284 
MEDICAL PKACTICES AND SUPEKSTITIONS OF KORDOFAN 
Evil s{)irits 
A famous 
evil spirit 
Written 
charms 
2. El Alala (?), used in a similar manner or else as a fumigant of persons and jilaces 
possessed not only by the evil eye but l)y any afrete (spirit) or gin. 
3. El Gaine Magine (?), a Falatah root, powdered and mixed into a paste with other 
materials, after which it is moulded into a conical shape and dried, being carried loose in 
the pocket as a talisman ; and, for a remedy, powdered and swallowed in small quantities. 
Eril Spirits and Influences. 
Next to the evil eye, and an almost equally important factor in the causation of disease 
and disability, come a perfect army of evil spirits — genii, afrete, shatan, baahi, faries, 
ghosts, metamorphoses from man to animal and vice versa; men possessed (Zarr, 
Shaukh), etc., all apparently under the very nominal control of Suliman, son of Daoud, 
their chief. There are besides an equal number of good spirits who do not concern us. 
The names of the evil spirits are legion, and can be found in the numerous Arabic writings 
on the mystic which form the text books of the Fiki. 
To mention but a few welbknown ones : Tiltaniish, A’akoush, Habteet, Attatsh, Anshil, 
Bouni, Agbareet, Touni, Saroum, Karendees, etc., whilst (in Kordofan) of more local fame 
are El Ilowi, El Wadi, El Karar, Abu Gou, x\bu Galha, El Ahmar, Kirsh El Fil, and 
Abu Heleba, of rather higher class and which apparently do not descend to the depths 
of evil and depravity to which other spirits of a lower rank fall. Amongst these 
latter there is a certain Um El Sibian, who accounts for greater harm, and who 
apparently provokes more preventive charms than any dozen others. She is described 
as a lean and loathsome old woman, possessing control over all mankind, travelling invisibly 
and destroying by her more presence. She wastes children with disease, attacks pregnant 
women, and attends at child-birth, causing aljortion, “ animate retention,” or still-birth. She 
renders men impotent and marriages sterile, she disseminates venereal disease, destroys crops 
at seeding and harvesting, and causes even monetary ventures to bear no fruit. The powers 
of this goddess of sterility and destruction are indeed far-reaching, and can only be combated 
by the use of one or more of the seven charms which Suliman extorted from her in the 
wilderness, and which are well known to the Fiki (see Figs. 63 and 64, and 67-73). Such 
charms are essential to the lover, the married, the pregnant, and especially to children, 
who, if unprotected, she delights to kill or deform with rickets, club-foot, curvature, 
rupture, etc., from which there can be no cure. Let this description of one serve as an 
example of many often equally grotesque and loathsome. 
1‘recentioii and Cure. 
Having considered under these two comprehensive headings “The Evil Eye” and 
“The I'lvil Spirit,” the chief factors that always “by the will of God” account for the 
incidence of disease, matters of prevention and cure, already touched on in passing, 
require some further mention. 
Written Charms. (Ketab, Hagab, Waraga.) 
Holy and mystic writings contained in neat rectangular or cylindrical cases of red 
leather, ornamented and suspended on a leather-carrying string, singly or in nundjers. 
(Idate XLI.) These “ words of power,” either by their intimate connection in subject or 
name with an evil one (who seems thus to be deprived of much of his power), or by their 
purely religious bearing, or both, are extremely potent. 
First in order of importance arc the universal charms which, compiled according to 
loose formuhe, seem to p{)ssess unlimited scope and serve as prevention or cure for all the 
ills that flesh is heir to, and among all conditions of men. They are strange mixtures of 
religion and paganism, consisting as they do of quotations from the Koran, sometimes alone, 
but more generally coupled with other matter, frequently compiled on a system (El Abyada) 
