Thanks to Jacob Howard for these:
"In social science it is of crucial importance that fact and inference should always be as clearly distinguished as possible. For that reason this book is divided into two parts: 'Data' and 'Interpretation.' For example, it is unequivocally a fact that the vast majority of those whom my informants have accused of witchcraft have been persons of wealth or prestige. My 'explanation' of this circumstance is equally unequivocally a non-fact. When data and interpretation are closely juxtaposed, there is often confusion as to the dividing line between the two." (p.6)
Kluckhohn, Clyde. "Navajo Witchcraft." Boston: Beacon Press; reprint of 1944 ed., 1967.
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"The classic Witchery Way technique is that mentioned in the emergence legend. A preparation (usually called 'poison' by English-speaking informants) is made of the flesh of corpses. The flesh of children and especially of twin children is preferred, and the bones at the back of the head and skin whorls are the prized ingredients. When this 'corpse poison' is ground into powder it 'looks like pollen.' It may be dropped into a hogan from the smokehole, placed in the nose or mouth of a sleeping victim or blown from furrowed sticks into the face of someone in a large crowd. 'Corpse poison' is occasionally stated to have been administered in a cigarette. Fainting, lockjaw, a tongue black and swollen, immediate unconsciousness or some similar dramatic symptom is usually said to result promptly. Sometimes, however, the effects are less obvious. The victim gradually wastes away, and the usual ceremonial treatments are unavailing."
Kluckhohn, Clyde. "Navajo Witchcraft." Boston: Beacon Press; reprint of 1944 ed., 1967.
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"On the whole, there is substantial agreement between informants on the major features of Witchery ideology. Night activity, were-animals, association with corpses and incest, killing of a sibling as part of initiation, various points of technique--these traits are mentioned in interview after interview and are not denied explicitly or implicitly in any. This concordance holds also for the literature." (pp.27,28)
Kluckhohn, Clyde. "Navajo Witchcraft." Boston: Beacon Press; reprint of 1944 ed., 1967.
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"If a witch confesses, the victim will at once begin slowly to improve, and the witch will die within the year from the same symptoms which have been afflicting the victim. If a witch refused to confess within four days, he was most often killed. In some cases the accused was allowed to escape if he permanently left the community. A number of accused witches are said to have fled to Cañoncito. But Van Valkenburgh is undoubtedly right in considering witchcraft as a crime for which the Navaho administered capital punishment. A considerable number of witches put to death are referred to in the literature, and a much larger number are known to me from reliable white and Navaho informants. Sometimes, when tension mounted sufficiently, the witch was killed without 'trial,' sometimes by an aggrieved individual but equally often by a group of relatives (and friends) of some supposed victim. The manner of execution varied, but was usually violent (by axes and clubs)." (p.49)
Kluckhohn, Clyde. "Navajo Witchcraft." Boston: Beacon Press; reprint of 1944 ed., 1967.
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"But from a total of 222 cases of persons accused of witchcraft where some other information was available, some idea can be gained as to Navaho conceptions of differential participation. One hundred and eighty-four were men; all were adults. No women were accused as Wizards or as Frenzy Witches. All women accused were definitely old; 131 of the men were definitely old (spoken of as 'old,' 'very old,' 'grey-haired,' 'white-haired,' etc.). One hundred and forty of the men were described as ceremonial practitioners of some sort, but it must be remembered that the proportion of adult Navaho men who are ceremonial practitioners is very high. Twenty-one of the men were said to be 'headmen' or 'chiefs.' This is an exceedingly high figure, considering the proportion of such leaders to the total adult male population. Twelve of the women were referred to as ceremonial practitioners. One hundred and fifteen out of the total group were described as rich or 'well-off'; seventeen were described as poor or very poor; for the remainder no economic information was available." (p.59)
Kluckhohn, Clyde. "Navajo Witchcraft." Boston: Beacon Press; reprint of 1944 ed., 1967.
