DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0312
296
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
A msawi may be met with under different circumstances. An educated native told me
of his experience one night when riding a bicycle back to a township where he was employed.
Coming along a smooth-hoed path with his lamp alight, he became aware of the presence
of something in the bush in front and at the side of him. Suddenly his lamp was smashed
and he was left in darkness, while something pushed him over so hard that he fell off his
cycle. Picking himself up, he started to wheel his cycle on, when there appeared on the
path in front, figures who, rubbing their hands together to produce a phosphorescent glow,
held them up in front of the boy’s face. He was, however, not molested further, and coming
to a group of huts he knew, he went in and made inquiries as to the cause of his experi-
ences and was promptly told that there was a man living in a hut near the spot on the path
where they had occurred who was supposed to be msawi. Such a story is given for what it
is worth. The boy was about twenty-two years old, a highly educated native with an intel-
ligent appreciation of the worth of superstition.
Some wasawi demonstrations can have no object but to strike terror and keep up the
prestige of the msawi class. Mr. Moggridge wrote me, “ A boy of mine was certainly
attacked and squeezed about the neck by a man whom he described as naked, huge, and
slightly luminous, on the road at the back of my house in Blantyre. The boy was strolling
up and down in the dusk and had nothing about him to provoke robbery; he was almost
choked before he managed to let out a yell which determined his assailant to let him go.
He was not a local boy and no theory of personal spite was supportable. I thought and
still think that the motive was to show that even the Resident’s servant twenty yards from
the Resident’s house was not safe from usawi.” It seems possible that some natives with
intent to rob had pretended to be wasawi but recognizing that their victim was likely to
cause trouble, they went no further.
It is said that the phosphorescence is produced by rubbing in the hands two vegetable
substances from local trees and that this is the method the wasawi adopt to announce their
presence.
Poison Ordeal. As I have said above, when anyone sickens or dies, the illness or death
is likely to be considered the work of some one who is msawi, and action will be taken by the
relatives to find him out. The proceedings in such a case where witchcraft is suspected will
now be briefly sketched; though I give an account of a case from beginning to end as if
it occurred at the present time, it must be understood that the giving of mwai, the ordeal
poison, is now much less common than formerly. A man becomes ill in some village and does
not get better, so the caster-of-lots is consulted. The sick man’s relatives or friends go to the
lot-caster and approach the subject indirectly by asking him his advice about a number
of imaginary cases; they may say, “ Things have been stolen from our house.” The lots
are cast and the caster replies, “No, you have not come to see me about that.” This may go
on for hours before the facts of the case proper are mentioned to him. Finally, they tell
him that one of their relatives is ill in the village, the lots are consulted and advice is given
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
A msawi may be met with under different circumstances. An educated native told me
of his experience one night when riding a bicycle back to a township where he was employed.
Coming along a smooth-hoed path with his lamp alight, he became aware of the presence
of something in the bush in front and at the side of him. Suddenly his lamp was smashed
and he was left in darkness, while something pushed him over so hard that he fell off his
cycle. Picking himself up, he started to wheel his cycle on, when there appeared on the
path in front, figures who, rubbing their hands together to produce a phosphorescent glow,
held them up in front of the boy’s face. He was, however, not molested further, and coming
to a group of huts he knew, he went in and made inquiries as to the cause of his experi-
ences and was promptly told that there was a man living in a hut near the spot on the path
where they had occurred who was supposed to be msawi. Such a story is given for what it
is worth. The boy was about twenty-two years old, a highly educated native with an intel-
ligent appreciation of the worth of superstition.
Some wasawi demonstrations can have no object but to strike terror and keep up the
prestige of the msawi class. Mr. Moggridge wrote me, “ A boy of mine was certainly
attacked and squeezed about the neck by a man whom he described as naked, huge, and
slightly luminous, on the road at the back of my house in Blantyre. The boy was strolling
up and down in the dusk and had nothing about him to provoke robbery; he was almost
choked before he managed to let out a yell which determined his assailant to let him go.
He was not a local boy and no theory of personal spite was supportable. I thought and
still think that the motive was to show that even the Resident’s servant twenty yards from
the Resident’s house was not safe from usawi.” It seems possible that some natives with
intent to rob had pretended to be wasawi but recognizing that their victim was likely to
cause trouble, they went no further.
It is said that the phosphorescence is produced by rubbing in the hands two vegetable
substances from local trees and that this is the method the wasawi adopt to announce their
presence.
Poison Ordeal. As I have said above, when anyone sickens or dies, the illness or death
is likely to be considered the work of some one who is msawi, and action will be taken by the
relatives to find him out. The proceedings in such a case where witchcraft is suspected will
now be briefly sketched; though I give an account of a case from beginning to end as if
it occurred at the present time, it must be understood that the giving of mwai, the ordeal
poison, is now much less common than formerly. A man becomes ill in some village and does
not get better, so the caster-of-lots is consulted. The sick man’s relatives or friends go to the
lot-caster and approach the subject indirectly by asking him his advice about a number
of imaginary cases; they may say, “ Things have been stolen from our house.” The lots
are cast and the caster replies, “No, you have not come to see me about that.” This may go
on for hours before the facts of the case proper are mentioned to him. Finally, they tell
him that one of their relatives is ill in the village, the lots are consulted and advice is given