Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/823

Rh have seen only a few of the white race, as a fetich, and is feared by them, especially by their women and children, as if he were a ghost. On a journey between Isangile and Manzanger I saw a negro who had covered his whole body with white colors. He was a senator of that secret society of which the N'ganga is chief. These people speak their own secret language, and exercise to a certain extent over the other negroes the office of policemen. Every negro has to turn away from them, because it is believed that the women and children, at least, who look upon one will die. In Wunde I saw in the fetich-house the life-size photograph of a white woman sewed upon a red cloth. It was, as I afterward learned, a part of the effects of a servant of the association who had died on the Congo. I especially remarked, while I was living on the Congo, that photographs are among the things which the negroes most readily steal, and that they take them whenever they can get their hands upon them.

A few words, now, on the fetich-doctor or medicine-man, the N'ganga of the negro, who is also his priest, physician, and chief-justice. If any one in the village dies, the negroes, who can not comprehend that any one should die a natural death, believe that he must have been killed by enchantment or by the evil influence of some other person; in short, that another person was the cause of his death. It is the N'ganga's business to find out who this person is. He consults with the spirits by moonlight, and communicates the result of his interview to the people. The accused person is then subjected to the trial by cassa. Cassa is the bark of a large tree, the Erythrophtæum Guineense (Leguminosæ Cæsalpinceæ), and contains a very strong poison. The delinquent is forced to drink a solution of this bark, which has been prepared by the N'ganga. If he vomits the draught up immediately, he is innocent; but, if it remains in his stomach, he must die. In this case the negroes never wait for the operation of the poison, but fall upon him with sticks and stones, or drive the life out of him in some still more savage way. The issue of the trial by cassa of course lies with the N'ganga, and, if the delinquent can pay enough, that functionary will probably save his life. At one time, the king of a village on the upper Kuilu was very sick. The N'ganga quietly ordered a grand dance, with immense noise, to drive away the evil spirits of the royal sickness. The whites, who had a station in the vicinity, could not sleep at night for the din, and therefore, calling up the N'ganga, offered him several pieces of cloth if he would stop the dance. The N'ganga took the cloth, and there was no more dancing. Such is the N'ganga, the great medicine-man of the negroes. If any one asks whether the missions, of which there are now several on the Congo, can not exert an influence on the fetich-faith of the negroes, I would answer that an influence is possible, but only, I believe, by substituting for the present fetiches other Christian objects such as I saw in the French mission at Laudana, where the converted youth