198 THROUGH ANGOLA 



introduced, the African witch doctor gained his 

 power and livelihood, as did the European and 

 Asiatic sorcerers with their devils, jinns, and 

 amulets. In primeval days, physical force alone 

 was regarded and respected. The man who could 

 take his food from claw and talon, who could win 

 his mate from his fellow-men ; such a man must 

 necessarily have been physically strong, and the 

 weakling children were killed off, either when born 

 or in the terrible struggle for existence. Those 

 weaklings who survived developed cunning to 

 replace good strength, and from them probably 

 came the first sorcerers, doctors, and artists. 

 Though early forms of superstition and worship, 

 born of dreams and nature portents, probably 

 preceded the rise of the witch doctor, yet it is 

 probable that the cunning weakling took to the 

 earliest form of magic to ensure his possession of 

 food and a mate in a community of strong and 

 brave hunters ; and to increase his influence, 

 surrounded his work with mystery and elaborate 

 magic ritual. 



If astuteness and cunning caused by physical 

 infirmity helped to produce the earlier magicians, 

 it is probable that this knowledge was transmitted 

 to their offspring, and later generations of those 

 skilled in sorcery and healing were taken from the 

 same family. The medicine-man of modern Africa 

 is even more often the son of a doctor father 

 than the physician of Europe. The profession of 

 witch doctoring in Angola includes that of medi- 

 cine, witchcraft, divining, and rain-making, whose 

 specialists are as numerous as those in Uarlcy 



