The beliefs about sorcery are complex; they differ according as to whether taken from a real sorcerer, or from an outsider; and there are also evidently strata of belief, due perhaps to local variation, perhaps to superimposed versions. Here a short summary must suffice.
When a sorcerer wants to attack someone, the first step is to cast a light spell over his habitual haunts, a spell which will affect him with a slight illness and compel him to keep to his bed in his house, where he will try to cure himself by lying over a small fire and warming his body. His first ailment, called kaynagola, comprises pains in the body, such as (speaking from our point of view) would be brought about by rheumatism, general cold, influenza, or any incipient disease. When the victim is in bed, with a fire burning under him, and also, as a rule, one in the middle of the hut, the bwaga’u stealthily approaches the house. He is accompanied by a few nightbirds, owls and night-jars, which keep guard over him, and he is surrounded by a halo of legendary terrors which make all natives shiver at the idea of meeting a sorcerer on such a nocturnal visit. He then tries to insert through the thatch wall a bunch of herbs impregnated with some deadly charm and tied to a long stick, and these he attempts to thrust into the fire over which the sick man is lying. If he succeeds, the fumes of the burnt leaves will be inhaled by the victim, whose name has been uttered in the charm, and he will be seized by one or other of the deadly diseases of which the natives have a long list, with a definite symptomatology, as well as a magical etiology. Thus the preliminary sorcery was necessary, in order to keep the victim to his house, in which spot only can the mortal magic be performed.
Of course, the sick man is on the defensive as well. First of all, his friends and relatives—this is one of the main duties of the wife’s brothers—will keep a close watch over him, sitting with spears round the hut, and at all approaches to it. Often have I come across such vigils, when walking late at night through some village. Then, the services of some rival bwaga’u are invoked (for the art of killing and curing is always in the same hand), and he utters counter-spells, so that at times the efforts of the first sorcerer, even should he succeed in burning the herbs according to the dreaded toginivayu rite, are fruitless.
Should this be so, he resorts to the final and most fatal rite, that of the pointing-bone. Uttering powerful spells, the bwaga’u and one or two accomplices, boil some coco-nut oil in a small pot, far away in a dense patch of jungle. Leaves of herbs are soaked in the oil, and then wrapped round a sharp stingaree spine, or some similar pointed object, and the final incantation, most deadly of all, is chanted over it. Then the bwaga’u steals towards the village, catches sight of his victim, and hiding himself behind a shrub or house, points the magical dagger at him. In fact, he violently and viciously turns it round in the air, as if to stab the victim, and to twist and wrench the point in the wound. This, if carried out properly, and not counteracted by a still more powerful magician, will never fail to kill a man.
I have here summarised the bare outlines of the successive application of black magic as it is believed by sorcerer and outsider alike to be done, and to act in producing disease and death. There can be no doubt that the acts of sorcery are really carried out by those who believe themselves to possess the black powers. It is equally certain that the nervous strain of knowing one’s life to be threatened by a bwaga’u is very great, and probably it is much worse when a man knows that behind the sorcerer stands the might of the chief, and this apprehension certainly contributes powerfully towards the success of black magic. On the other hand, a chief, if attacked, would have a good guard to protect him, and the most powerful wizards to back him up, and also the authority to deal directly with anyone suspected of plotting against him. Thus sorcery, which is one of the means of carrying on the established order, is in its turn strengthened by it.