CHAPTER IV

SOCIETY DOCTORS
Their Training — Their Duties — " SmeUing Out " — Charm-makers — Superintending Ordeals — Their Skill — Their Medicines — Their Magic Potions.
Mystery permeates the whole of the African's life by day and night. Without it existence would be to him inconceivable. But as he fears what he does not know he finds it easy to rely upon those who have no fear of the unknown, and that reliance, simple, direct, all-embracing, enables the witch- doctors, no matter how vast their number, to find continuous and lucrative employment.
Yet, as a special class, they are much misunder- stood, and, frequently without cause, much maligned. Like other well-meaning people they are condemned for a name, and a name not of their own choosing. The word "witch", or a word that can properly be so translated, is not to be found, as far as the writer knows, in any of the languages of the continent. Most of the words now so translated will be found on examination to have been added to the vocabularies by European linguists to tide over an awkward absence. The nearest native word (on the West Coast) to the European or American idea of " witch " is the Kongo ndoki, and that in its meaning leans more to the side of wizardry than witchcraft.
THEIR TRAINING
Their training is hard and long. To be a Masubori Boka a man must be a graduate of the society of
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proved loyalty, and he must be willing to undergo three years' training. For the first few months of it he must take the medicines prepared by the Bokaye, his tutors, " to increase his capacity for understanding his own nature and those he will be called upon to heal," and for the next few months he must employ himself sampling those he himself prepares. During this time he resides in the gidan tsafi, the medicine hut of the society, and from there he goes out to live in the bush, solitary and without cover. It is in this state he meets and surmounts all the threatened dangers to his life and his peace of mind, passing through ordeals prepared by those into whose ranks he desires to enter. Whilst seeking roots and herbs he encounters monsters and spectres that attempt his injury, and incidentally try to scare him from his chosen task. Each ordeal is progressive in menace and terror. He may be seriously wounded in defending himself. Some die from their injuries. If he wins through, he under- goes a vigil of five days and nights, each day sacrific- ing a red cock and white hen and burning continuous incense to propitiate the helpful deities, and to warn away those who are the enemies of all doctors. He then spends a year in apprenticeship to the Bokaye, and, after further sacrifices of vigil and incense- burning, in the third year he can build his own hut, furnish it with all the necessary dried frogs, scorpions, snakes, bats, chameleons, etc., hang on his walls, his special offerings to his favourite guardian deities — and commence his practice.
The BuTWA Nyanga ya hwilande (Fetish or Spear doctor) to receive initiation must make himself known to the " father " of the society, who takes him outside the village, where, " choosing a suitable spot, they hoe up a little mound and place a clay pot upon it with some aromatic herbs inside. They then pour water into it, and when all is mixed the
DOCTOR OF THE BIIJ SOCIETY
SOCIETY DOCTORS 57
novice kneels down on the ground and drinks. Others beat with their pestles on the ground as they walk round and round him, until he shows signs of being ' possessed,' the sign of that being his first attempts at ventriloquism. He may presently strike up a little song, such as,
*A child who asked for a cro^vn, Found it among the departed spirits : Here there must be no crying and tears, Nothing but music and song.'
They lead him back to the village, where he gives himself a new name, saying : ' I'm the spirit world, whence the noises come.' Then he listens as though to the sound of footsteps audible only to him, dances, sings, gesticulates, foams at the mouth. He is seized by the fetish-doctors of the society and a green leaf is put on his head. He is warned not to speak. He is locked up in a hut. The next morning they feed him with ' spirit-food,' a medicine only known to themselves, but which is said to contain the eye of a red cock amongst other things. He is made to stand exposed for some time, and then led to the * sacred mound ' or * rock ' or ' enclosure,' where the ' father ' introduces him to the mystery of other potent concoctions, some made from the ashes of human bodies, that enable him to understand and reply to the speech of the after-death spirits. This part of the ceremony, the giving of ' freedom,' is followed by his introduction to the chief fetish of the society, the bzvanga hwa kalunga. That is equival- ent to the bestowal of a diploma, but he has yet much to learn before he can commence to practise." He goes into the bush. After some months he returns and is " placed on a mat in the middle of the chief's compound, and the people gather to dance and sing about him. From their midst the ' father ' springs forward, spear in hand, and after some
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flourishes with the weapon makes a wound on the man's chest. The man is recumbent. He must not cry when he is wounded. Some never move when the blow is received. The spear is supposed to pierce his heart. He is dead. As the blood flows it is caught in a calabash, and the supposed dead body and the living blood are carried outside the village to a prepared hut. (There is a similar scene between the Zulu doctor, Indaba nzimhi, and Macumazahn, in Rider Haggard's story of Alleri's
Here he remains until he is healed. " Only the initiated may visit that hut. In it the ' body ' is washed with fetish decoctions. ' It ' is made to drink its own blood. It is trampled upon, and thus, wounded, bruised, and weak from drenching, returns to ' life.' There is then the ceremony of the ' mark- ing,' chalks being used in making circles and stripes and spots, of many colours, about his body. The eyes are whitened. Afterwards a costume is pro- vided (the ' cap and gown ') and a set of fetish objects given to aid in future work.
