SMALL- POX AMONGST THE BA-RONGA. 699 



ance'^tral spirits. They generally consist of a pi'ayer introduced 

 by an offering. But in this special hahla of small-pox there is no. 

 sacrifice of any kind, and, strange to say, the ])rayer is not 

 directed to the official gods, the psi kivembu, the spirits of the 

 departed ancestors, but to Mavnzanc or Mahufysc, which means 

 the Questioner. This questioner is nobody else than Nyedzane, 

 the small-pox itself, which is thus personalised and considered as 

 a real and frightful visitor coming at given intervals to examine 

 the country and to search for the sinners. The great sin which 

 Questioner especially wants to discover is Buloyi. witchcraft. 

 vis., mvirder by magical means. Confess your favilt, and you 

 will be spared! If you conceal any act of bewitching you may 

 have committed, you are a dead man ! 



Suppose the patient so seriously ill is a grown-up woman, 

 the wife of one of the men of the village. Her parents will first 

 be called. The headman and all the inmates of the village will 

 attend the meeting in the hut : " Confess your guilt !" they will 

 all say to the woman. She may answer: "No! I am not a 

 witch'' (A ndi noyi!) They insist: "Do not hide anything.'' 

 And under the strain of their questions she may say : " Yes ! I 

 am a walker in the night! I have eaten so-and-so! I have 

 eaten my own child." If the patient is a little child, his father 

 will have to make the confession in his stead. He will take the 

 infant in his arms and say: " Mavuaane dhlula! Questioner, 

 pass on your way ! Yes ! We are Baloyi. I have taught my 

 cliild to eat human bodies ! But we will not persist in our bad 

 doings ! Go away and leave us in peace ! " 



I have gathered the words of the confession of a certain 

 Charley Barika, of the Gwaba clan, who made the following 

 declaration the other day : " So-and-so did not die a natural death. 

 I bewitched him. I killed Gwaba's mother and Gwaba's wife. 

 as I had made her bad proposals, and she did not accept them. 

 I went on my wings- to the Manyisa country (a place ^o miles 

 north of Gwaba's clan, where the epidemic began), and bought 

 there a bottle full of the malignant small-ix>x, which I spread all 

 over the land." Though he had thus satisfied the curiosity of 

 Questioner, this poor man died. Sometimes patients will confess 

 other sins, thefts, or especially adultery and hatred. A converted 

 woman (more or less converted, I may say) said she had sinned 

 with six different men, and her teacher was very much astonished 

 to see that disease had been more powerful than God in awaken- 

 ing her conscience! But this kind of confession is much rarer, 

 and I have some idea that it is modem, a result of the education 

 of the moral sense already begun in some natives. The great sin 

 which Questioner wants to discover is without any doubt Bulo\i 

 — witchcraft. It must be revealed at any cost. Should the 

 family chief refuse to perform the religious act, he is very 

 severely judged, accused of killing his dying child, accused, more- 

 OA-er, of being a wizard who fears to disclose his true character. 

 I know two cases in which such men were expelled from their 

 villages, and they were never able to get rid of the repu(tation of 

 witchcraft. 



