May have had a bad illness from some
cause in his previous life and, when reincarnated, part of this
disease may get reincarnated with him and then he will ultimately
die of it. There is no medicine of any avail against these
reincarnated diseases.
The idea of reincarnation is very strong in the Niger Delta tribes.
It exists, as far as I have been able to find out, throughout all
Africa, but usually only in scattered cases, as it were; but in the
Delta, most - I think I may say all - human souls of the "surviving
soul" class are regarded as returning to the earth again, and
undergoing a reincarnation shortly after the due burial of the soul.
These two exceptions from the rule of all deaths and sickness being
caused by witchcraft are, however, of minor importance, for
infinitely the larger proportion of death and sickness is held to
arise from witchcraft itself, more particularly among the Bantu.
Witchcraft acts in two ways, namely, witching something out of a
man, or witching something into him. The former method is used by
both Negro and Bantu, but is decidedly more common among the
Negroes, where the witches are continually setting traps to catch
the soul that wanders from the body when a man is sleeping; and when
they have caught this soul, they tie it up over the canoe fire and
its owner sickens as the soul shrivels.
This is merely a regular line of business, and not an affair of
individual hate or revenge. The witch does not care whose dream-
soul gets into the trap, and will restore it on payment. Also
witch-doctors, men of unblemished professional reputation, will keep
asylums for lost souls, i.e. souls who have been out wandering and
found on their return to their body that their place has been filled
up by a Sisa, a low class soul I will speak of later. These doctors
keep souls and administer them to patients who are short of the
article.
But there are other witches, either wicked on their own account, or
hired by people who are moved by some hatred to individuals, and
then the trap is carefully set and baited for the soul of the
particular man they wish to injure, and concealed in the bait at the
bottom of the pot are knives and sharp hooks which tear and damage
the soul, either killing it outright, or mauling it so that it
causes its owner sickness on its return to him. I knew the case of
a Kruman who for several nights had smelt in his dreams the savoury
smell of smoked crawfish seasoned with red peppers.
