I Was Again Most Kindly Welcomed
By My Friend, Captain Neves, Whom I Found Laboring Under
A Violent Inflammation And Abscess Of The Hand.
There is nothing
in the situation of this village to indicate unhealthiness,
except, perhaps, the rank luxuriance of the
Vegetation.
Nearly all the Portuguese inhabitants suffer from enlargement of the spleen,
the effects of frequent intermittents, and have generally a sickly appearance.
Thinking that this affection of the hand was simply an effort of nature
to get rid of malarious matter from the system, I recommended
the use of quinine. He himself applied the leaf of a plant called cathory,
famed among the natives as an excellent remedy for ulcers.
The cathory leaves, when boiled, exude a gummy juice,
which effectually shuts out the external air. Each remedy, of course,
claimed the merit of the cure.
Many of the children are cut off by fever. A fine boy of 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 be
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 written
mercantile transactions, concluded that the merchants of Cassange
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 impression made on his own mind
by the sale, and likewise the native 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 European 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 baptized, 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.
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