Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/364

356 last she died, and the baboons barked and howled, mourning for her for many days.

To see an "incanti" is certain death; so, too, to see a "hili". At the same time stories inconsistent with such general truths are common, especially regarding the latter, who is very malevolent, but withal an amorous swain. One at least fell among thieves in the prosecution of his loves. Hence the common proverb, "You will feel what Hili experienced." On one occasion he carried on an intrigue with a woman he had caused to fall in love with him. Her husband suspected that she was visited by a hili, but for a long time he could find out nothing to confirm his suspicions. At last he pretended to go on a long journey, but returned in the middle of the night with a number of friends. They quietly fastened all the dogs at the door of the hut, and after that he went in and kindled a light. As he anticipated, a hili was there. The neighbours beat him, the dogs bit him, until at last he was not able to move away from the house. They then tied him on the woman's back and sent her away to wander with ghosts and river-spirits for ever. Hili often milks the cows when no one is watching them, and plays other tricks, in which he never can be detected.

While we were living at Duff, a man was found dead one morning close by the river's bank, not far from the mission. It was clearly a case of suicide by poisoning, but our native neighbours regarded it as a case of having seen an incanti, and no one would approach the spot for months. The pools were bewitched, haunted, bedevilled. This circumstance led to my being told several legends regarding our friend the incanti. I preserved none of them in a complete form, but the following notes will indicate their nature. An incanti once lived in a river near a chief's house. One day his son saw it, and he died. He sent the magicians and an army to the river. They pelted it with stones; the magicians cursed it; the women even cursed it. Next day the chief's bravest