HOW WE CURED THE CHIEF 



are stopped, and the mourners who but a minute before 

 were sadly moaning and wailing or dancing wildly round 

 the corpse, are now smoking, quarrelling, eating, drinking, 

 or resting. In a few minutes the obsequies are started 

 again and the din is kept up until after sundown, when 

 should the deceased be a person of some social standing, 

 a headman or chief maybe, the fiendish and frenzied 

 form of the Witch Doctor madly performs the dance of 

 death by the graveside. In a cloud of dust, surrounded 

 by hundreds of hideous-looking savages with glistening 

 bodies lit up by the uncanny light of the fires, he performs 

 prancing sinuous movements, revolving at times like a 

 teetotum wildly chanting the song of death. A medley 

 of cat, leopard, and other skins that hang loosely from 

 his ghostly form are swinging in all directions, small 

 iron bells jingle as he revolves with ever-increasing 

 rapidity. A great feather head-dress caps his features, 

 which are rendered demoniacal as the performance grows 

 while streams of perspiration pour off him. With a yell 

 he jumps into the air and falls prostrate gasping for 

 breath, covered with dust, while a loud wail soars above 

 the heads of the people and rolls away on the soft night 

 breeze. By some tribes, at the funeral of a chief, human 

 sacrifices are made, the victims usually being his wives, 

 in order that his spirit may not be unaccompanied in the 

 great journey. Sometimes they are buried alive with the 

 chief in the yawning darkness of the deeply dug grave, 

 and hundreds of people hurl the earth into the living 

 tomb, and at the conclusion of the terrible affair hundreds 

 of naked demons with glistening spears and savage song 

 dance in revelry as the night grows on, drums beat loudly 

 till the morn approaches, huge bats that wheel overhead 

 pollute the atmosphere, dogs yelp and howl, the cool 

 breeze waves the heads of nodding stately palms that 

 line the river whose waters are lit up by the silvery 

 beams of the moon. We turn away from the scene with 



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