DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0311
THE WAYAO OF NYASALAND
295
The father of one of my servants helped to clear out the remains of a body from his
grain store on one occasion and shortly afterwards, it is supposed that his own sons who
had said they could not allow it to go on any longer, employed some one to kill him, as he
was found, one day, with his head smashed in. There are, I believe, a number of similar
cases known.
A person is supposed to gain the powers of usawi by procuring medicine from some one
willing to sell his secrets at a price, and by performing certain rites usually connected with
his method of bathing. It is said that “ such and such a one takes his bath on the top of
an ant hill” or “on the roof of his house by moonlight.” The usual initiation into usawi
is a long business, the individual being successively initiated into all the various practices
of ukoma, the supernatural. Medicines are made from a still-born child, from various plants,
from the hyaena, etc., and used for preparing the individual in the new science. He is in-
troduced to the hyaena, the fox, etc. It is also asserted that a man may acquire super-
natural powers by having sexual intercourse with a near relative, a sister or mother. I
have had pointed out to me an old man who is said to have wished thus to acquire power
but the women refused and he has been a laughing-stock ever since.
On one occasion, a man related to me the pathetic life story of his attempt to find his
favorite sister who, like himself, had been taken away to the coast as a slave. In despera-
tion he has adopted the above procedure to try to gain supernatural powers to help him
but without result. It would therefore seem to be a method not particularly associated
with usawi.
The msawi is supposed to bring about the death of his victim not by administering poison
or other such direct means, but by the more subtle mode of making medicine “ against ”
him. When the victim has succumbed and is in due course buried, the msawi arrives at
the grave to secure that for which he has been working. To the msawi is attributed the
power of making himself invisible, and of taking the form of an animal; owing to the
carrion-eating habits of the hyaena, this animal form is most commonly taken. Other
animal forms which are associated with the msawi are the leopard, the fox, and the owl,
all night-going animals. The Yao say, 11 The cry of the fox (jackal) is heard at night be-
cause he associates with usawi doings.”
Arrived at the grave after sunset, the msawi blows his horn, the horn of a small ante-
lope, to call his brethren; a fire with a blue flame is made by the grave and around it they
dance, or the grave may be illuminated by blue flame without a visible fire. The msawi calls
upon the deceased to rise from the grave, addressing him by the name he bore before he was
initiated, i.e. his child-name. Obeying the summons, the dead man rises to the surface of
the ground, though how he comes out is not quite clear — “the hole may be ever so small.”
The risen dead is then killed again by magic medicine and his body divided to be eaten by
the congregation of wasawi. It is said that the skull is made into a gourd, the eyes are used
as beads, and the ribs formed into a girdle.
295
The father of one of my servants helped to clear out the remains of a body from his
grain store on one occasion and shortly afterwards, it is supposed that his own sons who
had said they could not allow it to go on any longer, employed some one to kill him, as he
was found, one day, with his head smashed in. There are, I believe, a number of similar
cases known.
A person is supposed to gain the powers of usawi by procuring medicine from some one
willing to sell his secrets at a price, and by performing certain rites usually connected with
his method of bathing. It is said that “ such and such a one takes his bath on the top of
an ant hill” or “on the roof of his house by moonlight.” The usual initiation into usawi
is a long business, the individual being successively initiated into all the various practices
of ukoma, the supernatural. Medicines are made from a still-born child, from various plants,
from the hyaena, etc., and used for preparing the individual in the new science. He is in-
troduced to the hyaena, the fox, etc. It is also asserted that a man may acquire super-
natural powers by having sexual intercourse with a near relative, a sister or mother. I
have had pointed out to me an old man who is said to have wished thus to acquire power
but the women refused and he has been a laughing-stock ever since.
On one occasion, a man related to me the pathetic life story of his attempt to find his
favorite sister who, like himself, had been taken away to the coast as a slave. In despera-
tion he has adopted the above procedure to try to gain supernatural powers to help him
but without result. It would therefore seem to be a method not particularly associated
with usawi.
The msawi is supposed to bring about the death of his victim not by administering poison
or other such direct means, but by the more subtle mode of making medicine “ against ”
him. When the victim has succumbed and is in due course buried, the msawi arrives at
the grave to secure that for which he has been working. To the msawi is attributed the
power of making himself invisible, and of taking the form of an animal; owing to the
carrion-eating habits of the hyaena, this animal form is most commonly taken. Other
animal forms which are associated with the msawi are the leopard, the fox, and the owl,
all night-going animals. The Yao say, 11 The cry of the fox (jackal) is heard at night be-
cause he associates with usawi doings.”
Arrived at the grave after sunset, the msawi blows his horn, the horn of a small ante-
lope, to call his brethren; a fire with a blue flame is made by the grave and around it they
dance, or the grave may be illuminated by blue flame without a visible fire. The msawi calls
upon the deceased to rise from the grave, addressing him by the name he bore before he was
initiated, i.e. his child-name. Obeying the summons, the dead man rises to the surface of
the ground, though how he comes out is not quite clear — “the hole may be ever so small.”
The risen dead is then killed again by magic medicine and his body divided to be eaten by
the congregation of wasawi. It is said that the skull is made into a gourd, the eyes are used
as beads, and the ribs formed into a girdle.