BLACK MYSTERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 147, 23 June 1934, Page 9 (Supplement)

BLACK MYSTERY.

AFRICAN PUZZLES.

THE TELEPATHIC SENSE,

SOME BAFFLING PROBLEMS

Does the African native possess some sixth sense denied to the white man? The theory has been advanced before, and i s revived again by Commander Attilio tiatti in his "Black Mist." This distinguished Italian traveller mentions, for instance, the African's ability to keep his sense of direction under any circumstances. One day, ho says, he made an experiment "with the most stupid boy in my camp. I took him into a hut, blindfolded him securely and whirled him around and around. A dozen times I broughtJiim to a sudden stop, shouting, 'Where does the sun rise?'

"Half frightened, yet giggling at this crazy performance of the white man, the poor devil unfailingly pointed toward the cast with the precision of the most perfect instrument." "Water in the Desert. Water-divining is another characteristic of the native. Commander Gatti tolls us that Ills party, crossing the Karroo Desert, ran dangerously short of water. He gave -his cook two' empty buckets and told him to bring them back full of water: — For nearly two hours we waited, but at the end of that time Milk reappeared, grinning from ear to ear, his two buckets brimming with beautiful spring water. When we had drunk gratefully-of the delicious cool water, wo questioned him. Where had he found it? "Lapa," he answered, pointing vaguely. We followed him to see where "lapa" was, and ho led us to a hole 3ft deep which he had dug. At the bottom bubbled a spring.

The boy did this on three successive evenings, and cach'time, we are told, the spot ho chose bore no exterior sign of Iho presence of water. Later, when the hand of the barometer still stood in the centre of "Dry," they asked the boy, half jokingly, when rain would come. "Today," ho replied:—

"To-day, my hat!" the anthropologist said, venomously, as an especially strong gust of wind parted for a moment the yellowish cloud in which we had been living for a week arid showed us an unyielding stretch of hard blue sky. "Yes, musungu," said the innocent cook, with many broad smile 3 and corroborative nods of his head.

In the middle of the afternoon sullen clouds suddenly loosed on us a cataract of rain which, we knew, would not stop until the end of the rainy season. It was only when the plain had been converted into a swamp that the barometer showed "Rain." Attracted by Food. Natives, too, always seem to know when food is about. The commander describes how ho onco shot an eland when lie was hunting alone. No hut or native was in sight. Ho began to cut away xueat from tho animal, and again scanned the horizon. * "Far away, just distinguishable with the binoculars, I saw three natives coming, apparently, toward me. I looked a fain and from other directions small human figures were approaching. In.less than an hour nine natives had' reached me, finished tho skinning of the animal, carried to my car all the meat I wanted, and started back to their distant huts, very happy at the nyaina (meat) they had fraternally shared with me." They could not, he says, have heard the sound" of his gun; in any case, on the previous day he had shot at an eland and missed it—and no native hod appeared. Another baffling problem is: How is the African warned of the approach of a traveller to his village? Not only will the natives be aware of tho impending visit, but thay will know where the traveller is going and why, what he wants and what lie is doing; what are his salient characteristics, and, often, even the secret foibles of which lie himself may be unconscious. And, of course, his name; or at least tlie name which other natives have given him and which usually conveys in one or two words an accurate physical and mental portrait of the man.

The "Engrisch" King's Present. Commander Gatti gives some astonishing examples of this telepathic power—or whatever it is. In 1024, he says, in camp near Mogadiscio, in Italian Somaliland, lie overheard his orderly saying, "Yesterday the great King of the 'Engrisch' has made a present to the great King of Italy." Questioning him, the commander "was told that the "present" consisted of land and was even given its dimensions: — But I was unable to make anything of his complicated calculations, all based oti measurements such as the length from the elbow of one arm to the middle finger-tip of the other, plus the breadth of tho right hand, and tile distance from finger-tip to finger-tip of a man with the arms stretched out horizontally, and so on, bringing in every possible part of tho human anatomy. That evening the commander mentioned the matter to the Chief Secretary and learned that there had been talk of Great Britain ceding territory to Italy for the past six years. A few weeks 'later "tho news was published that ICisimayu and its territory had been turned over to Italy, and neither the Chief Secretary nor I knew what to think when I pointed out to him that tho date of the signirlg of the accord was tho very day before my orderly had received tho news in full detail." He had given the extent of tho present" as 32,000 square miles —it should have been 33,000; but Commander Gatti thinks that tho error may have been due to tho complicated calculations having been based on the anatomy of a very small man. The commander gives another instance of news of an accident to a white man being transmitted across 200 miles of thinly-settled country in under two hours. What peculiar power the native possesses, Commander Gatti makes no attempt to explain; he merely quotes examples of it, as many other European travellers have done.

The Witch Doctor's "Magic." On one occasion four of the commander's "boys" were taken ill, and nothing would rouse them. He was "etting seriously alarmed, when an old witch doctor arrived, saying, "I came to see tliose in the Lands of evil spirits." The commander followed him into the Imt where the "boys" lay; here the old man drew a long black hair across the forehead of one of the sufferers: — .. "The boy lay as the dead, his eyes closed, his lips sealed. Back and forth, back and forth, the slow strokes continued for several seconds. Then the old man bent over Tikky, the cook's assistant, a toy little more than a child, and began to pass the hair across his forehead in the same manner.

"But at the first touch of the hair, a strange sound broke the silence of the hut—the bleating of a little goat. "In astonishment, I saw that this sound came from Tikky, who lay absolutely immobile; .uttering a plaintive cry, identical with the bleat of „a young' goat."

The same tiling happened, when tlio cook was "treated," but the hair had 110 effect 011 the fourth native. The witch doctor then left the hut, followed by the commander. In a few minutes the two boys who had not "bleated" emerged, showing 110 signs of their recent illness. They went straight into the bush and later returned carrying two little black goats. These, the commander learned, were intended for a tribal ceremony, but had been stolen by two of his boys —those who "bleated." The other two had hidden them. The witch doctor said that the culprits would continue to suffer for 24 hours —and, according to Commander Gatti, they did! Useful Monkeys. A use, too, "can be found even for the instincts of the African monkey. The commander keeps one for a pet, and says that if ho finds "a strange fruit or vegetable whose delectable appearance arouses the hope of a break in the monotonous menu of meats and tinned stulls, I try it on the monkey. If he jumps at it with his normal greediness, I <?an then rescue it for my table. But with one of his funny gestures of disdain lie tosses it aside, in nine cases out of ten a chemical analysis will show that the innocent-looking fruit contains some irritating or harmful substance, if not a deadly poison."