One day I heard Mayeya boasting outside my house of the seven days he had spent under the water in company with the water-spirits; so going to him I said: “Mayeya, I hear you have lived under the river for seven days.”
“Yes,” he said, “I have.”
“Well,” I replied, “I will give you five thousand brass rods”—the currency of that district—“if you will remain under the water here in front of my house while I count them.”
He answered: “I cannot do it just now, but I will return on another day and do it for you.” Whenever I met Mayeya after that I always reminded him of his promise to stop under the river while I counted the rods.
The people at last used to urge him to accept my challenge and offer of 5000 brass rods. They argued with him, saying: “You have remained under the water for seven days, surely you can stay under it while the white man counts five thousand, for you know he counts very quickly. Go and get your five thousand rods, and then you will be able to buy two more wives.”
Mayeya, however, put them off with first one excuse and then another, until at last they chaffed him about it, laughed at him, and expressed the doubt as to whether he had stayed under the water half a day, much less seven whole days and nights.
As he still continued to make excuses the natives lost faith in him, his practice fell off, and the last I saw of Mayeya was his coming to borrow of me 100 brass rods, for he was in difficulties. To his request I replied: “No, you have cheated many people out of their money, and done to death many a person by your false accusations of witchcraft; I will not lend you a single brass rod, but there are five thousand waiting for you if you will only remain under the water while I count them.”
I was seated one day among some natives when they began to talk of the wonderful things Makwata (who was present) could do in making his spear shake and talk.
Now I never laughed at the pretensions of the natives, no matter how absurd they might be, nor did I ridicule their views, thoughts, and expressions. Perhaps that was the reason why they spoke so frankly to me, and tried to explain their ideas about things in general. I always dealt with them seriously and sympathetically.
I turned to Makwata and asked him whether he could do the wonderful things his companions were talking about or not. He very emphatically asserted that he could “make his spear shake and talk.”