NORTH-EASTERN RHODESIA 95 



amongst one another, but they are now fairly 

 pacific. 



The Chila language is believed by authorities 

 to be amongst the very oldest in all Bantu Africa. 

 But there is an archaic form of Chila which is 

 only understood by a very few old chiefs, and is 

 spoken by none when in normal condition. 

 Certain of the Baila prophets, however, possess 

 the faculty of throwing themselves into a trance. 

 Apparently no drugs or herbs are used, the 

 action is quite spontaneous, and when in this 

 trance they prophesy in this dead language. 



Here we have some evidence of transmigration 

 which is as strong as anything in our philosophy 

 of the occult. Reincarnation is a common belief 

 all over Africa. The Awemba, for instance, will 

 tell you that there are two kinds of lions — the 

 n'kalamu, or ordinary hunting lion, and the 

 chisenguka, or man-eater, into which type have 

 departed the spirits of their dead chiefs. 



It is not for us to scoff at these ideas, for 

 many of the white race profess a more weird 

 belief than this. Nor can we deride the strange 

 attraction of the Central African's music or the 

 simple beauty of his fairy tales. They are all 

 so barbarously natural that our own elevated 

 parallels fall harsh and affected on the senses by 

 comparison. We have not the true insight into 

 Nature which the African has. He who wishes 

 to understand Nature must live with her, just 

 as he who desires the full heat of a fire must sit 

 close by it. And we who build big fires sit a 

 long way from them. 



Late one afternoon I reached N'Tanta's, a 

 village of the Awisa tribe, situated on one of the 

 backwaters of the Luangwa River. For days I 

 had been " spooring " a wounded elephant, and 



7 



