say, and I do not like to say it because I feel that if I were a betting man I could make a good thing over betting on it, for experience has taught me that every time an African's property is taken by a fellow African under native law, and in times of peace, it is taken after it is confiscated by its original owner, either in bankruptcy or crime. You will hear dozens of accounts of how everything an African possessed was seized on, etc., but if you look into them you will find in every case that the individual so cleaned out owed it all, and frequently far more, before he or she fell into the hands of the Official Receiver, the local chief.
One of the most common causes of an individual's entire estate being seized upon is a conviction for witchcraft. Every form of property in Africa is liable to be called on to meet its owner's debts, and the witch's is too heavy a debt for any individual's private estate to meet and leave a surplus. For not only does the witch owe to the family of the person, of whose murder he or she is convicted, the price of that life, but it is felt by the Community that the witch has not been found out in the first offence, and so every miscellaneous affliction that has recently happened is put down to the convicted witch's account. Mind you, I do not say all these claims are satisfied out of the estate of the witch deceased, (witches are always deceased by the authorities with the utmost despatch after conviction) because the said property has during the course of the trial got into the hands of Officialdom and has a natural tendency to stop there. But one thing is certain, there is no residuary estate for the witch's own relations. Not that for the matter of that they would dare claim it in any case, lest they should be involved with the witch and accused as accomplices.
Still, legally, the witch's relations have the consolation of
