318 THE WITCH-DOCTOR. 



again be admitted to the community. He is, moreover, no 

 longer permitted to " suck the goats."* 



The Namaquas, like almost all nations who are sunk in 

 barbarism, have great faith in sorcery, and male and female 

 witch-doctors equally play conspicuous parts. These im- 

 postors are supposed to have the power to procure rain, to 

 restore the sick to health, to discover the cause of a person's 

 death, and to perform other miracles. They are crafty crea- 

 tures, and know how to take advantage of the popular igno- 

 rance. Even civilized men have been deceived by their wiles. 

 Their principal stipulation before they exercise any of their 

 arts is to have some animal slaughtered, which they prescribe 

 according to their fancy and to the wealth of their patients. 

 Mr. Moffat tells us that a stout ox might be a cure for a 

 slight cold in a chieftain, while a kid would be a remedy for 

 a fever among the poor, from whom there could be no chance 

 of obtaining any thing greater. 



The Namaqua witch-doctor is called kaiaoh, or kaiaohs if 

 a woman. On being called to the sick-bed, after having ex- 

 amined the patient, he or she generally declares that the ail- 

 ment is caused by a great snake (toros) having fired an ar- 

 row into the stomach. The sorcerer operates by feeling this 

 part of the body, and by a good squeezing endeavors to coax 

 the illness away. Another approved plan is to make a small 

 incision on the body about the place where the cause of the 

 disease is supposed to lurk, and to suck it out. The produc- 

 tion of a snake, a frog, an insect, or the like, is frequently 

 the result. Eyebrecht solemnly declared that he once was 

 an eye-witness to such an operation on a woman at Jonker's 

 place. When the witch-doctor arrived, a sheep was killed, 

 and the sinews of the back were cut out and rolled up into a 

 small ball, which the patient was made to swallow, the re- 



* It is a practice among the young Namaquas to hold a goat be- 

 tween the knees, and draw the milk directly from the teats of the an- 

 imal into their own mouths. 



