[188] The poison ordeal, which required a woman suspected of infidelity to her husband to drink “bitter water” administered by the Jewish priest, is here referred to. This ordinance, of course, was not applicable in case of a similar offence charged against a husband (Numbers v, 12-31).
[189] Valdez (Six Years in Angola, vol. ii, p. 130) calls this ordeal quirigué tubia (Kiriké tubia), and says that the hot hatchet may be applied to any part of the person. The meaning of kiri is truth; of tubia, fire. Purchas is evidently mistaken when he calls this procedure Motamba, for tambi or mutambi is a kind of funeral feast or wake. The body having been buried, and potsherds, pipes, and other articles placed on the grave, the mourners devour a roast pig, the skull of which is afterwards thrown into a neighbouring river.
[190] Illness and death are frequently ascribed to witchcraft. If a disease does not yield to medical treatment by a Nganga a moko, the nganga a ngombo, or witch-doctor, is called in with his fetish. He may ascribe the death to natural causes, or to a charm worked by a person recently deceased and beyond his reach; or he may denounce one or more persons as witches. The persons thus denounced are compelled to submit to the poison ordeal (see, among others, Dennett’s Seven Years among the Fjort, and his Folk-Lore).
[191] Garcia Mendes de Castellobranco, p. 33, says, in 1621, that hens abounded and also goats and sheep, but that cows were rare.
[192] Zebras are still found in Benguella, but not any longer in Angola or Congo. Duarte Lopez, p. 49, speaks of a “pet zebra” (in Bamba?) which was killed by a “tiger.” Further on he says that zebras were common, but had not been broken in for riding. M. Garcia Mendez likewise mentions the “zebra.” The native name is ngolo (Kangolo). “Zebra” is a corruption of its Abyssinian appellation.
[193] Tandale, in Kimbundu, means councillor or minister of a soba or kinglet; tumba’ndala was an old title of the Kings of Angola, and may be translated Emperor (Cordeiro da Matta, Diccionario).
[194] All this is borne out by Portuguese documents. From the very beginning, Dias de Novaes handed over the Sovas to the mercy of his fellow-adventurers and the Jesuits. The system was still in force in 1620 when Garcia Mendez de Castellobranco proposed to King Philip a “regimen de aforamento” of the native chiefs, which would have yielded a revenue of fifteen million Reis, and would, at the same time, afforded some slight protection to the natives. Those who would have profited most largely by these “reforms” would have been the Jesuits.
[195] According to Dr. Pechuel-Loesche (Die Loango Expedition, vol. iii, p. 279), this seems to be the cowfish of the whalers, or Tursions gillii, Dale. The natives call it ngulu-mputu (ngulu, hog-fish;-mputu, Portugal). He says that the natives will not suffer this fish to be injured, as it drives other fish ashore and into their nets; and that if one of these fish were to be wounded or killed they would stop away for ever so long. The Rev. W. M. Holman Bentley, in his Dictionary of the Kongo Language, says that the ngola of the natives is a bagre, or catfish. A gigantic bagre, 8 ft. in length, is found in the Upper Coanza (Monteiro, Angola, vol. ii, p. 134). Mr. Dennett suggests the Chialambu, a kind of bream, which is said to chase other fish; Mboa, Mbwa, or Imboa certainly means dog, and is not the name of a fish.
[196] Massa-ngo, the Penisetum typhoideum, introduced from abroad. It is the milho, or millet, of the Portuguese (see Capello and Ivens, Benguella, vol. i, p. 103; vol. ii, p. 257).
[197] Massa-mballa is sorghum (Ficalho). A white variety is known as Congo-mazzo.