Shortly afterwards the uncle fell sick, and in spite of remedies and “doctors” he continued ill; but at last he made the boy take the ordeal, and not vomiting it he was considered guilty of bewitching his uncle. The boy was well thrashed, and his father had to pay 200 brass rods to the medicine man for administering the ordeal. This punishment was inflicted not because the ordeal proved that the lad was guilty, but because of his insolent threat, and to teach him to let other folk alone. The uncle pulled up his houses and went to live at the other end of the town beyond the lad’s influence.
This uncle soon after married another wife, who had a young brother who was a scholar in my school. One day the uncle came asking me for this lad that he might give him the ordeal. I refused to hand him over for such a purpose, and “Besides,” I said, “he does not belong to your family,” for I had not heard of the marriage.
“Yes, he does,” the man replied; “I have married his sister, and he is bewitching me through his sister, who is now my wife. My nephew, who took the ordeal some time ago, says that he has passed on the witchcraft to my young brother-in-law.” It thus appears that a mischievous boy can say that he has passed on his witchcraft to another lad and so bring trouble on that youngster. This uncle was continually bothering me about these lads, and at last, to avoid further trouble, I sent them, with their full consent, to work on one of our other stations many miles down-river, and the uncle was much relieved.
The uncle in his new locality surrounded himself with many charms, but he did not live many years. He was not physically strong, and every charm he possessed was to guard him from a complaint, or to preserve him from witchcraft.
CHAPTER XXIII
DEATH AND BURIAL
Three causes of death—By act of God—By another’s witchcraft—By one’s own witchcraft—An explosion—Decorating the corpse—fee to view the body—Smoking the body—Making coffins—Three kinds of graves—Killing slaves—Burying women alive—Signs of mourning—The nether world—Suicides—Funeral dance for a man—Dance for a woman.
There are three causes of death well recognized among the Boloki: To die by an act of God; to die by another’s witchcraft; and to die by one’s own witchcraft. On the Lower Congo the first and second causes of death are acknowledged, but I never heard there of a person dying by his, or her, own witchcraft.
In cases of accidental death, as caused by the swamping of a canoe in a storm, they say that God has caused the death. There is a certain amount of fatalism in this statement; but other accidents in which they observe what they consider exceptional circumstances, as the upsetting of a canoe by a hippopotamus or by a crocodile, they place to the account of witchcraft. Thus a canoe swamped in a storm is “an act of God,” but a canoe upset by a crocodile is “an act of witchcraft,” as no crocodile will upset a canoe unless it is told to do so by a witch, or unless a witch has gone into the creature and compels it to commit the outrage; therefore it is necessary to discover the witch and punish the person who harbours such an evil spirit. The word for sorrow is nkele, which really means anger, indignation, and the idea is that they are “angry” that their relative has been done to death by the witch. I tried very hard, but I found no other word for grief, sorrow, etc., at the death of anyone than this word nkele or anger—a very suggestive sidelight on the native view of death.
On the death of a sick man the body is opened, and the arteries connected with the liver are examined by a witch-doctor, and if they are full, or only one is empty, then the deceased was bewitched to death, i.e. he died by witchcraft (awi moyengwa); and consequently someone is accused, and the ordeal is administered to one person after another until the guilty party is discovered, i.e. until someone succumbs to the ordeal, and falls intoxicated by it to the ground.