Mrs. Grenfell, Of The Upper Congo, Told Me In The Same Year, When I
Had The Pleasure Of Travelling With Her From Victoria To Matadi,
That A Similar Practice Was In Vogue Among Several Of The Upper
Congo Tribes.
Again in 1893 I came across another instance of the post-mortem
practice.
A woman had dropped down dead on a factory beach at
Corisco Bay. The natives could not make it out at all. They were
irritated about her conduct: "She no sick, she no complain, she no
nothing, and then she go die one time."
The post-mortem showed a burst aneurism. The native verdict was
"She done witch herself," i.e. she was a witch eaten by her own
familiar.
The general opinion held by people living near a river is that the
spirit of a witch can take the form of a crocodile to do its work
in; those who live away from large rivers or in districts like Congo
Francais, where crocodiles are not very savage, hold that the witch
takes on the form of a leopard. Still the crocodile spirit form is
believed in in Congo Francais, and to a greater extent in Kacongo,
because here the crocodiles of the Congo are very ferocious and
numerous, taking as heavy a toll in human life as they do in the
delta of the Niger and the estuaries of the Sierra Leone and
Sherboro' Rivers.
One witch-doctor I know in Kacongo had a strange professional
method.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 420 of 705
Words from 116022 to 116271
of 194943
