The medicine man’s white magic, i.e. those means employed for curing the people of their mental and bodily ailments, may, to us, seem foolish and inadequate, but there is nothing to condemn in its practice except that it often deceives the people. Whether the medicine man deceives himself—believes in himself or not—is another matter.
Undoubtedly, through generations of inherited knowledge concerning herbs, etc., they possess some remedies that do their patients good; and there are many faith cures—the results of an implicit belief in the medicine man and the means he uses. I have noticed that the Congo medicine man cures just that class of ailments that the different branches of “faith healers” cure in Europe and America.
The Congo system of white magic is founded on quackery, but like quackery in other parts of the world the remedy sometimes meets the disease, and such successes are remembered and talked about, while the many failures are forgotten. Black magic, i.e. those means employed for inflicting pain, misfortune, and death on an enemy, is to be found in all parts of the Congo. Although black magic is so widely practised, yet it is condemned by the natives in as strong language as that used by the white man. Every native condemns it in everybody else, and excuses it in himself. Those who practise it must do so in secret, or the hatred of the village and the district will fall upon them.
In the Appendix will be found a fairly complete list[[42]] of the diseases from which the people suffer. In addition to the complaints there mentioned, the natives suffer from stomachache, toothache, soreness of gums, sympathetic buboes, ulcers caused by jiggers (chigoes), etc., the children from wind, teething, convulsions, etc.
[42]. See Appendix, Note 5, page 345.
There are rare cases of albinos (yeme), and they are regarded with respect, and although they marry, yet there are many women who, through fear, refuse to have them. The skin is a dirty white with a distinct tint of pink in it. The hair is curly and very light, with a glint of red, and the eyes are red and intolerant of light. Albinos are somewhat repulsive looking, and one is glad to turn the eyes quickly in another direction. Those I have seen were men, well-developed and healthy looking, except that the skin had a pimply rash on it, which may have been due to the strong rays of the sun on a delicate skin. They suffer considerably from the direct rays of the sun on their skin, probably as much as a white man would suffer who had to go about in tropical Africa in a nude condition.
Among the people there are cases of auburn hair, but the eyes are not different from those of other people. With the exception of supernumerary toes and fingers, the deformities I have seen have been due to disease. People with a sore on the under part of the heel often walk on the toes, or side of the foot, so long that at last they are unable to walk properly.
The Boloki attribute diseases to several causes, such as broken taboos, curses, witchcraft, to disembodied spirits (mingoli), to the spirits of disease (mēte), i.e. those spirits that give individual complaints, to those spirits (mieta) that give family complaints or epidemics, and to the spirit (ejo) of wealth, which inflicts severe diseases, and when the sufferer dies he (or she) is regarded as taken by this spirit, or, as sacrificed to the spirit of wealth.
The general name for medicine is mono, and it may mean a daub of simple pigment on the affected part, a poultice of leaves, or a complicated concoction that has taken a long time to prepare and some thought to arrange.
It will be seen from a study of their diseases that they fall into two classes: (1) Those of which the symptoms are observable and easily diagnosed, as diarrhœa, insanity, etc.; and (2) Those of which the symptoms are difficult to diagnose, as great debility, sleeping-sickness, etc. The former are regarded as simple sicknesses, called bokono; but the latter are put to the credit of the various spirits, or to the malignant influence of witchcraft. When the sickness is simple (bokono), herbs are employed, medicines prepared, and taboos imposed on the patient; when, however, the illness is caused by one or other of the spirits, then a medicine man whose work it is to deal with that particular spirit is called. The functions of the various witch-doctors have already been described, and also of the spirits that either send or impart diseases. Some sicknesses are especially regarded as the result of breaking a covenant and falling under the curse that follows, as dysentery; or as the result of a broken treaty, as wounds and death in a fight; or as the consequences of a wife’s unfaithfulness while the husband is away at a fight, as severe wounds.