Sorcerers of Dobu by R. F. Fortune

Author:R. F. Fortune [Fortune, R. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415866644
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2013-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

All this in the esoteric language where lakua, crab, becomes mokakasi, for example.

Then he took the creeper and repeated the formula again for unloosing it after the victim’s body had been seen to brush it aside—

your throat (i.e. mind) I roll up

your heart I crumble up

I crumble up striking dead

your throat (seat of mind) I roll up

rolling the creeper compact in his hand. Again he illustrated the smoking of it, the feigned illness and groaning on his part, the burning of the rolled up creeper at night.

I waited silent a while. He said: “Two men I killed so”. “For what reason?” I asked.

He told me how his father-in-law, a noted and feared sorcerer, had given him the charm, how a certain man had acted in a vain and proud manner. He had said: “That—he does not know mokakasi. His father-in-law has not given it him.” So I said: “Very well—you slight me in proud fashion—later I will kill you.” He beached his canoe at Muria. I twined the dutu creeper on the track—charmed it and hid. He brushed it aside—I saw it. I lay feigning sickness all day and night—I did not do so in the village—I remained in the bush. I did not eat. He fell sick. Next morning he was dead.”

“And the other man?” I asked.

“That was overseas exchange. He (naming the man) got from my debtor the necklace which my debtor should have given me in return for an armshell I had given him before. I did in like manner to him. Next day he was dead.”

“You gave them the poison,” I said, using the term for the sorcerer’s poisoning tactics.

“That,” he said “is different, another method.”

“You combined the methods?” I said.

“No,” he said, “the poison is given without magic. That was a child I killed.”

“Why?” I said.

“My father told me of the poison, it is budobudo, plenty of it grows by the sea. The day after to-morrow we shall go and I shall instruct you in it. I wanted to try it out. We draw the sap from it. I took a coco-nut, drank from it, squeezed the sap into it, the remainder, and closed it up. Next day I gave it to the child, saying: “I have drunk of it, you may drink.” She fell ill at mid-day. In the night she died.”

“She was of X——village.”

“No, her village is grass and weeds.”

“L——,” I said, naming his father’s village.

“Yes,” he said, “my classificatory cross-cousin, father’s village sister’s daughter. My father poisoned her mother with the budobudo. I poisoned the orphan later.”

“What was the trouble?” I said.

“She bewitched my father, he felt weak—he killed her and his body grew strong again.”

“You chew mwadi (ginger)? “he asked.

“No,” I said. “Not generally. I have chewed it.”

“It sharpens the charm,” he said, “we spit with it.”

“You combine the charm and the budobudo,” I said.

“No,” he replied. “If we like we do. It is not necessary. The budobudo was different—that was a child. The charm was different—that was two men—in one moon one man; two moons later, the second.

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