Ailments and Remedies.
All serious ailments occurring up to certain ages, and except in certain cases, are generally assumed to be the work of someone acting in connection with a spirit; but, speaking generally, no efforts appear to be made by imprecation or other supernatural method to propitiate or contend against these spirits, except by the use of general charms against illness, and except, so far as the propitiation or driving out of the spirit is involved, by one or other of the specific remedies for specific ailments mentioned below. The natives have, however, for common diseases cures of which some are obviously purely fanciful and superstitious, but some are probably more or less practical.
The chief ailments are colds and complications arising from them, malaria, dysentery, stomach and bowel and similar complaints, toothache and wounds.
Dysentery has recognised and accredited curers, both men and women. The operator chews and crushes with his teeth the root of a vegetable (I do not know what it is) which they grow in their gardens, and then wraps it up into a small bundle in a bunch of grass, and gives it to the patient to suck. This remedy does not appear to be effective.
There are men who are specially skilled in dealing with stomach and bowel troubles. The operator takes in his hand a stone, and with the other hand he sprinkles that stone over with ashes. He then makes over it an incantation, in which, though his lips are seen to be moving, no sound comes out of them; after which he takes some of the ashes from the stone, which he still holds in his hand, and with these ashes he rubs the stomach of the patient, who, I was told, generally at once feels rather better, or says so.
There are also women who deal with cases believed to be caused by the presence in the stomach of a snake, which has to be got out. Here the operator takes a piece of bark cloth, with which she rubs the front of the patient’s body, but without any incantation. Then, as she removes the cloth from the body, she makes a movement as though she were wrapping up in it something, presumably the escaped snake; and afterwards she carries the cloth away with her, and the cure is thus effected.
A man with toothache will say that “a spirit is eating my teeth.” The people seem to have a knowledge of something inside the teeth, the nature of which I am not able to state definitely, but which apparently is, in fact, the nerve, and they recognise that it is in this something that the pain arises; but I could not ascertain the connection between this something and the spirit which is supposed to cause the trouble. If the aching tooth can be got at, they adopt a method the native explanation of which was translated to me as being a drawing or driving out of the mysterious something from the tooth. This is done in some way with an ordinary native comb, without extracting the tooth itself; but how it is done I could not ascertain. There is no incantation connected with the operation. Another cure is for the patient to chew the leaf of a certain tree (I do not know what tree), so that the sap of it gets into the hole in the tooth, and thereby, as they think, draws or drives out this nerve, or whatever the something may be. The Fathers of the Mission told me that both these two remedies do really appear to be effective.
Wounds are the speciality of many healers with special knowledge of the curative properties of various plants, and who gather the plant, make an incantation over it, boil it in water, and then with that water wash the wound. There are also men who operate surgically on wounds with knives made of stone or shell or bamboo.
Charms, probably of a poisonous nature, are used generally for the warding off of sickness, these being carried in the little charm bags.
A general and universal cure for all ailments is a piece of bark, tied with a piece of string to the neck or head, all neck ornaments having been first removed.
I regret that as regards all these matters I am only able to indicate shortly and generally the methods of cure, and can give no further explanation concerning them.