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Apagibeti, I saw it consulted only twice, once during a standard inquest (enduma) to determine the identity of the lineage member responsible for the deceased's death and once in a case of witchcraft accusation. Unlike the rubbing board, the poison oracle is not controlled or managed by any one individual, though a village elder should be present during its preparation and execution. As recently as the 1940s a person accused of witchcraft would ingest the poison himself, being innocent if he survived and guilty if he died. These days the question of guilt or innocence is stated, a fowl is fed the poison, and on its survival hangs the guilt or innocence of the accused. |
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Cases of possession by spirits of the village or forest are treated by the local Protestant minister or by a local entrepreneur who learned the art and acquired the requisite medicines by being himself healed by a diviner/healer of a neighboring ethnic group. The healing of the spirit-possessed is his personal specialty. His art, called "pulling the rope" (wuseyekuse), involves seclusion of the afflicted, treatment with medicines, and the pulling out of the possessing spirit under conditions of trance for both patient and healer. The healer calls out names while drawing thumb and forefinger lightly down the length of a raffia string tied to the big toe of the possessed, always pulling away from the patient and toward himself. When he calls out the correct name, the reclining or prostrate victim jerks into an upright position and is considered cured. Yingo, or spirits of the forest, are considered easy to cure, while a long-lasting possession of many months is invariably referred to as possession by village spirits sent by medicine-using witches. |
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The local pastor exorcises spirits in somewhat the same manner, placing one hand on the Bible and another on the head of the afflicted, naming names until the spirit departs the individual. He addresses Nyombo as his source of power rather than a medicine, but his own power is viewed by many villagers as having come from the outside, learned in Bible school. The Lingala term used frequently by older villagers to refer to him is the same as that applied to his unconverted colleague in healing/divining, ngnanga nkisi. |
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Finally, there are ntiseye mboko, the antelope-sending oracle, and mbolongo, the bursting-pot oracle, both employed by hunters in the forest, primarily during the great dry season communal net hunts when the whole village may move into the forest to set up temporary shelters and engage in cooperative hunting. The antelope-sending oracle is the simpler of the two and may be used whenever two or three successive attempts to net game have failed. One hunter is selected by his peers on the basis of his possession of a particular kind of fortune called "a good back," ngonga enza. A good backunlike another form of good fortune, inherited good blood (banga enza)is attributed to one who has consistent good fortune in his enterprises, particularly the hunt. It is gained by social attribution and can be shared; two men who share the same hunting medicine, or who regularly share productive hunts together, may be said to have a good back. The elected hunter then speaks to the forest while beating the ground with a branch, reciting the reason for the hunt, telling its history, and citing the individual names of those animals the hunters hope to kill. He concludes, "Antelope, if we are to |
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