The spirit Ukuk only comes to light on such occasions. At other times he lives deep below the surface of the earth in his dark cavern, which is imitated as well as may be by the sacred hut, that is thickly covered with leaves, so that not a ray of light may enter. When he enters the hut, he blows the magic whistle, and on hearing the sound all the initiated repair to the house. As these spirits are so much feared, it is natural that the natives should try to drive them out of every place where they have taken up an unwelcome residence.
With some spirits the favorite spot is the body of a man, who is thereby made ill, and who will die if the spirit be not driven out of him. Now the Camma believe that evil spirits cannot bear noise, especially the beating of drums, and so, at the call of the fetish man, they assemble round the sick man, beat drums and kettles close to his head, sing, dance, and shout with all their might. This hubbub goes on until either the patient dies, as might naturally be expected, or manages to recover in spite of the noise. The people who assist in the operation do so with the greatest vigor, for, by some strange coincidence, it happens that the very things which disgust an evil spirit, such as dancing, singing, drum-beating, and noise-making in general, are just the things which please them best, and so their duties and inclinations are happily found to coincide.
Sometimes the demon takes up his residence in a village, and then there is a vast to-do before he can be induced to go out. A fetish man is brought from a distance—the farther the better—and immediately set to work. His first business is to paint and adorn himself, which he does in such a manner as to look as demoniacal as possible. One of these men, named Damagondai, seen by Du Chaillu, had made himself a horrible object. The artist has pictured the [weird-looking creature] on the 517th page. His face was whitened with chalk, a red circle was drawn on each side of his mouth, a band of the same color surrounded each eye, and another ran from the forehead to the tip of the nose. A white band was drawn from the shoulders to the wrists, and one hand was completely whitened. On his head was a tall plume of black feathers; strips of leopard skin and a variety of charms were hung upon his body; and to his neck was suspended a little box, in which he kept a number of familiar spirits. A string of little bells encircled his waist.
This ghastly figure had seated himself on a stool before another box full of charms, and on the box stood a magic mirror. Had the magician been brought from the inland parts of the country, and away from the river along which all traffic runs, he could not have possessed such an article as a mirror, and would have used instead a bowl of water. By the mirror lay the sacred horn full of the fetish powder, accompanied by a rattle containing snake bones. His assistant stood near him, belaboring a board with two sticks.
After the incantations had been continued for some time, the wizard ordered that the names of all the inhabitants of the village should be called out, and as each name was shouted he looked in the mirror. However, he decided at last that the evil spirit did not live in any of the inhabitants, but had taken up his residence in the village, which he wanted for himself, and that he would be very angry if any one tried to share it with him.
Du Chaillu saw that this was a sly attack on him, as he had just built some comfortable houses in the village. Next morning the people began to evacuate the place. They carried off their property, and tore down the houses, and by nightfall not an inhabitant was left in the village except the white man and two of his attendants, both of whom were in great terror, and wanted to follow the others. Even the chief was obliged to go, and, with many apologies to his guest, built a new house outside the deserted village. Not wishing to give up the houses that had cost so much time and trouble, Du Chaillu tried to induce the natives to rebuild the huts; but not even tobacco could overcome their fear of the evil spirit. However, at last some of the bolder men tried the experiment, and by degrees a new village arose in the place of that which had been destroyed.
The same magician who conducted the above-mentioned ceremony was an unmitigated cheat, and seems to have succeeded in cheating himself as well as his countrymen. He was absurdly afraid of darkness, and as nightfall came on he always began to be frightened, wailing and execrating all sorcerers, witches, and evil spirits, lamenting because he knew that some one was trying to bewitch him, and at last working himself up to such a pitch of excitement that the inhabitants of the village had to turn out of their huts, and begin dancing and singing.
Perhaps this self-deception was involuntary, but Damagondai wilfully cheated the people for his own purposes. In his double capacity as chief and fetish man he had the charge of the village idols. He had a very potent idol of his own, with copper eyes and a sword-shaped protruding tongue. With the eyes she saw coming events, and with the tongue she foretold the future and cut to pieces the enemies of Damagondai’s people. M. du Chaillu wanted to purchase this idol, but her owner refused to sell her. He hinted, however, that for a good price the goddess of the slaves might be bought. Accordingly, a bargain was struck, the idol in question was removed from the hut, packed up, and carried away by the purchaser, while the slaves were away at their work. Damagondai was rather perplexed as to the answer which he would have to give the slaves when they came home and found their idol house empty, but at last he decided to tell them that he had seen the goddess leave her house, and walk away into the woods. The idol in question was an absurd-looking object, something like a compromise between one of the figures out of a “Noah’s Ark” and a Dutch wooden doll.
Various as are all these superstitions, there is one point at which they all converge, namely, the dread Mboundou ordeal, by which all who are accused of witchcraft are tested. The mboundou is a tree belonging to the same group as that from which strychnine is made, and is allied to the scarcely less celebrated “vine” from which the Macoushie Indians prepare the wourali poison. From the root of the mboundou a drink is prepared, which has an intoxicating as well as a poisonous quality, and which is used for two purposes, the one being as an ordeal, and the other as a means of divination.
The medicine men derive most of their importance from their capability of drinking the mboundou without injury to their health; and while in the intoxicated state they utter sentences more or less incoherent, which are taken as revelations from the particular spirit who is consulted. The mode of preparing the poisoned draught is as follows:—A given quantity of the root is scraped and put into a bowl, together with a pint of water. In a minute or so a slight fermentation takes place, and the water is filled with little bubbles, like those of champagne or other sparkling wines. When this has subsided, the water becomes of a pale reddish tint, and the preparation is complete. Its taste is very bitter.