After some months " he is led back to the village by his, now, fellow doctors, with drums and dancing, and on reaching the centre of the houses dances his first dance in official dress. He takes the oppor- tunity of shouting his new name, ' I'm Kashmgu I ' (The Spinning Top) he cries, or something else con- sidered suitable. He takes up a position on his own mat and holds his first levee, receiving presents, beads and food generally."
That only those are allowed to practise who have been correctly initiated is proven by the number of cases quoted by travellers of " official " executions of the unqualified, and others have only escaped a like fate owing to European activities in their district.
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THEIR DUTIES
Their duties are manifold and multitudinous ; beyond the legitimate healing they are rain- makers, plague- and pest-destroyers, clairvoyants, liaison officers between the two worlds, conductors of ordeals or " smellers out " (here overlapping the duties of the diviners) and charm-makers.
" A true understanding of the medicine man would enable a European inquirer to write a wonderful book of nature, viewed by men as part of themselves, and not viewed objectively and scientifically as we are apt to do," says one writer ; and another declares : " They have power of drawing inferences and making deductions from known facts . . . and may be called philosophers, even if primitive, and scientists, although as yet in embryo."
" Of all the authorities, the individual, the family, the clan, the tribe, the doctor comes first and fore- most, for practically all the business of life must be brought to him and pass through his hands."
"SMELLING OUT"
The idea behind the ceremony known to Europeans as the " smelling out " of a criminal is that the sense of fear always betrays the guilty. With the phil- osopher Chuang Tzu, the society doctors think that " the open criminal is punished by the law, but the secret sinner is tormented by devils." This explains the procedure of the Kono man, who chooses an egg of venerable age, one warranted to explode with the least mishandling, and passes it round the group of folk interested in the trial, " and, as sure as fate, directly the man or woman responsible for the theft or whatever has caused the trial touches it, the egg bursts, making a terrible mess of the poor
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wretch of a culprit, whose trembling fingers have given him or her away."
An often used " implement " for this purpose is a small replica of the society's chief sacred medicine, like the tiny bzuanga hwa kalunga horn carried by the BuTWA doctors. The trial in which this plays a part may be by carrying it across a stream or spinning it, a hole being pierced in the horn for the latter purpose and an iron rod used as the pivot.
The Katahwira doctor uses bits of sticks, some- times those used for cleaning the teeth. The story is told that a certain King of Dahomey caused his twenty wives to yield their tooth-sticks for the purpose of an ordeal. They were very like in appear- ance, and length. The king had a white missionary staying with him, and handing the sticks to his visitor he asked if the white man could tell from the appearance of the sticks which owner was the unfaithful wife. The missionary acknowledged his inability to do so. They were then given to the king's head-doctor who, after examination of the ragged chewed ends, without hesitation selected one, whose owner afterwards confessed her unfaithfulness.
" Pointing " by animate and inanimate things is a frequent device. A Boviowah doctor has a trained lizard for this work. He will enter a village and call out all those who have anything to do with the problem being solved, and walk round the group, fondling his pet, and talking to it in some outlandish lingo, his expression being that of boredom with the whole proceeding. Presently the lizard escapes from the caressing fingers, darts upwards to the shoulder of its master, and " points." Directly the little head is out-thrust the official becomes alert. He puts the lizard on his open palm, stretches his arm towards the indicated person, and it leaps from the hand to the garments of the shivering, frightened individual, and there clings. Other " mediums "
SOCIETY DOCTORS 6i
have been known, a vulture being used some years ago by a Tongo-Player in Sierra Leone.
Ayaka and Okonko doctors rub together metal and wood, a spear-head against a chopping-block or a wood-chip against an anvil, whilst the complainant recites his or her grievance and demands redress, and just as a certain name is being mentioned or a certain suspicion is being hazarded, lo ! the spear- head cleaves to the chopping-block or the chip refuses to be pulled from the anvil.
