Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/70

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
56
Customs of the Lower Congo People.

Every man who toils hard in trading, smithing, or working for white men does so to enrich himself, and also his family as a whole, but the main incentive to labour is to prepare a great funeral for himself. He hopes and believes that the greater proportion of his wealth will be wound round his body, and that much of his other property will be put in the grave with him to be taken by him to the forest town. Chiefs of importance had wives and slaves killed and buried with them so that they might not go alone along the lonely road to the forest town.

There was nothing known about Nzambi (God), for all that had been known was forgotten.[1] The Devil (Nkadi a mpemba) was known, and it was thought that he lived together with the witches (ndoki), and that all the witchcraft power came from him; in fact, in some districts Nkadi a mpemba and ndoki are interchangeable. He was more feared than Nzambi, and because of his cruel, malignant nature it was necessary to appease him. All their fetishes, charms, and "medicine men," together with their sacrifices of fowls and goats, are either to circumvent him or to gain his good-will.[2]

  1. "Lufwa lua Nzambi" is death by God's hand, i.e. a natural death. This phrase is used when a person of no importance dies, or the family does not want the trouble and expense of engaging a nganga to search for the ndoki, and although this phrase may be used they still believe that the death was caused by witchcraft.
  2. Nkadi means devil or demon, and mpemba means chalk. Now chalk is used very largely in making up charms etc., and it is rubbed on the bodies of ngangas when they are performing their incantations etc. Sometimes the whole face is covered with chalk, and broad bands are run down the arms and across the chest. Is the above word for devil simply the demon or devil of the chalk, that is, the demon who covers himself with chalk, and so is the chief of all the devils? Or is it that demon or devil who uses chalk as a charm to make himself most powerful in bewitching folk? Those who want to counteract his evil influence use chalk as a part of their charm-making, and also as a part of their nganga decorations when working charms against him. It is the custom, as will be seen later, to use a bit of a fetish to remove the evil influence of the same fetish. It is very probable that the Congo's devil