They Derive Their Power From Him In A Remarkable
Way.
I put myself to great personal inconvenience (fever risk,
mosquito certainty, high leopard and snake palaver probability, and
grave personal alarm and apprehension) to verify Colonel Ellis's
account of the methods witches employ in this case, to obtain
ehsuhman and I find his account correct.
{363}
The chief use of a suhman is the power it gives its owner to procure
the death of other people, not necessarily his own enemies, for he
will sell charms made by the agency of his suhman to another person
whose nerves have not been equal to facing Sasabonsum on his own
account. He can also provide by its agency other charms, such as
those that protect houses from fire, and things and individuals from
accidents on the road, or in canoes, and the home circle from good-
looking but unprincipled young men, and so on.
As a rule the person who has a suhman keeps the fact pretty quiet,
for the possession of such an article would lead half the
catastrophes in his district, from the decease of pigs, fowls, and
babies, to fires, etc., to be accredited to him, which would lead to
his neighbours making "witch palaver" over him, and he would have to
undergo poison-ordeal and other unpleasantness to clear his
character. He, however, always keeps a special day in his suhman's
honour, and should he be powerful, as a king or big chief, he will
keep this day openly.
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