SUPERSTITIONS OE THE WEST AFRICAN TRIBES. 591 
When a crime is committed in any town and the author is not 
known, the people make a big Jcanjo or dance, and send for Yassi. He 
lives far away in the depth of the jungle. Yassi is only a man ; he 
lives and dies like other men, hungers and thirsts, eats, drinks, and 
smokes as other men do. He can kill any man that provokes him, 
but is himself invulnerable. The people of the town cannot com- 
municate directly with him, but they must go to the nearest town and 
get the people there to secure his services for them. When Yassi 
comes to the banjo, every person who lives in the town must be 
present. When all are collected in a semi-circle, the performance 
begins, and Yassi emerges from the forest and enters the town. He 
always wears a hideous mask of wood, surmounted by great long tufts 
of hair made of bark or grass, and a long shaggy beard made of the 
same ; while his person is concealed under a garb made of grass, 
causing him to look immensely large. Even his fingers and toes are 
concealed to avoid identification. 
In one hand he always carries a spray of m'biindo (the plant 
from which is brewed the deadly draught used as the crucial test of 
guilt), and this fatal poison is feared by every native. In the other 
hand he carries a huge knife or stick, which is called ereri kamba — 
that is, a stick to talk, as no man is allowed to speak in their meetings 
without this stick in his baud. 
After Yassi has hopped or danced about the ring for a short 
time, he begins in a very deep and solemn tone to tell them of the 
crime that has been committed in the town, and states the penalty of 
it. Holding aloft the spray of m'bundo to remind them of its fatal 
power, and how certain it is in finding out the guilty, lie continues iu 
a kind of chant, and passes around the circle watching the countenance 
of each one, and from time to time in the midst of his story flouts the 
m' bundo in the face of anyone he may suspect, and watches the effect 
produced. His own face is concealed by the mask, and no one can 
tell who it is ; but their faces are bare, so that he can see them through 
the eyeholes of the grotesque mask. 
Yassi has many points in his favour, and sometimes will detect 
the guilty one with little difficulty, but if he fail to find him that night 
he will leave the town and return the next night; then he prophesies 
that certain things will come to pass before his return. His prophecies 
are always safe because they are so vague and ambiguous, and any- 
thing that happens may be regarded as the fulfilment of them. For 
example, he predicts that a witch will shoot the criminal, and that the 
powder will settle around his heart, burn it to a cinder and turn it 
black, dry up his blood, and suffocate him in his sleep; his eyes will 
ache and burn, and his throat will feel dry unless he walk three times 
around a certain house. Should he attempt to do that he is at once 
suspected, and the people are watching to see if anyone approaches 
the place. It is believed that a witch can shoot without being heard or 
seen, and as there is no way to see the man’s heart you cannot provo 
that it is not black and dry, and having faith in such things as these 
it is certain that one with a guilty conscience is liable to have all these 
symptoms before morning. Sometimes Yassi predicts that the guilty 
one will eat something that will lodge in his stomach and begin to 
grow, that it will turn his blood into water, causing it to dry up ; his 
side will begin to pain him, and get worse and worse until he will 
