SORCERIES OF THE WITCH DOCTORS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3131, 21 August 1922, Page 2

SORCERIES OF THE WITCH DOCTORS.

(By 11. F. S. Dewdney.)

Into Nairobi native hospital there staggered the other day a native youth as pale as a nigger ever can be. Ho said ho was ill, very ill, in fact, m’gonjua sana. His eyes protruded in an uncanny fashion, he was quivering violently from head to foot, there were several small sores on his back, and he complained of extra-strong ‘‘pins and needles” up and down his legs. The doctor sounded him, felt his pulse, listened through his stethoscope, and did all the other things that doctors do when they get a new case. Everything showed the youth was as sound as a bell—yet he was obviously ill. A few judicious questions solved the problem. The boy said a. neighbor who had the evil eye had cast a spell over him—he was bewitched. An ordinary medico might have poohpoohed the idea. Not so the Kenya doctor, who knows only too well what magic is among the native tribes, even in semi-civilised East Africa, and how impossible it is even for modern modical science to do anything to combat it. For those who are bewitched there is at present no known cure. There are many fully authenticated instances of magic which have passed Europeans’ comprehension. Quite recently a Kiknpu had a spell put on him by a witch-doctor, whereby ho was compelled to kill the first man he met. The Kikuyu went to another witch-doctor and had the spell removed. But No. 1 was cute. He placed a medicine on the Kikupu’s doorstep so that when the latter stepped over it the spell would he replaced. The Kikuyu came out of his hut shortly afterwards, immediately ran amok, went down the street, and killed the first man ho met —another old Kikuyu. The witch-doctor and the murderer both stood their fatal trial, and the witch-doctor got the longer sentence. At a place called Kibos there once lived an old gentleman who carried around a monkey’s paw strapped to bis finger. Whoever bo pointed this at immediately fell down stone dead. He caused so many deaths that he ultimately had to be removed from the district by the Government. There is a, Rider Haggard touch about the three natives who were found', squatting one evening around a bowl of clear water, occasionally prodding it with sticks. On being asked what they were doing, they replied that they were killing a native cook employed by a white man in the next village, ten miles away. The following morning it v. as found that the unfortunate cook had actually died at that very hour. What actually brings the physical symptoms of the bewitchment has never yet been discovered. The natives’ very real belief in it, combined with a little auto-suggestion, hypnotism, and perhaps a little judicious poison now and then are possibly the main causes. Perhaps there is something deeper. Anyway, the results are very tangible, and are beyond the white man’s power to cure. A white doctor, when confronted' with a witchcraft case, usually ueucls the patient back to his village to lie “de-witched” by some other and more powerful magician than the one who cast the spell. Some district officers have occasionally found that a. large glass of Worcester sauce, pepper, and vinegar is effective. By the time the patient has finished coughing and spluttering it is sometimes found the evil spirit has been exorcised. But there is much.the European still has to learn about the black man’s magic.