DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0320
304
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
speaks is invariably nasal in character and Chinyanja is the language always used. It is
doubtless a case of what we should call ventriloquism. The custom is evidently of Mang’anja
origin but in great favor with the Yao.
Divination also plays an important part in tracing thieves or stolen property or in pick-
ing out from a number of people anyone guilty of some crime. Several modes of procedure
may be adopted. The chisango called ndumba may be used as the chisango cha chipeta
(chipeta, a kind of basket). Medicine in the form of certain roots is placed on the ground
and covered by the inverted basket on which is placed the ndumba. Each person in turn
is requested to lift the basket and the guilty one is at once revealed by his inability to
budge the basket off the ground. This method may even be used to reveal a man guilty
of usawi.
Other methods of divination include a kind of trial by ordeal somewhat similar to a
boiling water ordeal. Kaundula (from ku-undula, to tramp round, referring to the pere-
grinations made in search of what is lost, or namlonda, the Chinyanja word from ku-londa,
to follow on the footsteps of) is the name of the witch-doctor who searches for stolen
property or traces the thief. The same man may be called mabvumbula in Chinyanja (from
ku-vumbula, to reveal) when he uses his instrument to detect in a crowd the person
guilty of some crime. The kaundula uses the horn of a kudu stuffed with appropriate
medicine, the actual mise en scene and methods adopted varying somewhat with different
practitioners. The practice I believe to be a Mang’anja one and I think most of the operators
were Anyanja men and not Yao, though the Yao, as with other customs, adopted the sys-
tem fully. In my district, the kaundula was usually armed with a rattle; when the horn
indicated the guilty individual, he intimated the fact to the assembled crowd by throwing
flour over him.
When a search is to be made for stolen property, the horn is put into the hands of four
men, alternate men pressing down and pulling up on the long horn, while the medicine man
stands by, operating his rattle and exhorting the horn to do its work of revelation. I know
a man who has on several occasions assisted in holding the horn; he said it simply seemed
to drag him on in a series of jerky movements, sometimes going very fast, at other times
moving slowly, dragging the holders “ along the footsteps of the thief with the stolen goods ”
in and out of the house, through the bush, and across streams, until suddenly the horn
dropped from their hands to the ground, where on digging, the stolen goods were found
buried. (Cf. table turning, planchette, etc.)
A good description of kaundula under the headings mabvumbula and namlondola is given
by Garbutt,1 who describes the Mang’anja operators. In this same article, he makes the
mistake of describing as mabisalila, the juaseketela. As I have stated above, the juase-
ketela is an order of medicine men who trap the man who is an msawi while in the msawi
state, but the mbisalila points him out while he appears as an ordinary man of the village.
3 H. W. Garbutt, ‘ Native customs in Nyasa,’ (Man, London, 1912, vol. 12, p. 35-40).
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
speaks is invariably nasal in character and Chinyanja is the language always used. It is
doubtless a case of what we should call ventriloquism. The custom is evidently of Mang’anja
origin but in great favor with the Yao.
Divination also plays an important part in tracing thieves or stolen property or in pick-
ing out from a number of people anyone guilty of some crime. Several modes of procedure
may be adopted. The chisango called ndumba may be used as the chisango cha chipeta
(chipeta, a kind of basket). Medicine in the form of certain roots is placed on the ground
and covered by the inverted basket on which is placed the ndumba. Each person in turn
is requested to lift the basket and the guilty one is at once revealed by his inability to
budge the basket off the ground. This method may even be used to reveal a man guilty
of usawi.
Other methods of divination include a kind of trial by ordeal somewhat similar to a
boiling water ordeal. Kaundula (from ku-undula, to tramp round, referring to the pere-
grinations made in search of what is lost, or namlonda, the Chinyanja word from ku-londa,
to follow on the footsteps of) is the name of the witch-doctor who searches for stolen
property or traces the thief. The same man may be called mabvumbula in Chinyanja (from
ku-vumbula, to reveal) when he uses his instrument to detect in a crowd the person
guilty of some crime. The kaundula uses the horn of a kudu stuffed with appropriate
medicine, the actual mise en scene and methods adopted varying somewhat with different
practitioners. The practice I believe to be a Mang’anja one and I think most of the operators
were Anyanja men and not Yao, though the Yao, as with other customs, adopted the sys-
tem fully. In my district, the kaundula was usually armed with a rattle; when the horn
indicated the guilty individual, he intimated the fact to the assembled crowd by throwing
flour over him.
When a search is to be made for stolen property, the horn is put into the hands of four
men, alternate men pressing down and pulling up on the long horn, while the medicine man
stands by, operating his rattle and exhorting the horn to do its work of revelation. I know
a man who has on several occasions assisted in holding the horn; he said it simply seemed
to drag him on in a series of jerky movements, sometimes going very fast, at other times
moving slowly, dragging the holders “ along the footsteps of the thief with the stolen goods ”
in and out of the house, through the bush, and across streams, until suddenly the horn
dropped from their hands to the ground, where on digging, the stolen goods were found
buried. (Cf. table turning, planchette, etc.)
A good description of kaundula under the headings mabvumbula and namlondola is given
by Garbutt,1 who describes the Mang’anja operators. In this same article, he makes the
mistake of describing as mabisalila, the juaseketela. As I have stated above, the juase-
ketela is an order of medicine men who trap the man who is an msawi while in the msawi
state, but the mbisalila points him out while he appears as an ordinary man of the village.
3 H. W. Garbutt, ‘ Native customs in Nyasa,’ (Man, London, 1912, vol. 12, p. 35-40).