An Egbo man will bring a calabash of beans, some of them loaded with a paste of gums and herbal decoctions, and will twirl this dish round and round before him, and then he will suddenly stop and hold it out for inspection. Each bean is said to represent a suspected person, and they are seen now to be, all save one, in a heap in the centre of the vessel. The solitary one clings to the side, and has to be forcibly removed.
An An KOI man takes a twig from the nearest tree or bush, " baptizes " it in the smoke of some special fuel, and holds it in his fingers in much the same way that sticks are held by water-diviners. He then walks round the people, and the twig moves when he is opposite the person wanted. A variation of this is the " whip " sometimes used by Poro men. In a case that happened in Murray Town Battery, in 1917, the weapon was a bit of stick and two lan- yards borrowed from artillery gunners. They were washed in a preparation, and the hands, arms, chest, and forehead of the man chosen to hold the whip were also anointed with the mixture. Then the assistant, a misshapen large-headed man, walked down the ranks of the collected people followed by the directing official. There were hundreds of bush- cutters, house-boys, hammock boys, sanitary boys, and native servants on the parade, but the whip found the culprit, the lanyard-thongs writhing and
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squirming snake-fashion before starting to thrash the face and chest of the selected man. The mis- shapen individual sweated in an attempt to quieten the whip, but failed, the cords striking heavily enough to draw blood. The man whipped was afterwards arrested by the police, and in prison at Freetown confessed to the thefts concerned, telling where the stolen goods were hidden.
In some of the societies two doctors often act in opposition to one another, as if one desired to bring the culprit to justice and as if the other was deliberately confusing the trail or was helping the accused to escape. In Ikung they are known by titles meaning Health and Sickness, and in Kofoo as " the moderate one " and " the avenger,"
The title " smelling-out " may not be altogether a misnomer. In the midst of what most Europeans declare to be appalling stenches, most Negroes retain a sensitive appreciation of differing odours. If it is true, as has been reported, that Rudyard Kipling claims to be able to find his way round the world blindfold, relying only on his sense of smell, it is as true to claim that some Africans might success- fully find their way home from any part of the Coast guided alone by use of the same sense. In mixed assemblies they can detect their own tribal odour, even when blindfolded, and from a village gathering they can single out without looking the members of their own family. This may be why some puberty school tutors teach that both deities and after-death spirits may be known in this same way, those friendly by their fragrance.
CHARM-MAKERS
The Africans delight in charms and the African doctors are delighted to supply them. There are stones that confer supernatural powers and benefits ;
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some may be engraved with the secret signs of the societies, magic abraxas and abracadabra, and others very potent in the stopping of the flow of blood from wounds, like those once known to Sir Walter Scott. There are bags of herbs and strips of cloth or parch- ment or bits of paper, paper and parchment contain- ing written characters, or strings of beads, threaded bits of metal, enwrapped hairs or bones or cauls, all chosen at turn of tide, fullness of moon or at some other propitious time. There is the kunkuma broom, to be had of Katahwira for the preservation of the household peace, the ahunum bead to be had of Homo wo to give discernment to the eye, the hansere leaf to be had of Mah amm ah-Jamboh as a sure defence against assault, a special hwanga to be had of Butwa that causes vampire bats to destroy the crops of enemies ; the hair of an albino put inside the hollow of a blue bead by Nkimba to make lovers moreloving, and the cahe or oten (it has many other names), " a thoroughly bad fetish," that can be used for the slaying of people by sympathetic magic, and to be had from nearly every known society.
The charms are made of beetle shells, small buck horns, tortoise shells, tiny gourds or seed- pods, lion and leopard claws, birds' bills, the head of a hoopoo, the scale of a snake, a bit of the under- lip of an ass, a hair from the ear of a horse, a double tooth of a camel, the skin of a chameleon, or a bit of poisonous creeper. One of the strongest of all, that to avert the evil eye, may be simply a hair plucked from one's own eyebrow or eyelash (Masub- ORi), or the nail of a dead man (Ampora), or the beak of a bird (Ogboni), or a bit of chalk (Ndembo) or clay (Nkimba), or a mark on one's own body made with the same wash or dye that has been used to make society designs on house-walls and domestic utensils.
They are used for every conceivable object, for
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protection of self or harm to another, for prolonga- tion of life, for conservation of strength, for success in work and play and sport and love, for gaining advantage in bargaining, for the safety of crops and their sure harvesting, and for purposes connected with marriage, childbirth, fertility and death.
