After our meal the king disappeared and went into the Alumbi house. When he came out, his appearance had quite changed. Now his body was painted in different colors. He was covered with “mondahs,” or charms. He was chewing some of the clay which dyed his lips yellow. Then taking my two hands, he blew the ochre from his mouth upon them until they were entirely covered with it, and invoked the spirits of his ancestors, Kombé-Ratenon-Olenda and Olenga-Yombee, to be my friends, and watch over me.
That night there was a great dance. Singing and dancing went on together. At times women danced alone, and moved the muscles of their bodies in most ridiculous fashion. At other times men and women danced and sang together. The noise was very great, for there were over twenty tomtoms beating at the same time.
CHAPTER VIII
BAD LUCK OF MOMBO’S VILLAGE—ASCRIBED TO WITCHCRAFT—ARRIVAL OF A GREAT MEDICINE-MAN—HIS INCANTATIONS—THE ACCUSED SOLD AS SLAVES.
The people had been filled for some time with the fear of witchcraft. Two men had died away from the village; and, since, they had been unlucky in fishing and hunting. Certainly all this could not have happened without some one wishing the village bad luck. A great medicine doctor living far away had been sent for, and had arrived, and the ceremony to find out who were the sorcerers was about to take place.
One morning King Mombo and all his men assembled to listen to the words of the great medicine-man, and were seated cross-legged on the ground around him, all looking excited and with hatred in their eyes.
The medicine-man, whose reputation for power to find out sorcerers was known all over the country, was extremely ugly to look upon, and was weirdly dressed for the occasion. His teeth were filed sharp to a point. He was tall and slender, and about fifty years old. He had a treacherous and cunning eye. I could tell by his face that he would denounce people as guilty of witchcraft about whom he really knew nothing. His head, chest, and arms were painted with sacred ochre of different colors, likewise his eyelids. He wore around his waist a string of long grass upon which were hung several bells of iron. Near the medicine-man was the horn of a buffalo filled up with a sort of black powder made of skins and bones of snakes, dried brains of monkeys, and intestines of rare animals. He held in his hand a wicker rattle filled with snakes’ bones, eagles’ talons and monkeys’ nails, which he shook during his incantations.
After each incantation the people shouted, “Ouganga, tell us who are sorcerers amongst us, so that we may kill them.”
Another man was on the top of a slender tree, calling now and then upon Joko, a powerful spirit, and shaking the tree at the same time.
The medicine-man remained silent for awhile, as if in deep thought; then he made all kinds of contortions, and muttered unintelligible words. He took a knife and cut his hands in different places. The blood fell into a little wooden vessel, and he looked intently at his own blood, as if trying to find out something; then he danced, the queer bells round his waist making a strange sound. The people kept shouting: “Tell us, Ouganga, who are the witches and sorcerers that have brought bad luck to us in the hunt and in fishing, who made some of our people sick, and some of our people die? Ouganga, drink the ‘mboundou,’ then you will be able to tell us who they are.”