(1) The heads of various kinds of snakes. When a medicine man captures a snake he takes it by the neck in his right hand and passes its tail three times around and behind his waist with the left hand, like a belt, the third time passing its head to his left hand, which is grasping the tail, and then clasping neck and tail in the left hand and holding it out from his body. He makes three gashes with a knife on the back of the snake’s head, just above the neck, at the same time making a gash in the back of his left hand, which is holding the snake’s head and tail. He then takes some of the blood from the gash on the back of his hand and smears it with his knife point in each of the gashes in the snake’s neck. The snake dies after the man’s blood has been smeared on the gashes, and its head is then severed below the gashes and put into the nzele with the vegetable ingredients. These are then pounded up till the mixture becomes a pitch-like substance. It is put back on the fire until thoroughly dried, when it is ground up into a powder varying from dark grey to black in colour.
The medicine is now ready for use and is placed in its several receptacles. The vegetable ingredients are always the same, but as each kind of snake is treated, each vessel holds a different kind of medicine. On this occasion the doctor had only three snakes fastened up in a gourd with air holes bored into it. Before explaining the initial process he took them out and put the first round his neck and the second on his lap, [[200]]where it lay diversifying its position by coiling round his arm.
The snakes brought for inspection were:
(1) Ndau (female).—About eighteen inches long, dark green on the back and light green underneath. It both spits and bites, and lives mostly in trees. Its darts are very rapid.
(2) Syomelule (female).—A dark grey colour on the back and light grey to light yellow below; the pattern appeared to be almost in squares. It was about two feet long and had not digested a mouse which had got half-way down. It is said to be a tree snake; it both spits and strikes, and after striking sticks on to the bitten part.
(3) Kiko (male).—Marked like a puff adder, black, with a broad flat head. Unfortunately this one had had a slight difference with the second snake, which had struck and killed it on the way to the station. It was in the bottom of the gourd and was not visible. It is said to lie on the road, shamming death, and rearing suddenly, to strike at the thigh. The larger ones also spit, and are especially dangerous to people drawing water.
There were in all seven small gourds of powder, each containing a mixture of the vegetable ingredient and a different kind of snake. In addition to the three snakes above mentioned the gourds contained the powder made from four other kinds of snakes:
(4) Nguluku.—Said to be a small, reddish, whip-like snake of which larger specimens have also been found living near streams; their bite is very deadly.
(5) Kimbuba (Swahili Bafu).—Puff adder.
(6) Kisilu.—A very black snake seldom leaving its hole in the daytime.