SUPERINTENDING ORDEALS
As the superintendents of medicinal ordeals they, alone among the physicians of the world, take some part of their own medicine before applying the rest to the object for which it is made. In doing this they are clever enough to split a calabar bean, that dread fruit, and swallow one half without deleterious effect, although the person who swallows the other half immediately dies. They themselves handle the hot iron or plunge their hand into boiling cauldrons or walk on fire before ordering others to do so. If they are asked why these tests are harm- less to them, whilst being fatal to ordinary people, they do not of course say that if iron is per- fectly clean and made white-hot it can be touched by the tongue with impunity, and that if those conditions cannot be attained, they alone know chemi- cals that convert the ordeal, for them, into a harmless amusement. They do not mention the fact that ointments applied to the hand prevent scalding by boiling oils, or that they have knowledge of medicines that counteract the effect of poisons and enable them to be taken without fear of death. They reply simply, " Those whose hearts are clean cannot be harmed."
THEIR SKILL
Their curative practices are hard to describe and impossible to catalogue. As general practitioners they mix up magic and exorcism and simples and
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decoctions and hypnotism and clairvoyance and spiritualism, and yet have such method in their madness that properly qualified European doctors often remain to praise where they halted to scoff. They can by some fluid they concoct and force into the body galvanise a dead man into the movements of seeming life. They can raise a sullen recumbent doubter, in the last stages of ague, by a mesmerism apparently produced by a touch of a wand. They have power to throw a medium into a cataleptic sleep that will last several days, during which time the body of the sleeper is insensible to pain although the blood continues to flow normally through its veins. They bring about marvels of healing by hypnotism, thinking it better than drugs for some patients — for hypochondriacs are found in Africa as well as other places — and perform miracles by auto-suggestion. A European doctor practising in Africa writes that he " saw a medicine man cure a woman of some internal malady by convincing her that a large clot of blood had formed an ob- struction, and after much well-acted effort produce a ball of red cotton as the offending cause of the sick- ness, whereupon the woman, who had been sick for a long time, literally took up her bed and walked off, perfectly cured."
Working on the principle that faith in the healer is the mainspring of their art, they pretend to override and overawe nature and to be the masters of fate. By taboos that seem absurd but are based on wise knowledge they preach the doctrine of sunshine and cleanliness and cheerfulness and laughter. Because their patients are suspicious of what they do not understand, these doctors continue the ancient methods and the superstitious rites to disguise new and strange remedies. For instance, a doctor belong- ing to the Ampora society gives medicine to all the patient's family, on the understanding that a
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sympathetic atmosphere helps along a cure, in the same way as he did before he took a government dispensing course, and a Bundu lady doctor who took a St. John's Ambulance certificate in Freetown uses the document on the foreheads of her patients as a cure for headache. Quite a clever man in Sherbro, who is a doctor of the Tongo-Players, and who has discovered a natural cocaine that, rubbed on the gums, enables teeth to be drawn with a minimum of discomfort, still pulls out his own eyelashes to give him keener sight. A Nion of Dus who has a great reputation as a specialist in ophthalmic troubles first spits in the eyes of his patients and prays this prayer, " 0 all-powerful ones : overcome the evil spirit that possesses this man : we can only give medicine, but thou canst give health."
They still talk of pain as something caged and confined that can be set at liberty by cupping and blood-letting, they still tie a string tightly round the temples to cure headache, and relieve a man suffering from a surfeit of turtle by painting his body with olive-coloured clay, they still murmur incantations (generally in the " old " language of the society) to assist their work, but for all that it can be said that they are beginning to acquire what may be called a scientific mind, and basing their remedies on a study of natural laws.
THEIR MEDICINES
Their knowledge of preventative and curative medicines has puzzled and surprised the very elect. In these days of the, comparatively, near mission hospital or government dispensary their methods can be examined better than in past years, and it is acknowledged that to the ancient homeopathy (that may have been taught them by migratory
SOCIETY DOCTORS (>^
Arabs) they now link the newest allopathy known to the European medical schools.
