Men and women to express their sympathy with a sick parent or relative will make a vow, saying: “I will not eat fowls,” or, “I will not go to Lulanga until my father is better.” Should the father die, then the person who made the self-imposed taboo must not eat any more fowls, or must never go again to Lulanga. These vows are very carefully observed, or a disease will result from breaking them.
A person therefore can be under four taboos, viz.: (1) The totem taboo (mokumbu) of his family. (2) The taboo (ngili), because of a serious illness and the desire to avert a relapse. (3) The inherited taboo (also ngili), to avoid a complaint from which the father suffered. (4) The temporary taboo (mungilu) of anger and sympathy.
This may be the best place in which to mention their curses, for they are often interwoven with their taboos. A very common curse employed on most occasions is to strike on the ground with a stick, and at the same time mention the name of the person cursed; and the person thus cursed will have a very bad form of dysentery, and the curser may say: “May I be cursed if ever I do such and such a thing”; thus the curser will become subject to the disease should he break his word.
A person curses an adult relative in the following manner: He rubs his thighs, bends down, and turns his back towards the one to be cursed and shouts: “Be accursed.” This is also done in the face of an enemy as an insolent curse on them. Early morning is said to be the best time for making it effective. I have seen this performed several times, and the person so cursed has hurled his knife or spear at the curser.
A father, or guardian, curses his child by words, and then the child will neither grow properly nor become wise or rich; but this is only resorted to on great provocation. Should the child become penitent and apologize for his evil ways, he takes a large fish or monkey or a goat to his father and begs him to remove the curse. The father accepts the present, and then chewing the stem of a certain shrub (called munsangasanga), he expectorates the pieces out on to the palm of his child’s hand, saying; “What I said I said in anger, and I now remove the curse.” The child is comforted and the two are reconciled.
To kick or touch a person accidentally, while passing him, with the foot is equivalent to cursing him. The person must turn round and slightly kick again the person whom he touched with his foot, otherwise bad luck, etc., will come upon the person kicked. Where we apologize they kick again, and the phrase used for the second kick means, “to reverse the effects of the first kick.” They are exceedingly careful not to touch a person with the foot in passing—that brings bad luck, and not to step over a person—that is an insult. A person moving out of a sitting crowd of folk shuffles his feet along the ground so as to avoid stepping over anyone, and will tell those squatting around to draw their feet up out of the way so as not to touch them.
There are other curses used by old and young alike during fits of passionate anger, as, “May you die by witchcraft”; or, “May you die by euphorbia poison”; or, “Cry for your mother,” i.e. May your mother die. The last is a curse bitterly resented, and is only uttered when a person is greatly exasperated. When a person is undergoing any ordeal test he repeatedly uses the word ngambu, which means: “If I am guilty, let the ordeal work against me; but if I am innocent, then let my accuser be accursed and die.” The ngambu curse is greatly dreaded by all natives.
Promises and oaths are ratified by each contracting party putting a curse on the other should he break his oath; and illness and bad luck are often regarded as due to unfaithfulness to one’s oath. Sometimes taboos are put on one another by the contracting parties, and so long as the taboos are carefully observed they are reckoned as faithful to their promises and oaths. This is specially so in the covenant of blood-brotherhood, and to disregard the taboo is to court either death or some great disaster. Many of their folk-lore stories are illustrative of the evil consequences resulting from the breaking of blood-brotherhood taboos.
Oaths are freely used by the Boloki in their conversation, and such liars are they that they feel it necessary to back their statements with, “I swear it” (ndai). The commonest form of oath is, “Cut my throat” (tena nkingu), and is always accompanied by the speaker wetting his finger and drawing it across his throat. “By my mother” (nta mama), and “By my father” (nta tata) are very strong oaths and are felt to be binding on the user of them, otherwise disaster will follow if the statements to which they are affixed are not true, or the promises to which they are attached are not fulfilled. “Truly so, by my mother” (bwele unko mama), and “Truly so, by my father” (bwele unko tata), are not regarded as being so strong as the former two, but they infer that the speaker pledges himself that his words are true, otherwise his mother or father will suffer.
A piece of stick, tin, or anything handy is cut into pieces, and each combatant or disputant takes a portion as a token that all matters of dispute are finished, and he who again starts one of the old quarrels calls down a curse upon himself. This cutting of a token (tena ndanga) is also done by the party who loses a case. He gives a portion of the cut token as an earnest of the payment of expenses, and of the fine imposed by those who judged the case, and if he does not redeem it he is under a curse and will suffer accordingly.