STATE FARMS IN RUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 83, 2 January 1930, Page 19

STATE FARMS IN RUSSIA

SOVIET DRIVE AGAINST THE “KULAK” COMMUNISM AND THE PEASANT Native medicine men in South Africa, barred by law from practising, recently formed themselves into an association and gave a public demonstration of the mystic rites of their profession. Dressed in European clothes, a dozen of them performed on the platform of a hull on the Rand and roused to the wildest enthusiasm an audience of their countrymen, among whom were a few white onlookers. Bones were thrown, the “smelling-out rod” was used, and the secrets of herbhealing were reevaled. The president of the association, wearing an up-to-date suit, white stiff collar and shaded glasses, spoke at length and then called for the bones. As soon as he flung them on the floor pandemonium broke loose, and it was some time before the more frenzied members of the audience could be quieted. It was then explained that there are four chief bones, generally flat and oblong. These are: "the big man," “the biter,” “the big auntie,” and "the little auntie.” One side of each bone is covered with spots. The other side is plain. If all fall with the spots up there will, he said, be trouble in the country. All the bones with spot*' down mean loss of luck and belongings. Three bones with the spots down and an aunt facing west are interpreted as "You will be dead before sundown.” Three with the spots down and an auqt facing north mean good luck. There are many such interpretations. “The Smelling-out Rod.’

One of the witch doctors bad remarkable luck with his “smelling-out rod.” Four of the Europeans present were asked to write their names on a piece of paper. All. including a “Mr. Williams" (a prominent Rand physician) wrote false names. On being asked by the chairman to pick out “Mr. Williams.” who was a stranger to all the witch doctors, the diviner picked up his rod, spat on it, and calling to the spirits to guide it to “Mr. Williams,” twirled it in his hand. The stick rotated and finally came to rest pointing to “Mr. Williams.” who admitted the accuracy of the divination amid a Bieat year of applause.

The smeller-out, an old man, wore a tail coat, white shL;, and grey trousers. One witch doctor sported a waistcoat of jackal skin in fashionable cut. A were well and modishly attired. One carried his bones in, a tobacco bag, another in an opera-glass case, and a third in an attache case. Herbs and powders were in bags. The Paralysis Cure. Witch doctors still have an important place in the social structure of the South African native races. Nothing in the white, man’s civilisation seems to undermine the uneducated native’s faith in the intricate and ’mpressive ritual of the medicine man. Many of . the cures claimed for "magic” can be put down purely to auto-suggestion. Of this kind was one reported from Natal during the malaria outbreak that ravaged the kraals two months ago. A witch doctor ground a gramophone record to powder and administered it to a patient “to make him talk.” It was mixed with water from a railway engine, this being designed to make him “go” again. It is recorded that he did “go” again and that residents in the neighbourhood now to keep an eye on their gramophone records.

Though there is much quackery of this sort in the quasi-medical, semireligious practice of the witch doctor, many of them possess considerable medical knowledge. They have, for instance, long anticipated modern pathology by curing general para?, sis by allowing the patient to be bitten by malarial mosquitoes, thus setting up rival germs in conflict.