They cure giddiness by mpuluka bark, specially treated with oil and salt, and influenza with cassava water containing the essence of madiadia grass and the leaf of the kuva and the kiakasa plant. For colic they give copious draughts of a fluid made from cassava root and the fruit of the lemhenzau. They make useful suppositories from the juice of sudia leaves, salted and peppered. Poultices of cassava meal are used with a good deal of success, and acacia gum spread on certain leaves heals many wounds. For eye trouble they use onion juice and salt or pounded shell and molasses, lotus leaves and goat's milk, palm-leaves and salt or powder of sycamore leaves, or sulphate of zinc and honey. The sycamore powder is also used, dry and mixed with anything sweet, for diarrhoea. The sap of the luwiki- zviki leaf mixed with oil is used for earache, and they stop excessive bleeding with boiled luziezie plant, using this also as an anaesthetic. From the gum of the euphorbia they make a good salve for cuts and abrasions, for an emetic they use the sap of the ndamba, and they have uses for many other gums, especially in the cure of skin diseases and pyorrhea.
They devise inhalers for chest and lung troubles, the patient sitting in a thick enveloping blanket over a pot in which are boiling herbs, the fumes acting like nitrate of amyl or stramonium. They make a " Turkish Bath " over a bed of hot ashes on which certain leaves are spread, putting a mat over the leaves, and making the diaphoretic complete by shrouding the patient, who is lying upon the mat, with heavy cloths and blankets.
In one thing at least they have anticipated a late discovery of modern pathology, for they have long cured general paralysis by allowing the patient
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to be bitten by malarial mosquitoes. This is done because they believe it is beneficial to bring rival germs (although they do not give them that title) into deadly conflict. The doctors of Mungi and Nkamba and No em bo fight the vidudu of paralysis with the ■pilintu of malaria, these terms being their equivalents for bacilli. In this connection the follow- ing quotation is significant : " That malaria was caused by mosquitoes," writes a medical missionary, " burst upon an astonished world about thirty years ago. But the African knew it long before and he knew also a bitter drug which effected a cure. The fly which devours mosquitoes he also recognised and gave a friendly welcome to, when other flies were driven off and killed."
Whatever their knowledge of toxicology may be according to the European idea, they choose the right poisons for the right objects and " not with the haphazard intention of merely causing death by general blood-poisoning," and they have no un- certainty when they are seeking antidotes. They make ordeal draughts from the calabar bean, the mbundu root, the tangena nut, the aconite root, the strophanthus creeper, the bark, muavi, of the erythrophloem, and from datura flowers, as lovely and as white as Easter lilies. From every known dangerous snake they extract the venom, and care- fully preserve it for their own purposes. They make their poisonous medicines and extracts palatable by mixing them with the juices of the pawpaw, the mammy apple, the banana, the breadfruit, the guava, and other edible fruits, just as the European pharmacist sugarcoats his pills for the same purpose. And they have poisons the secrets of which still baffle European minds, like that possessed by the officials of Ogboni ; a poison that after being ad- ministered produces no visible effects for months, yet renders death inevitable.
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THEIR MAGIC POTIONS
Their skill in " magic potions " is greater than that of Queen Grimhild. The Bori doctor has a medicine of powdered owls, Egbo one of dried baboon flesh, Masubori one made from the dust found in the tombs of saints. Ebomici doses for intestinal troubles with the chopped hair of the patient. Butwa spHts a lizard down the back and places it over the spleen of the patient, above perforations made in his skin. The same man also paints sloughing ulcers and fever sores with a feather dipped in water mixed with the scrapings of copper stones. There Is an Eyo ointment of cremated newts and beetles for rubbing on the gums for toothache. Afa blows smoke from burning horn into the eyes for ophthalmic trouble. Ayaka and Okonko give soil of an ant-hill for internal troubles, and make poultices for burns from earth taken from beneath a flour mortar. The BuNDu women apply masticated food to the joints for rheumatism and arthritis. The Nda doctor squirts pepper from his mouth into the eyes of a victim of epilepsy and uses it as a cathartic in cases of apoplexy. From a crude dummy teat dipped in banana wine the Nkimba man or Nkamba woman, or their children, suck camwood and chalk for the St. Vitus dance, or drink water in which stones have been boiled for gastric troubles. Their doctors chew a pepper-corn and spit the juice into the ears and mouth for brain diseases, and make up ' smelling salts ' for headache and neuralgia by tying into a bundle the fin of a fish, the head of a snake, the foot of a fowl, and the tail of a rat, all ancient and all pungent.
The KuFONG fange medicine, which is taken in large doses, is a mixture of unmentionable things, but is said to be quite a cure for both lethargy from weakness and sheer laziness. The use of animals'
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urine as a medicine or in the making up of medicines is common, and sometimes animal or human excreta are used. Of the first there is this to remember : sal ammoniac, a well-known chloride, was first made in the Libyan Desert near the Temple of Ammon from the urine of camels.