think first of making a little man, so Congos, often make little images, hideous, rudely carved, with perhaps a piece of looking-glass on the chest.
In some towns there may be seen a great image, under a sheltering roof, which represents the charm that protects the town. Children are placed under its protection by the payment of a fee to the Nganga, who weaves certain spells and makes certain articles taboo. In some places it is nlongo (taboo) to eat an egg, or a fowl, goat’s head, hippopotamus flesh, pork, yams, antelope flesh, rats, bananas. This taboo must be observed to insure the protection of the fetish; to break it would entail disease and death. Sometimes a town possesses an image-charm which will enable its doctor to find out thefts, and in consequence the people are afraid to steal. Talking with a man once about this ‘thief-medicine,’ he positively declared the truthfulness of the oracle. ‘Why, I was found out myself once,’ he said; ‘I went to Dedede’s town, and stole a piece of cloth from a man’s house. No one saw me, or had any means of knowing that I did it; and yet the thief-doctor found me out at once. What can you say after that?’
Often in the houses of the sick, the ‘medicine’ may be seen in one corner of the room, a dirty image and charms, bespattered with blood and chewed cola-nut.
So strong is the belief in the discerning power of these charms, that a thief will sometimes return what he has stolen, rather than incur the disease that might follow. I know a case in which a man lost something in a town. He paid a small fee to the thief-doctor, who arranged with his charms to curse the thief with disease if the articles were not restored by the next morning. The things appeared in due course, and were found lying in front of the door, having been returned during the night.
These charms are sometimes addressed and often scolded when they do not act as they ought; but even the images in no way take the places of