Regundo got up, went into his house and, coming back with a gun, said: “Oguizi, this gun has killed several nginas, many elephants. The ‘mondah’ [charm] attached to it is very powerful. It has brought me good luck in hunting and is the cause of my always having killed the animals I shot, no matter how strong or how fierce they were.”
Then Oshoria rose and said: “When a hunter comes before a big adult man ngina, he feels that he must kill the ngina or be killed by him. It is sure to be one or the other.” Then after a short pause he continued: “Strange to say, the ngina has the same number of bones that we have. The babies have twenty teeth like our children; later they have twenty-eight. Then they get four more and have thirty-two teeth, like adult human beings.
“The ngina lives in the dense and most solitary parts of the forest; it is a restless creature, wandering from place to place in search of food. They never kill animals to eat them, for they feed only on berries, nuts, and fruits of the forest, and on the sugar-cane, plantains, and bananas, which they steal from our plantations, thus causing us often to go hungry. A full grown ngina can easily eat twenty or thirty bunches of green plantains or bananas a day, many scores of pine-apples, and big heaps of berries, nuts, and fruits. They eat all the time, from morning until dark. So they have to roam about in search of food, unless they discover a field of plantain trees bearing fruit; then they remain near the place until they have eaten up everything.
“A man ngina is so strong that no number of men can ever capture him. He would tear to pieces those attacking him. He can bend the barrel of a gun, and break trees, or branches of trees, that are much bigger than his thighs just as if they were reeds.”
“Tell me, Oshoria,” said I, “how nginas attack the hunters that pursue them.”
Oshoria replied: “If the man ngina is with his mate, the latter always runs away, giving a shrill cry of alarm. Then the man ngina gets up on his hind legs, standing like a man, and looks around to see where his enemy is. Then he gives yell after yell, roar after roar, until the whole forest is filled with the din of his big voice. Then he comes forward to attack, walking erect, and roaring all the time. Sometimes the yell resembles that of an angry dog, though a hundred times louder. His big vindictive gray eyes look his antagonist straight in the face, glaring vengeance, and meaning death. The hair on the top of his head moves up and down, and the hair on his body stands erect. Then he beats his chest with his huge and powerful hands. They have such big hands, Oguizi, and these are so powerful, that when they strike a man they almost cut him in two. Once I killed a big ngina, who had one arm shorter than the other, for it had been broken, probably by the blow of another ngina fighting him, but, strange to say, the arm had knitted together of itself.
“It takes a stout heart to face the monster when he comes to the attack. It is of no use to try to run away, for a ngina runs faster than a man. When he looks at his enemy he seems to say to him, ‘I am going to kill you. You are soon to die. How do you dare to come and disturb me in my solitude.’ His wrinkled black face is terrible to look at, and every time he roars, he shows his powerful teeth, which can crush the arm of a man in an instant.”
“Do they fight with their teeth,” I inquired.
“No,” he replied, “their great weapons are their big, long muscular arms, and their hands, their legs, and their feet, but especially their arms. When they have disabled or seized their antagonists, they often in their rage give a bite or two, but one way or the other it is all over with a man when he is in the clutches of the ngina. Oguizi, the huge creature has nails like those of a man.”
“How big are the nginas?” I asked.