SOCIETY OF THE UNIVERSITY OP ABERDEEN. 47 



the witch-doctor is the man who is usually first consulted, and the 

 following is briefly his mode of operation. 



After seeing the sick person he throws bones, or else he rattles a 

 little basket somewhat after the nature of a small tambourine, and 

 then appears to have a fit. He next states that the patient has been 

 bewitched, and after a time he names the village in which the person 

 who has bewitched the patient is living. Next he usually discovers that 

 it is a woman who is the cause of the trouble, and finally he mentions 

 the name of the culprit. The people of the kraal in which the 

 patient is living go to the village, and make inquiries about any 

 person having the name mentioned by the doctor, and if it so happens 

 that there is no person having that name in the kraal, the natives 

 make inquiries until they find some one living there who has got a name 

 closely resembling the one mentioned by the doctor. This person, 

 when found, is proclaimed to be a witch, and after due inquiries vari- 

 ous penalties are inflicted. Such belief have the people in the power 

 of the doctor that it frequently occurs that when an unfortunate 

 woman or child has been accused of bewitching a child, she says that 

 though she lias no recollection of doing so while awake, she may have 

 done so in her sleep, and in this way plays more or less into the 

 hands of the doctor. Sometimes she is only fined, but frequently she 

 is turned out of the village, and in the old days was sometimes killed. 

 At the present time the doctor is generally very careful not to accuse 

 a man of having bewitched a person. The male native, as a result of 

 his contact with a European population at Johannesburg, is beginning 

 to know rather too much to be duped by any trickery which the 

 Kaffir doctor may try to impose on him. Consequently he is liable to 

 illustrate to the medical man with a knobkerrie or an assegai that a 

 mistake has been made in the diagnosis in his special case. This 

 naturally leads to unseemly proceedings, and a loss of that professional 

 dignity so necessary to every general practitioner. 



At the same time this witchcraft is undoubtedly a source of great 

 trouble among the natives. On? Portuguese commandant said that 

 he frequently had husbands bringing their wives to his commando, 



