In the practice of Ndembo, the initiating doctors get some one to fall down in a pretended fit, and in this state he is carried away to an enclosed place outside the town. This is called ‘dying Ndembo.’ Others follow suit, generally boys and girls, but often young men and women. Most feign the fit; but sometimes, when it has become the fashion, others will be attacked with hysteria, and so the doctor gets sufficient for a wholesale initiation, twenty or thirty, or even fifty.
They are supposed to have died. But the parents and friends supply food, and after a period varying, according to custom, from three months to three years, it is arranged that the doctor shall bring them to life again. The custom is not only degrading, but extremely mischievous in its results. So bad is it, that before we reached San Salvador the king of Congo had stopped the custom in his town; and others had followed suit in neighbouring districts, giving the reason that it was too vile to be continued.
When the doctor’s fee had been paid, and money (goods) saved for a feast, the Ndembo people are brought to life. At first they pretend to know no one and nothing; they do not even know how to masticate food, and friends have to perform that office for them. They want everything nice that any one uninitiated may have, and beat them if it is not granted, or even strangle and kill people. They do not get into trouble for this, because it is thought that they do not know better. Sometimes they carry on the pretence by talking gibberish, and behaving as if they had returned from the spirit world. After this they are known by another name, peculiar to those who have ‘died Ndembo.’ There seems to be no advantage accruing to the initiated, the license and the love of mystery seem to be the only inducements. We hear of the custom far along on the upper river, as well as in the cataract region.
The Nkimba custom is an introduction from the coast of comparatively recent times. The initiatory fee is paid (about two dollars of cloth and