BLACK MAGIC

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 120, 7 February 1940, Page 6

BLACK MAGIC

POWER OF WITCH DOCTORS STILL POTENT IN AFRICA SOME REMARKABLE CURES The African native still practises and believes in Black Magic. When in the Congo, for instance, a native wants to ensure good luck, to get rid of an ailment, or to be protected against danger, or to take vengeance on his enemy, he still goes to see the witch doctor; and this wise man never fails to dispense the appropriate magic. He also sells the fetishes that bestow on their owners the capacity to lie and steal without discovery. The owner, on the other hand, is bound to offer regular sacrifices to his fetish. At every new moon, his face directed to the sun, he has to ) ill a hen or goat and to splash its blood over the wooden idol. Sometimes, however, in spite of such good treatment, the fetish does not help. In such cases the native brings it back to the witch doctor to have it toned up again. This the sorcerer achieves by giving the fetish a thrashing, smoking it out, spitting in its facc, or exploding gunpowder underneath it. These black sorcerers achieve feats which would be utterly incredible if the3 r were not related by reliable witnesses. The explorerer,. Louis P. Bowler, tells of a medicine man who claimed to be able to transform himself into a white jackal, which, he adds, is a rare animal. "One day," he continues, "when I visited the medicine man he again boasted of his capacity. While he was still talking, there suddenly came a loud cry from outside. I ran to the threshold and saw, with a shock, a white jackal running away into the bush. When i turned bar! , rny medicine had disappeared, and nowhere in his hut was I able to detect him."