The husband told her to get up and light a gum-torch (for there were coals smouldering on the clay hearth used as a fireplace), that they might look for the child. She did so, and both hunted, looking under the bedstead and elsewhere, but did not find the child. Then they examined the windows and door; for perhaps the child had been taken out by some one. The door and windows were all properly fastened. The mother was very much troubled; but her husband, keeping his own counsel, advised her not to scream or make a noise, but said, “Let us go back to bed, but not to go to sleep; and let the room be dark again.” So the wife put out the torch, leaving the room in darkness; and they returned to bed. Then the husband said, “Maybe we can prove or see something before morning” (for he suspected); and he added, “Whoever or whatever has taken the child out so secretly, will secretly bring it back. So we must not sleep, but watch.”
So both lay awake in bed for a few hours. Then, just before morning, while it was still dark, they heard a little noise outside near the house, like the rustling of wings and the panting of breath. They were both anxious, and had their eyes wide open. Soon they saw the room flashed full of a bright light from the roof. [Witchcraft people are noted for having a light which they can thus flash.] Then the wife, as soon as she saw the light, quietly nudged her husband; and he returned the pressure, to let her know that he was aware, and also to intimate that she should continue silent as himself; and they pretended to be sleeping soundly.
Soon they saw the figure of a woman descend from the low roof, but with no hole in the roof. The figure came to the bedside and lifted up the edge of the mosquito-net with one hand, in the other holding a child. As soon as she attempted to put the baby back in its place, between the father and mother, the father, as he was the stronger, and nearer to the figure on the outside of the bed, got up quickly, and seized both hands of the woman before she had time to let go of the child and escape from the room. He said aloud to the mother, “Get up! Your baby has been missing. Now light the light, and we will see the person face to face who has taken the child out!”
The young mother did so, and they discovered that it was the head-wife who had brought in the child.
Then, when the father felt the body of the babe, it was limp and burning with fever.
As it was so near daylight the father did not delay, but began at once to make a fuss, and shouted for the people of the village to gather together. And he began a “palaver” (investigation) immediately. When all the people had assembled to hear the palaver, both the father and the mother related what had passed during the night, about their missing the child, and its return.
The head-wife, being accused, was silent, having nothing to say for herself; for she was both ashamed and afraid to confess that she had been eating the life of the baby. But all the people knew that such things were done, and they believed that this woman had done with the baby whatever she wanted to do while she had it outside that night.
Then the father of the child tied up the head-woman, and said to her, “Now I have you in my hands, I will not let you go until you give back the baby’s life, and make it well again.” [The belief is that if the “heart-life” has not been eaten the victim can recover.] This she was not able to do, for she had eaten its “heart.” So the next day the baby died. And the husband executed that head-woman by cutting her throat.
The above incident was told me at Libreville by a very intelligent Mpongwe as having actually occurred in the Gabun region. It is fully believed that walls are no obstacle to the passage of the bodies of those possessing the power of sorcery. The “light” spoken of I have seen. I do not know what it was. From a small point it would flash with starlike rays. It was carried by a man, who disappeared when pursued. A Christian native told me that he once pursued it, and caught the bearer with a torch concealed in a hollow cylinder; the flashing was caused by his thrusting it in and out of the cylinder.