These Mbousha people look very much like the Shekiani I have already described. They are superstitious and cruel, and believe in witchcraft. I stayed among them only a few days. I will now tell you what I saw there.
In a hut I found a very old man. His wool (hair) was white as snow, his face was wrinkled, and his limbs were shrunken. His hands were tied behind him, and his feet were placed in a rude kind of stocks. Several negroes, armed to the teeth, stood guard over him, and now and then insulted him by angry words and blows, to which he submitted in silence. What do you suppose all this meant?
This old man was to be killed for witchcraft!
A truly horrible delusion this witchcraft is!
I went to Dayoko, the chief, to try to save the old man's life, but I saw it was in vain.
During the whole night I could hear singing all over the town as well as a great uproar. Evidently they were preparing for the sacrifice of the old man.
Early in the morning the people gathered together with the fetich-man. His blood-shot eyes glared in savage excitement, as he went around from man to man. In his hands he held a bundle of herbs with which he sprinkled, three times, those to whom he spoke. Meantime, there was a man on the top of a high tree close by, who shouted, from time to time, "Jocou! Jocou!" at the same time shaking the trees.
"Jocou" means "devil" among the Mbousha; and the business of this man was to scare the evil spirit, and keep it away.
At last they all declared that the old man was a most potent wizard, that he had killed many people by sorcery, and that he must be killed.
You would like to know, I dare say, what these Africans mean by a wizard, or a witch? They believe that people have, within themselves, the power of killing anyone who displeases them. They believe that no one dies unless some one has bewitched him. Have you ever heard of such a horrible superstition? Hence those who are condemned for witchcraft are sometimes subjected to a very painful death; they are burnt by slow fire, and their bodies are given to the Bashikouay ant to be devoured. I shall have something to tell you about ants by-and-by. The poor wretches are cut into pieces; gashes are made over their bodies and cayenne pepper is put into the wounds. Indeed it makes me shudder to think of it, for I have witnessed such dreadful deaths, and seen many of the mutilated corpses.