6 REV. ALFRED T. BRYANT. 



Sutos; in-gaiiga (doctor) in Maslionaland ; the same again 

 among the Tongas seaward of the A/'ictoria Falls ; and we 

 complete the circuit with un-gaiiga (doctor) among the Nkonde 

 north of Lake Nyasa. 



(4) The Medicine-man and Witch-doctok Compaked. 



Among most primitive peoples the medicine-man, the priest 

 and the diviner was, and still generally is, one and the same 

 individual, following the one indivisible trade. All powers 

 and functions that possessed about them anj^thing of the 

 mysterious and uncanny, whether they were employed to 

 eradicate disease or to reveal hidden doings, to bestow good 

 fortune or to charm away the bad, were to the savage mind 

 so identical in their natui-e as to be most properly combined 

 in the same profession and same professional— they were but 

 varied manifestations of the one same power. 



The African medicine-man (so called by Europeans), may 

 therefore very possibly be the direct descendant of the ab- 

 original " pi'iest " who worked at once moon, medicine and 

 magic. With the Kafirs, however, both Zulu and Xosa, the 

 office has, throughout all historical time (i. e. at any rate 

 since the advent of the white man) been divided. 



The Zulu medicine-man is a personage totally distinct 

 from the Zulu diviner or so-called witch-doctor. Even so, 

 the two professions do still considerably overlap, the medical 

 man dealing very largely in magic and charms, and conversely 

 the witch-doctor possessing an extensive acquaintance with 

 disease and curative herbs, although his office is rather to 

 indicate than to actually administer. Both are commonly 

 called an i-nyanga, though the . medicine-man is sometimes 

 distinguished as the i-nyanga yol-irclicpha (the doctor for 

 curing), and the Avitch-doctor as the i-vyanga yolxuhhula (the 

 doctor for divining). 



This latter has the further titles, solely confined to his own 

 class, of nm-ngovia (apparently originally meaning " the 

 drumming-one'^ — c f . Swahili, Ganda, etc., m-goraa, drum; 



