234 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



and stole all the Kafir beans of Inyack. Should a tempest have 

 uprooted trees and broken branches, people are sure to say : Here the 

 " yimpi of balovi " has passed as a terrific storm during the night. 



(b) But the great crime of the baloyi is that of killing. They 

 are murderers, and all the more to be feared as they act unconsciously, 

 perhaps, at anyrate, without being seen or known. Two motives 

 inspire their crimes — hatred and jealousy. Should one of them have 

 been offended, he is sure to revenge himself by putting to death his 

 enemy. During the night, he escapes from his hut (as we have seen 

 above), he opens his wings and flies directly to the dwelling of the 

 man he hates. But the habitation of that man is well protected. 

 Just as the village is surrounded with a material fence of thorns, 

 leaving only the main entrance and some smaller ones, there is all 

 round it a spiritual fence made up of charms, various medicines, which 

 close the kraal against any invasion of witches. Across the mam 

 entrance even there is a stick daubed with certain magical powders 

 which prevent him from penetrating inside. How must he act, 

 however, to perpetrate his crime? He has first made an agreement 

 with another 7toi residing in that village, and who has wrought an 

 opening in that spiritual fence, similar to one of the small holes of 

 the material one ! He then gets into the kraal, descends through 

 the grass roof into the hut of the enemy sleeping calmly on his mat. 

 Then he proceeds to the bewitching operation. It can be performed 

 in various ways. The main ones are as follows : Either he lies over 

 the man as a vampire and sucks all his blood, or he takes him and 

 goes away with him to the big baloyi gathering, where the victim 

 will be eaten just as a goat when they make a feast : the limbs will be 

 distributed to all the assembly. The one will eat the leg, the other 

 the head. The 7toi has perhaps a fine to pay to his companions, and 

 he will bring it to them. Whatever may be his way of proceeding, 

 the result will be the same. The poor bewitched man is condemned 

 to die! "O loyiwile," he has been bewitched; " ku sa nthuti 

 ntsena," his shadow only remains. They say also the " nthumbu," 

 the corpse only has been left, his true self has been stolen and eaten. 

 He will get up in the morning, die some days later, but what will 

 die is only his shadow. Himself has been killed during that frightful 

 night. He has been eaten already ! Here we find again under an even 

 more mysterious form, the idea of the duality of human personality. 

 How it is possible that a man who has still to live some days or 

 months may be considered as already eaten up entirely, I do not 

 pretend to explain. Such is the native idea, at any rate. A Mosuto 

 tried to overcome the difficulty by saying that what the not is taking 

 with him to eat is the inside, the bowels ; the external frame only 

 remains, and the man will die soon ! Most of the natives, when you 

 show them the absurdity of the idea, laugh and that is all. 



The noi has still at his disposal at least five means of bewitching 

 called riima, mitisa, matshelwa, ntchntchu, and m-pfulo. 



The ruma (to send) consists in sending either a crocodile, or a 

 lion, or more often a snake, to the place where the enemy is going. 



