man.[1] In West Africa, a case in point is the practice of transferring a sick man's ailment to a live fowl, which is set free with it, and if any one catches the fowl, the disease goes to him.[2] Captain Burton's account from Central Africa is as follows. Disease being possession by a spirit or ghost, the 'mganga' or sorcerer has to expel it, the principal remedies being drumming, dancing, and drinking, till at last the spirit is enticed from the body of the patient into some inanimate article, technically called a 'keti' or stool for it. This may be an ornament, such as a peculiar bead or a leopard's claw, or it may be a nail or rag, which by being driven into or hung to a 'devil's tree' has the effect of laying the disease-spirit. Or disease-spirits may be extracted by chants, one departing at the end of each stave, when a little painted stick made for it is flung on the ground, and some patients may have as many as a dozen ghosts extracted, for here also the fee is so much apiece.[3] In Siam, the Laos sorcerer can send his 'phi phob' or demon into a victim's body, where it turns into a fleshy or leathery lump, and causes disease ending in death.[4] Thus, on the one hand, the spirit-theory of disease is seen to be connected with that sorcerer's practice prevalent among the lower races, of pretending to extract objects from the patient's body, such as stones, bones, balls of hair, &c., which are declared to be causes of disease conveyed by magical means into him; of this proceeding I have given a detailed account elsewhere, under the name of the 'sucking-cure.'[5] On the other hand, there appears among the lower races that well-known conception of a disease or evil influence as an individual being, which may be not merely conveyed by an infected object (though this of course may have much to do with the idea), but may be
- ↑ Callaway, 'Religion of Amazulu,' p. 314.
- ↑ Steinhauser, l.c. p. 141. See also Steere, 'East Afr. Tribes,' in 'Journ. Anthrop. Soc.' vol. i. p. cxlviii.
- ↑ Burton, 'Central Africa,' vol. ii. p. 352. See 'Sindh,' p. 177.
- ↑ Bastian, 'Oestl. Asien,' vol. iii. p. 275.
- ↑ 'Early Hist. of Mankind,' ch. x. See Bastian, 'Mensch,' vol. ii. p. 116, &c.
