148 BULLETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



borrowed from the Pedi magicians, who seem to possess a more com- 

 plete explanation of the phenomenon. According to them the 

 'ndlati' (Pedi, dali) is a bird of fom- colors, green, red, black, and 

 white, which lives in the mountains, preferably at the confluence of 

 rivers. The medicine men of former times knew its hiding place, 

 and had even found the eggs of the bird in a nest floating on the 

 water. When a thunderstorm breaks the bird flies to heaven into 

 the clouds; there niay be scores of them, but one only will be dan- 

 gerous (lebya) and cause death. It rushes down to the ground, 

 strikes a tree on its way, tearing its bark and its wood and throwing 

 it down; or it falls on a hut and burns it, or on a man and kills him. 

 Having reached the soil the bird can be caught, and I heard people 

 seriously asserting that four of these, unable to fly, had been found 

 the previous year in Sikororo's country. Or the bird enters the / 

 ground to a depth of 2 to 3 feet and remains there in its own form, 

 or (this is the most common saying) deposits its urine ('murundju'), 

 which has already caused the flash of lightning, and flies away back 

 to the mountains. The magician who understands 'the treatment 

 of heaven' comes and digs at the spot; there he finds a kind of gelat- 

 inous substance which solidifies after a little time. I possess a little of 

 this curious drug, given to me by a Pedi magician, by name Mud- 

 jumi; it resembles a piece of chalk and is considered very valuable 

 on account of its rareness, and because it helps in the manufacture 

 of the wonderful medicine of heaven. Should a village have been 

 struck with lightning the magician of heaven will come and dig out 

 this foreign body; if he finds it the taboo is removed. If he does not 

 the whole village must move to another place. In the same way, it 

 is taboo to warm oneself at a fire made of the wood of a tree that 

 has been struck by lightning or to use it as fuel. 



"Happily this dreadful bird can be prevented from killing and 

 burning by magicial means. Both the Pedi Mudjumi and the 

 Thonga Makasane possessed the enchanted flute by which they 

 could force heaven, or the bird of heaven, to spare them. Mudjumi 

 having sold me his flute, I can describe it at leisure. It is made of 

 a hollow bone 5 inches long, covered with Varan skin, filled at its 

 larger extremity with a black substance like wax. Inside, to keep it 

 clean, there is a vulture's feather. The bone is said to have been 

 taken from the 'ndlati' bird; the wax substance has been made from 

 powder obtained by drying up and pulverizing a little of the heart, 

 the eye, the bones, the feathers, and the flesh of the bird. In the 

 wax are imbedded three seeds of Ahrus frecatorius , the 'lucky beans' 

 well known in South Africa, a round seed of a splendid coral color 

 with a black spot, very much used in Thonga magic. This addition 

 of Ahrus precatorius intensifies the sound of the flute and enables it 

 to reach heaven. The magician, seeing the thunderstorm approach- 



