470 A DIVINER THRASHED. 



Captain Neves' had, since my passage westward, shared a similar 

 fate. Another child died during the period of my visit. During 

 his sickness, his mother, a woman of color, sent for a diviner in 

 order to ascertain what ought to be done. The diviner, after 

 throwing his dice, worked himself into the state of ecstasy in 

 which they pretend to he in communication with the Barimo. 

 He then gave the oracular response that the child was being 

 killed by the spirit of a Portuguese trader who once lived at 

 Cassange. The case was this : on the death of the trader, the 

 other Portuguese merchants in the village came together, and sold 

 the goods of the departed to each other, each man accounting for 

 the portion received to the creditors of the deceased at Loanda. 

 The natives, looking on, and not understanding the nature of writ- 

 ten mercantile transactions, concluded that the merchants of Cas- 

 sange had simply stolen the dead man's goods, and that now the 

 spirit was killing the child of Captain Neves for the part he had 

 taken in the affair. The diviner, in his response, revealed the im- 

 pression made on his own mind by the sale, and likewise the na- 

 tive ideas of departed souls. As they give the whites credit for 

 greater stupidity than themselves in all these matters, the mother 

 of the child came, and told the father that he ought to give a 

 slave to the diviner as a fee to make a sacrifice to appease the 

 spirit and save the life of the child. The father quietly sent for 

 a neighbor, and, though the diviner pretended to remain in his 

 state of ecstasy, the brisk application of two sticks to his back 

 suddenly reduced him to his senses and a most undignified flight. 

 The mother of this child seemed to have no confidence in Eu- 

 ropean wisdom, and, though I desired her to keep the child out of 

 currents of wind, she preferred to follow her own custom, and even 

 got it cupped on the cheeks. The consequence was that the child 

 was soon in a dying state, and the father wishing it to be bap- 

 tized, I commended its soul to the care and compassion of Him 

 who said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven." The mother at 

 once rushed away, and commenced that doleful wail which is so 

 affecting, as it indicates sorrow without hope. She continued it 

 without intermission until the child was buried. In the evening 

 her female companions used a small musical instrument, which 

 produced a kind of screeching sound, as an accompaniment of the 

 death wail. 



