The belief in witchcraft is the cause of more African deaths than
anything else. It has killed and still kills more men and women
than the slave-trade. Its only rival is perhaps the smallpox, the
Grand Kraw-Kraw, as the Krumen graphically call it.
At almost every death a suspicion of witchcraft arises. The witch-
doctor is called in, and proceeds to find out the guilty person.
Then woe to the unpopular men, the weak women, and the slaves; for
on some of them will fall the accusation that means ordeal by
poison, or fire, followed, if these point to guilt, as from their
nature they usually do, by a terrible death: slow roasting alive -
mutilation by degrees before the throat is mercifully cut - tying to
stakes at low tide that the high tide may come and drown - and any
other death human ingenuity and hate can devise.
The terror in which witchcraft is held is interesting in spite of
all its horror. I have seen mild, gentle men and women turned by
it, in a moment, to incarnate fiends, ready to rend and destroy
those who a second before were nearest and dearest to them.
Terrible is the fear that falls like a spell upon a village when a
big man, or big woman is just known to be dead. The very men catch
their breaths, and grow grey round the lips, and then every one,
particularly those belonging to the household of the deceased, goes
in for the most demonstrative exhibition of grief. Long, low howls
creep up out of the first silence - those blood-curdling, infinitely
melancholy, wailing howls - once heard, never to be forgotten.
The men tear off their clothes and wear only the most filthy rags;
women, particularly the widows, take off ornaments and almost all
dress; their faces are painted white with chalk, their heads are
shaven, and they sit crouched on the earth in the house, in the
attitude of abasement, the hands resting on the shoulders, palm
downwards, not crossed across the breast, unless they are going into
the street.
Meanwhile the witch-doctor has been sent for, if he is not already
present, and he sets to work in different ways to find out who are
the persons guilty of causing the death.
Whether the methods vary with the tribe, or with the individual
witch-doctor, I cannot absolutely say, but I think largely with the
latter.
Among the Benga I saw a witch-doctor going round a village ringing a
small bell which was to stop ringing outside the hut of the guilty.
Among the Cabindas (Fjort) I saw, at different times, two witch-
doctors trying to find witches, one by means of taking on and off
the lid of a small basket while he repeated the names of all the
people in the village.
