Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/557

 into a paste with blood or rum. In the second and third cases the preparation is kept in a small brass pan, and the red tail-feathers of a parrot are commonly stuck in the paste. A suhman prepared in one of the last three modes is frequently kept covered in Shea butter, but a wooden figure never.

"Having adopted one of these courses, the individual in quest of a suhman then calls upon the spirit of Sasabonsum to enter the object which he has prepared, promising to reverence it and give it offerings. According to most natives he then picks certain leaves, the juice of which he squeezes upon the object, saying, 'eat this and speak.' Then, if a spirit has entered the object—in other words if the latter has become a suhman—a low hissing noise is heard. Being thus assured that the spirit is there, the man then puts a number of questions—ought he, the suhman, to be kept in a box, or left unenclosed? should he be anointed with Shea butter, or left dry? and those questions to which a low hissing sound is heard in reply are believed to be answered in the affirmative."

In the two cases in which I saw a suhman procured, the methods employed were Nos. 1 and 3. I have seen chsuhman in the possession of individuals, answering all the particulars in appearance of the other kinds.

The chief use of a suhman is the power it gives its owner to procure the death of other people, not necessarily his own enemies, for he will sell charms made by the agency of his suhman to another person whose nerves have not been equal to facing Sasabonsum on his own account. He can also provide by its agency other charms, such as those that protect houses from fire, and things and individuals from accidents on the road, or in canoes, and the home circle from good-looking but unprincipled young men, and so on.

The quantity of charms among the Negroes, as among the Bantu, verges on infinity. Most of them are procured from suhman holders, but not all I fancy a suhman wears himself out in making charms, for you will sometimes come across "dead" ones that you may buy. These dead ones are chsuhman (pl.) who have failed several times to work because the spirit has left them; whereas a live charm is treasured, and treated as a sentient thing. A man I know had a bundle