he had made restitution to the gods and rebuilt their temples. Subse- quently the king was slain in a rebellion by one of his sons, provoked by his arbitrary conduct. ^^ Kyabagu's grandson, Suna Kalema, the twenty-ninth king, tried to enforce sanitary conditions in his capital. But he reckoned without the gods. Saying that he did so by their order, a medium or shaman, one Kigemuzi, began to speak disrespectfully of the king. Kigemuzi was brought bound before his sovereign, who asked him to give the oracle. He refused while bound, because it was contrary to custom to bind a "' Roscoe, 222. '"//'?■(/., 224.