The Theory of Witchcraft. 239 



the regent of the young chief Mohlaba. The Boers having heard 

 about it condemned Mankhelu to death. The whole tribe was terribly 

 excited. The sentence was commuted into an imprisonment of one 

 year, and since then the native tribunal does not dare to condemn 

 anybody for the crime of huloyi, although they remain convinced as 

 much as ever of the reality of those crimes. 



4. — The Explanation of the Origin of Buloyi, and the Means 



OF Fighting Against It. 



It may seem inexplicable that millions of human beings who 

 possess a fair amount of reason and of commonsense, entire tribes 

 which are not among the least gifted in mankind can entertain such 

 absurd, dreadful ideas, as those on which rest the bantu buloyi. But 

 let us remember that three centuries ago European tribunals were con- 

 demning wholesale hundreds of poor people accused of witchcraft. 

 There, however, was a capital difference. The white witches, our 

 ancestors, who were burnt by thousands all over Europe, were sup- 

 posed to have made a pact with Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness. 

 That sin was considered as essentially diabolical in its origin. The 

 Bantu have no idea of Satan, and that aspect of witchcraft is entirely 

 absent from their mind. 



Let us consider the various elements of the baloyi ^theory and 

 seek an explanation for them. Bantu witchcraft is a direct outcome 

 of the dogmatics of the savages, of that conception of the world which 

 is at the basis of all their superstitions and beliefs. Animism is the 

 name of that dim, confused philosophy, and it consists in projecting 

 into nature the state of things which we find in ourselves. Just as 

 every act performed by man is the result of a determination of his 

 will, so everything happening in the world is the result of an intelli- 

 gent agent. There is very little or no notion of natural laws in the 

 Bantu. For him a spiritual cause alone can explain the facts, espe- 

 cially those which hurt him and destroy his happiness in life. Apply 

 these principles to this great source of sorrow and disappointment, 

 death, and you will hear him say : Death is only natural when caused 

 by old age. But when a man in his prime, or a lad, a baby, a 

 person still useful dies, he or she must have been killed by a special 

 agent. There are but two explanations of the fact : Either he has 

 injured one of his departed ancestors, one of the gods, and is 

 punished for that offence, or he is the victim of a living man who 

 hates him and bewitched him. That is why a chief of great fame in 

 the Nkuna tribe, Shiluvane, had issued this decree : " I do not allow 

 of anybody dying in my country except on account of old age. Let 

 the baloyi at once cease their enchantments or I will kill them all." 



The philosophical reason of buloyi is then obvious, and that 

 accounts for the fact that it is so widely spread and so deeply rooted 

 amongst the Bantu. But the psychological conception of the native 

 fosters also the belief in buloyi. We have seen in two instances that the 

 buloyi supposes an unsheathing of the human personality. That idea 



