Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/489

THE CONGO MEDICINE-MAN AND HIS BLACK
AND WHITE MAGIC.

BY JOHN H. WEEKS.

(Read at Meeting, February 16th, 1910.)

In this paper I desire to supplement information already given in Folk-Lore^[1] concerning the Lower Congo nganga or medicine-man by a fairly complete list of the many varieties of nganga. After careful enquiry I have arrived at the conclusion that nearly all ngangas practise both black and white magic, by the use of the same fetish in different ways.

The term nganga covers the meanings sorcerer, exorcist, witch-finder, fetish-priest, healer of diseases, diviner, conjuror, etc.,^[2] but no one nganga exercises all these functions. Each is expert in his particular line, rarely working outside it, and it will be seen from the names of the various ngangas that their functions are usually well-defined. Men and women on becoming ngangas do not take new personal names (except that the ndembo ngangas are always called Nkau), and can become ngangas in several different ways, viz.:—

1. Initiation.^[3]

2. Payment to a ngang’ a mbambi of 1000 strings of blue

1. Vol. xx., pp. 182-8.
2. 2 The term nganga is also applied to initiates of the ndembo and nkimba secret societies, but such persons rarely act as ngangas in the ordinary sense, and a nganga need not be a member of either society.
3. Vol. xx., p. 183.