Sometimes it comes from the hand of man.”
“But how do you know that in this instance it comes from the hand of man?”
“The woman has been given quai (the drink of ordeal) to drink, and the quai
says that she bewitched him.”
“But the quai is not always right. When Cabinda went to the Muni, he was a
long time lost. All people said that he was dead. A man you declared was the
witch, you gave him quai; quai said that the man had killed Cabinda, but
Cabinda came back alive, and quai was wrong.”
A roar of laughter acknowledged the force of this pertinent reply.
“It is not only quai,” said Okota, “the woman confesses that she has used the arts
of witchcraft. Will any man come to you and say, ‘I have stolen your fowl,’ if he
has not stolen it? This woman is killing my brother, when my brother is dead I
will kill her.”
After so decisive a declaration, further argument was useless, and Mr. Mackey
was compelled to retire, unsuccessful.
The ordeal drink of Equatorial Africa is not identical with the “red-water” of
Northern Guinea. It is prepared from the root of a small shrub called Nkazya, or
Quai. Half a pint of the decoction is given to the accused, and small sticks being
laid down on the ground at a distance of two feet apart, he is compelled to step
over them five times. If the potion act upon him as a diuretic, he is pronounced
innocent; but in some persons it produces vertigo. The sticks before his dizzy
eyes rise like great logs, and in his awkward efforts to stride across them, he
reels, falls to the ground, and is immediately assumed to be guilty.
Ultimately the chief died, and the woman and boy both suffered death. The
woman was taken out to sea in a boat, killed with an axe, and thrown overboard.
The boy was burnt alive, bags of gunpowder being tied to his legs to shorten his
sufferings.
Apart from these superstitions, Mr. Reade asserts that the negroes possess the
remnants of a noble and sublime religion, though they have forgotten its
precepts, and debased its ceremonies. They still retain their belief in GOD, the
One, the Supreme, the Creator. He has made mankind and the world; He
thunders in the air, He destroys the wicked with His bolts. He rewards the good
with long life; He gives them the rain, the fruits of the earth, and all things that