When a woman runs away, her husband takes her nail-parings and hair-cuttings, which he has gathered for this and other purposes, to a medicine man, who puts them into a skin with medicine and returns them to him. The husband with this charm in his possession takes a leaf, spreads it on the closed fist of his left hand and strikes it with the palm of his right hand, and says: “If my wife stops to eat at the place to which she has run, let her die quickly.” The same ceremony is performed to ensure the return of a runaway slave, or to inflict harm on anyone with whom the owner of this special charm (named likunda) has quarrelled; consequently natives carefully destroy all their hair-cuttings and nail-parings so that no one may gain power over them.
The thief has a charm—a simple yellow pigment—to rub on his temples to help him steal cunningly and successfully; but if a man desires to protect his property from this kind of thief he procures a very long, broad-bladed knife with curved points, and on this he smears stripes of yellow pigment, and then a serious sickness will come upon the robber who steals from the owner of such a powerful charm (named lingundu). This charm is also used for two other purposes: when it is put near the door of a sick man it will kill the witch that tries to enter; and a medicine man also uses it to cut the soul (elimo) in half to cause the death of his client’s enemy. As the yellow pigment renders the thief invisible, so it also renders the knife invisible, so that the witch not seeing it blunders on it and fatally cuts itself; and the soul cannot see it, and can be executed by it when in the hands of the witch-doctor.
How does a native account for a man (or woman) being successful in his undertakings, fortunate in his circumstances, and acceptable and popular with folk generally? Well, the secret of it is that he has a charm (named montala) which operates powerfully in his favour. It is a bundle, a horn, or a hollow piece of bamboo with medicine in it. It renders its owner very attractive to women, to slaves, and to the people, and thus he is successful. Handsome, healthy, prosperous men are supposed to be what they are on account of the benefits bestowed by this charm.
When a son or daughter is about to leave home for another town, or to travel and trade, the father or near relative chews the leaves of a certain shrub, spits them out on to another leaf and mixes some camwood powder with the mess, and the son, or daughter, has to rub a little of this mixture (makako) on his body every day, otherwise he will not find favour with those among whom he may live or travel. Neither a son, nor a daughter, will travel without his charm. The ingredients of the love-charm, or philtre, have already been given (see the chapter on Medicine Men), and also the methods of effectively employing them.
It is also necessary, according to the native view of life, to have charms to help them in war, in rows, and among their enemies. There is a class of charms that enables them to go into the midst of their foes and yet escape, although they wish to capture them. By one charm the native bewitches the enemy; by another he excels the enemy in craftiness and cunning; by another he overawes and fascinates them so that they forget their hatred; and by another he becomes invisible to them. Each man patronizes his own particular charm, some having more faith in one than in another. There is also a charm, specially procured from a spirit and costing a goodly fee, that always enables its owner to capture one or more prisoners in a fight, and then helps him to disappear with his captives if too closely pursued by the enemy. The mud-fish is called njombo, and this name is given to a charm that imports the slippery characteristics of the eel-like mud-fish. The owner of this useful charm is as difficult to hold as an eel, and consequently it is much in demand by fighters and thieves, as it enables them to slip out of the hands of their captors.
Witchcraft plays a large part in native life, therefore we find among them various means of finding witches and counteracting their malignant powers. The simplest and cheapest method is to give a drink of water from the fetish bell to the suspected persons—the innocent are not hurt and the guilty one dies. Then there are the fetish saucepans of water used by the medicine men, in which the witches and evil spirits are supposed to appear and those proved guilty of witchcraft are destroyed. In each case the different spirits are called to the ordeal of the saucepan by the witch-doctor putting a leaf on the closed fist of his left hand and striking it with the palm of his right hand. If the leaf bursts, the spirits have heard and come at his bidding; but if the leaf does not break after three smacks, he desists, as the spirits are recalcitrant. When he wants a particular spirit he calls its name as he strikes the leaf.
When there is much sickness in a family the medicine man of the mat is sent for and he, after studying the matter, says: “There is a charm working against the family.” He erects his mat to form an enclosure and goes through a ceremony of much drumming and chanting, and by and by digs a hole inside his mat and gets out the charm (named ekundu), which is a saucepan containing animal and fish bones and brass links.
The pot and contents are said to belong to the evil spirit of a deceased relative who desires to trouble the family. The brass links, one or more, represent those members of the family who have been done to death by the evil spirit (mweta) since the decease of the wicked relative. (The medicine man knows how many have died in the family since the death of the said relative.) After removing the malignant charm from the ground, the evil spirit of the departed one has no more power over the family. Sometimes this ceremony is performed in the open, but it needs more cunning to deceive the spectators.
Photo by: Rev. R. H. Kirkland
A Bopoto Fetish ensuring Good Health to Twins
When twins are born the placentæ are put into two old saucepans that are then raised on forked sticks and placed on either side of the road leading to the village. This is a sign to passers-by that twins have been born, and to destroy any evil influences entering the town that might harm the twins.