THE ^[F.nl(■I^^: max in natal and zululand. 195 



their licence-money until >uch time as an evil chance may bring 

 them to the notice of the authorities. There is no inspection of 

 licenses, and if a doctor fall in arrear for two or three years 

 he expects to have to make good the deficiency when at length 

 seeking a renewal. 



There is a general tendency in speaking of medicine men to 

 confuse them with witch-doctors and wizards, and to divide them 

 into three classes — (i) witches and wizards, (2) the witch- 

 doctor or smeller-out, (3) herbalists or medical practitioners. 

 All Native tradition, however, points to the fact that the calling 

 of the medicine man or herbalist is, anrl always has been, recog- 

 nized as distinct from that of the witch-doctor, and still more 

 from the dreaded wizard. It is true that a medicine man may 

 deal in charms against witchcraft, and be ready to supply medica- 

 ments for the frustration of the snares of the evil-doer ; and it 

 is true, also, that the witch-doctor may combine the treatment 

 Gif disease with his other functions ; but there is no connection 

 between the training which a medicine man undergoes and the 

 mysterious rites which the candidate for the office of a witch- 

 doctor must oljserve in his novitiate. The medicine man, in the 

 course of his experience, acquires a knowledge of certain reputed 

 antidotes to witchcraft, and is often called upon to supply self- 

 protective metlicines or charms to ward ofif the threatened evil, but 

 he is not a smeller-out. The witch-doctor, in encroaching on 

 the clinical preserves of the medicine man. does so by reason of 

 his powers of divination. He traces the cause of the malady 

 to rts tmdoubted source — the wizard — and prescribes the remedy. 

 Nevertheless, there is a sharp distinction between the two pro- 

 fessions — not arising out of legislative restrictions, but from 

 ancient times 1)\ the Natives themselves. The witch or wizard 

 ii far removed from both the witch-doctor and herbalist. He is 

 the arch-fiend, the enemy of all, the source of every evil under 

 the sun. His unlimited powers may certainly enable him to 

 rival and excel the greatest accomplishments claimed by the 

 others, but his works are the works of darkness, and he comes 

 not to bless but to curse. Not even remotely would he be linked 

 as an associate df those whose aim it is to defeat his machina- 

 tions. It is quite conceivable, however, that if the medicine man 

 and witch-doctor did not exist the wizard, too, might disappear. 

 Of him. and of the witch-doctor, nothing further need be said; 

 they make a fascinating study, but it is the medicine man proper 

 and he onlv who is under present consideration. 



Although not capable of inspiring the feeling of dread which 

 the mere mention of the Umtakati, or wizard, conjures up, or of 

 commanding the same degree and respectful admiration accorded 

 to the witch-doctor, the medicine man is yet a great power in 

 the land. His orders are complied with, and his directions im- 

 plicitly followed in a way which not every European doctor would 

 be certain of; and his patients, if he be a man of repute, have 

 faith in his ability and the efficacy of his treatment. This goes 



