Satu, the chief, tried to stem the current of popular feeling and turn it away from Bakula, but he failed even to save the school-house. Native chiefs have power only to make the people do what they want to do; and they generally have to bow their heads before the whirlwinds of popular sentiment and feeling. This was Satu’s case. Neither his heart nor his intellect had been awakened by the new teaching, consequently he was not yet prepared to suffer either abuse or unpopularity for the sake of God’s palaver and all that it meant.
The natives have a way of their own in punishing an unpopular chief, as the following incident will show, which I heard a man relate one day to Bakula with much laughter: There was a chief of a neighbouring village who treated his people very contemptuously, and was always, on one pretext or another, exacting fowls, cloth or other goods from them. They bore patiently with him as long as possible, but at last his unreasonable demands became too excessive; so one day they bound him securely, placed him on a shelf in his own house, made a fire under him, and having sprinkled a quantity of red pepper on the fire, went out and shut the door.
The chief sneezed tremendously, and would have died if sufficient pepper had been put on the fire. After a time they took him out of the smoke and tied his extended arms to a cross-stick, and would have punished him further; but he paid a heavy fine, and has been much better since the sneezing cure was tried on him.
Chapter XXII
Bakula Falsely Accused and Murdered
Failure of various remedies--Witch-doctor engaged--Diagnosing a case--Different “medicine men” are called in--Bakula denounces their trickery--Suspicion of witchcraft falls on Bakula--Native attempts to rid themselves of death, sickness, etc.--Preparing a corpse for the grave--Bakula is accused of bewitching his mother to death--He is guarded by Old Plaited-Beard through the night--He is taken to the hill-top.--He falls and is done to death--Tumbu buries the mangled body of his friend.
A few weeks after the closing of the school, as narrated in the preceding chapter, Bakula’s mother fell seriously ill of a chest complaint. Many remedies were tried, but failed to relieve her. Some neighbourly women sat with her by day and attended her at night, and numberless were the sure cures they recommended; but although applied they proved utterly futile. Her family at last decided, much against the wish of Bakula, to send for the “medicine man” who cures by herbs, fetishes and charms. He was called ngang’a wuka.
As already stated,[[66]] each of these various ngangas (and there are nearly sixty different kinds) must find his way to the village and to the house of his client without either guidance or instruction, and he must also discover the disease from which his patient is suffering or the cause of death without asking a single direct question.
In due time the “medicine man” arrived in front of his patient’s house, having reached it by the usual stratagem of his assistant dropping leaves and twigs to indicate the road. He was a stout man with shrewd, quick, shifty eyes, and was dressed in the usual fantastic style, and carried a bag of charms slung from his shoulder. He seated himself outside the sick woman’s house, and a crowd quickly formed a circle round him.
The native “doctor” in diagnosing the case could not ask any direct questions of his patient--in fact she was in the house and he sat outside; but he met that difficulty thus: He asked a series of indirect questions, and when those present said “Ndungu” he knew he was on the wrong tack, and when they replied “Otuama” he knew at once he was guessing rightly, and the more excitedly they called out the latter word the nearer he knew he was to the truth, and the more indifferently they uttered “Ndungu” the farther he understood he was from the real complaint. Hence he started in this way--
“There are such things as backaches and headaches.” “Ndungu,” quietly said the folk.