Evening star., 1932-03-06

Queer customs having to do ,Uith dis.
pensation Of justice as Weu as cure for
ills are foIIo,oed in Africa. Pictured
here is trial scene in ,Uhich the de.
tendant is kneeling before tWo witch
doctors tUho are holding a stick. II the
stick bends during the ordeal, the de.
fendant is considered guilty OF the
ofense charged.
Settlers on the Rhodesian veldt Roman
Catholic padres in the bush country Of zuzu-
land traders in some lonely station amid the
junges of Mozambique, sun-helmeted native
commissioners administering huge districts OF
Kenya Uganda and other tropic regions, mis-
sionaries in Bechuanaland, in Swaziland, in
Angola and a score Of other outlandish regions
took note of Prof. Watts appeal. All Africa
south of the Equator gave hand.
In cigarette tins, in oil cans, in packing
cases and wrapping paper, in gourds and
frayed animal hides the consignrnents began
to reach the University of the WitWatersrand.
They have kept on coming sometimes brisky.
sometimes sackening off, for more than six
years and the end is not remotely in sight
What a queer collection of articles these
containers brought
Desiring to make their knowledge as COM
plete as possible, the experts prepared ques-
tionnaire which was distributed in hundreds
to the farthest frontiers of African settlement.
They asked for the exact name OF every rem
edy in the Bantu languages, the diseases for
which it is applied, the methods for admin
istering it.
Lions fat very expensive and popular
drug with the natives; snakes skin, worn Is
a bandage against rheumatism; antelope horns,
chopped up fine; the powdered skulls of tor
toises; the roots of certain lilies. the skin of
anteater, different kinds of clay, pieces OF
raw asbestos, the bones of vultures, the bark
of innumerable kinds of trees hedgehogs'
quills, seeds which are burned that the
smoke can be inhaled grasses that are added
to hot baths-even Macbeth's witches did not
put more surprising oddments into their cele-
brated stewpot than carefully stored in
the steel cupboards of the department of phar-
macology.
Every che is carefully card -indexed and in
the course of time every is tested out
regards its efficacy.
mo the natives themselves give any help?"
- I asked the professor.
"Only in comparatively few cases. The chiefs
of the different tribes are either too lazy or
too superstitious to encourage their subjects
to disclose what they know to the white people.
The ngakas, or native doctors, are hostile as
body because they believe we are going to
compete with them. But from time to time
we strike Bantu who understands that mod
ern research work is for the good Of every one,
and then we reap harvest that makes up for
much"
Mention made of one old kraal wizard.
quite uneducated by European standards, who
had what may justly be called the scientific
mind. This gray-wooled sage has supplied
more than 40 hitherto unknown native RENE
dies to the scientists.
Other valuable knowledge is gathered from
travelling herbalsts who wander across the
veldt with their packages Of mysterious drugs.
and from the queer little shops in the by
streets of the African cities, where the men
from the kraal buy their traditional remedies.
such as decoctions from elephants hair or a
jelly from a crocodile's hide hyena's teeth
or dried insects of various kinds. -ls.a
Copyright, 1922