“Sometimes there are pains in the legs.” “Ndungu,” was very coldly uttered by the crowd. The nganga recognized that he was on the wrong scent; but still he had managed to narrow the circle of affected parts, so he began again.
“There are such things as pains in the arms and thighs.” “Ndungu,” indifferently replied the people.
“Sometimes there are pains in the chest and stomach.” “Otuama,” uttered the poor folk.
He now knew his patient was suffering either from a bad stomach or chest, and he continued to narrow it down in this manner until at last he said: “Ah! her chest is very bad.” The people excitedly shouted, “Otuama,” snapped their fingers, and looked at the nganga with awe-filled eyes.
The “doctor” now knew that his patient’s chest was the seat of the trouble. What are the most common complaints of the chest? Hacking coughs, asthma, bronchitis, pleurisy, and pneumonia. So he started off to discover the particular disease from which the woman was suffering and the part affected. The people coldly said “Ndungu” when he missed his guess, or frantically called out “Otuama”; by this cunning process he narrowed the circle smaller and smaller, until at last, to their astonishment, he said: “The woman is suffering from pleurisy (ntulu) on the right side of the chest.”
The people thought that such a clever man, who had found out all about the disease without being told and without seeing the patient, was just the person to cure the complaint. He was consequently engaged at once and well paid. He made no proper examination of the patient, but took out some of his herbs and charms, and beating them into a paste told them to rub the woman’s chest with the preparation.
After two or three days, Bakula’s mother feeling no better, the family sent to ngang’ a moko. The messenger who went to her, for this witch-doctor is generally a woman, took with him a red bead which he gave to the nganga, who put it under her pillow that she might in a dream discover the cause of her patient’s complaint--whether it is a mere ailment, or a bewitchment by some evil spirit.
The nganga received her fee of one good fowl and fifty brass rods, and that night placed the bead beneath her pillow; but whether she dreamed or not I do not know. However, in the morning she told the messenger that the first “doctor” was unable to effect a cure because some one was bewitching the sick woman, and the family must send for a wizard to kill the evil spirit that was troubling her, and then she would soon recover from her complaint.
When the message was delivered Bakula, who was standing by, at once denounced the cheating trickery of the ngangas, and told how he, with others, had exposed one of these spirit-killing wizards in a certain town. He explained the whole process even to the piece of kwanga wrapped up to imitate a corpse, with the fowl’s bladder of blood inside. The people looked at him with horror-stricken eyes, recoiled from him in terror, and with raised fingers accused him of being a ndoki, or evil spirit, as otherwise he could not have meddled with the nganga and his things and not have suffered for it.
Bakula denied the cruel charge; but from that day he was regarded by the people with unfriendly suspicion, and was shunned by them. But for his slave friend, Tumbu, and his former scholars he would have led a very lonely life.