356 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



transformation-belief, still so common in Maskat, 

 Abyssinia, Somaliland, and the Cape, and anciently 

 an almost universal superstition, is, curious to say, 

 unknown amongst these East African tribes. The 

 Wahiao, lying between Kilwa and the Nyassa Lake, 

 preserve, however, a remnant of the old creed in their 

 conviction, that a malevolent magician can change a 

 man after death into a lion, a leopard, or a hyaena. On 

 the Zambezi the people, according to Dr. Living- 

 stone (chap, xxx.), believe that a chief may metamor- 

 phose himself into a lion, kill any one he chooses, and 

 then return to the human form. About Tete (chap, 

 xxxi.) the negroids hold that, "while persons are still 

 living, they may enter into lions and alligators, and 

 then return again to their own bodies." Travellers 

 determined to find in Africa counterparts of European 

 and Asiatic tenets, argue from this transformation a 

 belief in the " transmigration of souls." They thus 

 confuse material metamorphosis with a spiritual pro- 

 gress, which is assuredly not an emanation from the 

 Hamitic mind. The Africans have hitherto not bewil- 

 dered their brains with metaphysics, and, ignoring the 

 idea of a soul, which appears to be a dogma of the 

 Caucasian race, they necessarily ignore its immor- 

 tality. 



The second, and, perhaps, the most profitable occu- 

 pation of the Mganga, is the detection of Uchawi, or 

 black magic. The fatuitous style of conviction, and the 

 fearful tortures which, in the different regions, await 

 those found guilty, have already been described, as far 

 as description is possible. Amongst a people where the 

 magician is a police detector, ordeals must be expected 

 to thrive. The Baga or Kyapo of East Africa — the 

 Arabs translate it El Halaf, or the Oath — is as cruel, 



