Page:West African Studies.djvu/267

 "See! if you turn witch, your inside will be stuck on a pole."

I may remark that in many districts of the South-West coast and middle Congo it is customary when a person dies in an unexplainable way, namely without shedding blood, to hold a post-mortem. In some cases the post mortem discloses the path of the witch through the victim—usually, I am informed, the injected witch feeds on the victim's lungs—in other cases the post-mortem discloses the witch power itself, demonstrating that the deceased was a keeper of witch power, or, as we should say, a witch.

Once when I was at Batanga a woman dropped down on the beach and died. The usual post-mortem was held, and local feeling ran high. "She no complain, she no say nothing, and then she go die one time." The post-mortem disclosed what I think you would term a ruptured aneurism of the aorta, but the local verdict was "she done witch herself"—namely that she was a witch, who had been eaten by her own power, therefore there were great rejoicings over her death.

This dire catastrophe is, however, liable to overtake legitimate medical men. All reasonable people in every clime allow a certain latitude to doctors. They are supposed to know things other people need not, and to do things, like dissections and such, that other people should not, and no one thinks any the worse of them. This is the case with the African physician, whom we roughly call the witch doctor, but whose full title is the combatant of the evils worked by witches and devils on human souls and human property. This medical man has, from the exigencies of his profession, to keep in his own inside a power, and a good strong one at that, which he can employ in his