I found only one tree that is supposed to have a spirit, and that is the tree used for ordeal purposes. When a person wants to take the rootlets of the ordeal tree (nka), he first selects the tree, then spreads a leaf on the closed fist of his left hand, and strikes it with the palm of his right hand. If the leaves on the tree tremble in response, he knows the tree is strong and fit to use; but if they remain quiescent, it is a sign that the ordeal property (nka) is weak and unfit for its purpose, so another tree is sought, until he finds one that responds in sympathy to the striking of the leaf.

The life of the native, surrounded as he is by all these various spirits, would be intolerable, unthinkably so, were it not for his many witch-doctors, who have power to control the spirits, and even kill them, and his many charms that protect him from their many malignant designs, or enlist their power on behalf of the wearers and users of them. Which came first—a belief in the spirits, or the witch-doctors to circumvent them? I am disposed to think that the witch-doctors are largely responsible for the creation of these various spirits to account for their numerous failures in warding off sickness and death. With these witch-doctors, however, we must deal in another chapter.

CHAPTER XX
MEDICINE MEN AND THEIR MAGIC

Number of medicine men—How to become a witch-doctor—Mayeya and his long dive—Makwata and his talking spear—A simple trick—Female witch-doctors—Three kinds of witchcraft—Discredited witch-doctors—Fear of the witch-doctors.

There is not so great a variety of medicine men (nganga)[[41]] among the Boloki as among the Bakongo of the Lower Congo, nor is the modus operandi of bewitching people and of removing the witchcraft so well defined. Among the Boloki the medicine man is much in evidence, but he is not regarded with much awe or respect. The office is hereditary, and it is difficult for a person to become a medicine man who has not already a near relative in the profession. The old medicine man teaches his son the tricks of his trade free of all charges; and when a novice is considered efficient he undergoes the following test: Something is hidden and he has to find it, and having discovered the secreted article he must then perform a magic ceremony, such as killing an animal possessed by a spirit—a trick he has easily learned from his father, and after that he blossoms out as a fully qualified medicine man.

[41]. Nganga means medicine man, witch-doctor, doctor, wizard, soothsayer, sorcerer, magician, etc.

If a person in whose family there has been a medicine man desires to join the profession he goes to an old witch-doctor, and on paying a heavy fee he is taught as though he were a son, but he must pass the usual tests as above; if, however, a person in whose family there has never been a medicine man wishes to join the profession, he is deterred from so doing by being told that he must first kill all the members of his family by witchcraft, as offerings to that spirit (mweta) of the particular branch he desires to join. This results in the man refusing to become a witch-doctor, and even if he were so callous as to still wish it, his family would not allow him to proceed, as they believe they would fall victims to his witchcraft. Thus the secrets of the profession are retained in a very few families. Still, I have known a slave belonging to a Boloki man become a great medicine man by pretending to perform a wonderful feat, which was as follows:

Mayeya, for that was the man’s name, went one day with a lad in a canoe across the river. By and by the lad returned without Mayeya, and on being asked where he was, the lad replied: “Mayeya fell from the canoe into the river, and since then I have not seen him.”

Seven days after this Mayeya walked up from the river into the town dressed in his best cloth, etc. The people gathered around him asking him where he had been, and he solemnly informed them that he had been under the river for the whole of the seven days, consulting with the water-spirits, and that now he was a witch-doctor. The people believed in him, and flocked to him with cases from all the neighbouring villages, towns, and districts, and by his many and large fees he became so wealthy that he was able to pay ten men and two women—one woman is equal in price to four men—for his ransom, and then became a slave-owner himself and a man of wealth.