Among Congo cannibals

by John H. Weeks

We have seen in the preceding chapter on spirits that certain spirits cause certain diseases, and that the names of many diseases are really the names of those spirits that are supposed to cause them. To deal with the spirit of extreme debility there are “doctors,” who are always women, and these are engaged to treat both men and women suffering from this complaint. The “doctor” in dealing with this spirit dances, chants, and shakes a rattle, until the patient says he has the spirit (bwete) of debility stirring in him; he knows it by the way it jerks and sways his body. The medicine woman prepares the post (etoli) and invites the spirit to go and reside in it and not trouble the patient any more.

These female “doctors” attend the women of certain totem families, whose children five days after birth have their ears pierced; such families are supposed to be patronized by a parturition spirit (bwete bwa boweya) that will help the child to grow strong, fat, and healthy if its ears are pierced on the fifth day with the proper dance and ceremony; but will cause the child’s death if the mother when enceinte does not use the proper medicines under the guidance of this female “doctor,” or does not have its ears pierced in the proper way.

When a man is troubled with a sickness which has failed to yield to other means, or one in whose family there has been a death and he cannot afford to hire a witch-finder, he goes to a medicine man whose fee is comparatively small, for his operations are simple and his paraphernalia small. He, on being hired, brings out his fetish saucepan of water, and placing it in a good position he pours some sugar-cane wine by its side, for souls or embodied spirits are very fond of this drink. He then calls the spirits by putting a leaf on the closed fist of the left hand and striking it with the palm of the right hand; thereupon they show themselves one by one in the fetish saucepan (likenge), into which only the witch-doctor is allowed to look.

A spirit appears, turns, and shows its face when challenged to do so, and shakes its head negatively, and as the showing of the face is regarded as a proof that it belongs to an innocent person, it is told to pass. By and by a spirit appears in the saucepan that persistently refuses to show its face after being repeatedly ordered to do so by the medicine man, therefore he stabs it with a splinter of bamboo, and the owner of that spirit, who is the witch, is now supposed to die very soon, and thus release this medicine man’s client from its malign influence. It is interesting to note that a person’s soul can be called from him by a witch-doctor, for the word used in this connection is elimo, and that means the soul of a living person. It is also noteworthy that they expect more truthfulness in the soul of a person than in the person himself.

The Boloki folk, like others more advanced in civilization, are very anxious to know about the future, so they have a soothsayer whose special function it is to predict coming events. This diviner dances to the beat of drums and chants, the chorus being taken up by all who are present. When he has worked himself and his audience up to a certain pitch of excitement he looks into his fetish bag of medicines, and from what he sees there he foretells war, or the reverse, its success or failure, and other events, such as the success or non-success of a trading expedition, fishing and hunting parties, etc.

The natives, both male and female, are not always successful in their love affairs, hence they have a special medicine man who makes their love philtres. A woman takes the nail-parings, hair-cuttings, and chewed pith of the sugar-cane of the person whose love she desires, to this particular “doctor.” He makes them into a medicine which, after well drying, he pounds into a powder. This powder the woman takes and blows over the object of her love while he is asleep.

The man procures the nail-parings and hair-cuttings of the woman he loves, and carries them to this maker of love philtres; but instead of the powder being blown over the sleeping object of his passion, he mixes it with sugar-cane wine and gives it to her to drink. A slave will use the same method to gain an easier time from his master or mistress; and this philtre is also used on people to cause them to forget a wrong or grant a request.

There are to be found among them witch-doctors to help them in every emergency of life, and not the least curious is the one who aids them to vanish in the midst of danger. The medicine man who thus serves them takes his name from the charm he makes, which is rubbed on the body, or tied on the wrist or leg of his client, who, when thus protected, can walk right among his enemies, and if they catch him they find only his cloth in their hands, for the person in the cloth has vanished. This charm (called ndemo) is largely used in times of war, as the possessor of it can fight and kill without being seen by the enemy, and it is also in great favour with thieves. The charm consists of a yellow pigment rubbed on the temples, or “medicine” mixed with the pigment and fixed to brass wire and tied round the wrist, the leg, or the waist.

They frequently told me of the wonderful power of this charm in rendering a thief invisible; but they never accepted my challenge to put the matter to the test. I offered to allow any one of them to keep any article he could steal in my rooms; the conditions were that I was to be in the room and the thief was to take the article while I was present and yet be invisible to me—I should simply see the thing move, apparently of itself, out of the room. They said it could be done, but they never proved it.

When there is smallpox in a district the nervous go to a medicine man, who makes small cuts on his client’s body and sucks out some blood, which he spits on to a leaf and examines very carefully. If some small threads are seen in the blood, the “doctor” points them out to the others present, and says that “as I have sucked out the witchcraft (likundu) the person will not die, although he may become infected with smallpox.” Should no threads be seen and by and by the person catches smallpox, his relatives will tell him that he cannot recover unless he confesses to having bewitched one or more persons. Under pressure of constant nagging the patient will confess (and who among them has not desired the death of one or more enemies and acquaintances?) to his mother, or father, or to an intimate friend, that he has bewitched several persons, and will even mention them by name; and after this confession he may become better.