Olbrechts] the swimmer MANUSCRIPT 131 



When they are grown up they are most annoying individuals; 

 they always know what you think, and you could not possibly mislead 

 them. And what is worse, they can make you ill, dejected, lovesick, 

 dying, merely by thinking you in such a condition. 



A boy of twins, so reared, is a most successful hunter; he never fails 

 or misses; not only does he get the kind of game or fish he wants, but 

 he always bags the finest specimens and the choicest morsels to be 

 found. 



A girl in this condition is expert at all woman's work and industries. 

 When she is preparing a meal she has but to think it is done and 

 immediately it is ready to be eaten. Nor do such tasks as making 

 baskets or gathering nuts, wild fruits, or vegetables mean any exertion 

 to her. 



If twins have completed their 24 days' seclusion they are more than 

 a match for anything or anybody. The only means of preventing 

 the calamity of the community being annoyed by such a couple of 

 "undesirables" is to thwart their bringing up. 



Og. told me that he "learned that a family were bringing up their 

 twins to become witches. This was going to mean a lot of trouble 

 for the settlement, so I got a menstrual woman to cook some food, and 

 managed to slip it to the infants, without the guardians suspecting 

 it. By so doing I 'spoiled' them, and they were never any more 

 witch than you or I." 



I asked him why it was necessary to go to so much trouble and 

 danger to obtain this result; could he not have waited until after 

 the 24 days' period, when he would have been able to reach the 

 children much more easily? "Then it would have been too late," 

 he said. "You see, by that time, they would have the full power of 

 witches, and they would laiow that the food had been prepared by a 

 woman in such a condition. They know what you think." 



These people arc certainly very consistent in what they believe. 



DEATH AND AFTERLIFE 



Death 



As a sick person shows signs of losing ground, of becoming weak 

 and despondent, of losing all interest in life, his relati\es do not try 

 to hide, neither to each other nor to the patient, their apprehension as 

 to a fatal outcome. The care is doubled, the medicine man in charge 

 of the treatment may be dismissed and another one may be intrusted 

 with combating the disease; increasing attention is given to the 

 "guard and the watch against witches." 



The possibilities and probabilities, the ultimate outcome of the 

 affair, are frequently made the subject of conversation between the 



