216 CHARMS AND COUNTER-CHARMS. [chap. vu. 



Nangoro's wives there. I suppose that the othei's, 

 being old, did not dance. They wear a copper armlet 

 as a sign of distinction. 



I had a difficulty with Nangoro, from not having 

 complied with one of the principal Ovampo customs, 

 on first entering the country. I did not like it, though 

 if I had had a proper idea of its importance, I should, 

 I suppose, have submitted with the best grace I could. 

 The Ovampo are, as all blacks and most whites, very 

 sui^erstitious ; a particular fear seems to possess them 

 of a stranger charming away the Hfe of a person he 

 may happen to eat with. Why dinner time should 

 be the season when the charm has most power I do not 

 know ; but such is considered to be the case. Accord- 

 ingly, counter-charms are used ; sometimes one is in 

 fashion, sometimes another ; now, Nangoro, when a 

 young man, being a person of considerable imagination, 

 framed a counter-charm for his own particular use, and 

 this being of course taken up by the court, is at present 

 the fashion of the whole of Ovampo-land, and it was to 

 this counter-charm that I personally objected. The 

 stranger sits down, closes his eyes, and raises his face to 

 heaven ; then the Ovampo initiator takes some water 

 into his moutli, gargles it well, and, standing over his 

 victim, delivers it full in his face. This ceremony having 

 once been performed, all goes on smoothly, though I 

 am inclined to think that, like vaccination, it requires 

 to be repeated at intervals, as its effect dies away. Old 

 Netjo yielded to my objections the day I dined in his 

 house, as Chik had done when I first met him, and 

 comj)romised the matter by rubbing butter between 



