WITCH DOCTORS AND RAIN-MAKERS 109 



Street ; it has its courses of instruction and 

 examination for initiates, a considerable degree of 

 combination among its members (a kind of medical 

 union in fact), and there may even be a standard 

 of professional etiquette. 



Serpa Pinto, who travelled in Angola fifty 

 years ago, considered there were then three types 

 of fetish-men in the country the doctor, the 

 diviner, and the wizard. The diviner foretold 

 the future, or the cause of trouble in man or 

 beast, village or house ; the doctor treated the 

 trouble if physical ; the wizard dealt with it if 

 supernatural and a spirit had to be exorcized. 

 It was the wizard also who tried to discover if 

 this evil spirit was without the body and could 

 be coaxed or driven from house or village, or 

 whether, embodied in a human being, this person 

 could be tried by ordeal. 



It is difficult to-day clearly to define and 

 differentiate the witch doctors, as civilization has 

 diminished their powers and practice. 



At the present time there is usually a witch 

 doctor in each large village, who uses incantations 

 as w r ell as charms and drugs in his efforts at 

 treatment ; and if divining, caskets, and gourds 

 full of seeds, bones of all kinds, antelope horns, 

 fish scales, and other things as well. 



After a vigorous shaking of the caskets and 

 gourds, certain of the charms arc thrown to the 

 surface, and from their nature the diviner predicts 

 and judges. He may in this way foretell that a 

 person, or even a house or village, is bewitched, 

 and then mav call in another doctor to cure the 