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"Of course, if we turn to the southern Athabascans, there are many specific parallels. Association with incest, trial and execution of witches and other traits are also found among the western Apache. Incest connection, killing of witches, ambivalent attitude toward ceremonial practitioners, the sacrifice of a close relative and other parallels likewise turn up among the Chiricahua Apache. But it is very difficult to find any trait shared by the various Apache groups and the Navaho which both of these do not also share with Pueblo culture. Indeed, it is my *impression* that Navaho witchcraft as a whole has more in common with Pueblo witchcraft (if one may lump the beliefs and practices found in various Pueblos) than it does with Apache witchcraft (if one lumps the information on different Apache groups). Such 'lumping,' however, is premature in the absence of adequate published data for Lipan, Mescalero, Jicarilla, and Kiowa Apache. And Dr. M. E. Opler, on reading the galleys of this book, pointed out many highly specific parallels, which I had not found in the literature. Dr. Opler, who undoubtedly has the broadest comparative knowledge of southern Athabascan cultures, writes me: 'I believe I can show that there are two layers of Navaho thought and practice on witchcraft, one of which draws largely from Pueblo sources; the other of which agrees in pattern and spirit with general Apachean.'"
Kluckhohn, Clyde. "Navajo Witchcraft." Boston: Beacon Press; reprint of 1944 ed., 1967.
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"It has been repeatedly asserted that 'possession' is unknown to the Old Testament. Keim declared it 'a modern disease among the Jews.' That is virtually the opinion of Meyer also. But the case of Saul is undoubtedly to be regarded as one of possession by an evil spirit. The terms describing the mode of action of this spirit are analogous to those which set forth the action of the Holy Spirit upon man; but the effects produced are those attributed by the ethnic creed to possessing spirits." (p.20)
Alexander, Wm. Menzies. "Demonic Possession in the New Testament: Its Relations Historical, Medical, and Theological." Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1902.
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"At the present day in China, the same idea holds sway. Where the native doctor fails to cast out a demon, spiritualists are called in. A charm is written out and then burnt, that it may reach any spirit hovering about. Incense is also burnt. If no name is written on the paper, the nearest demon accepts the invitation to eject his feebler congener. The first comer may offer 'a robustious and rough oncoming'; so that another charm is prepared, and inscribed to Lu-tou, a more facile demon. These are instructive illustrations of one satan casting out another. This pagan rite was Christianised, when the angels were invoked instead of the superior powers of evil (*Clem. Homil*. v.5)." (p.132)
Alexander, Wm. Menzies. "Demonic Possession in the New Testament: Its Relations Historical, Medical, and Theological." Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1902.
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"Witchcraft, familiar spirits, communications with and from the dead, trials by ordeal: fire, water, and poison; the magic circle, demonic possession, observances of the quarters of the moon, are all present-day African commonplace." (p.4)
Kaigh, Frederick. "Witchcraft and Magic of Africa." London: Richard Lesley & Co Ltd, 1947.
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"Among his many polite tricks is the transference of disease. A native falls sick. He has a real, or fancied enemy, who has ill-wished him. He consults his doctor: his nyanga.
The doctor then consults the spirits without whose advice he is powerless. Not, it should be clearly understood, the familiar and evil spirits, but the family and ancestral tribal spirits. If these inform him that the patient has made out a true bill, he tells him that he is right. So-and-so is his enemy. Now he will give varied instructions depending on his skill, individual preference, and tribe. Here is one method. The patient must obtain a portion of intimate garment from the enemy, and a similar portion of his own. These he must bring to the nyanga who 'makes medicine'. He invariably 'makes medicine' to suit each individual case. He binds the medicine in the scraps of cloth and instructs the patient to plant them secretly in the place where two paths intersect, over which the enemy will pass. When he crosses the spot, the disease will transfer.
So what? It's all a lot of hooey isn't it? Mumbo-jumbo and the like? It is up to you to call it what you like. I can only say I have seen it work again and again." (p.15)
Kaigh, Frederick. "Witchcraft and Magic of Africa." London: Richard Lesley & Co Ltd, 1947.
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"As to the means of smelling out, they are legion. A variation of the old 'yeka m'tambo' is one method. Only one bone is used, and it is laid, with the inescapable 'medicine', in a box, or basket, or other receptacle. Sometimes it is floated in a vessel filled with oil. The nyanga, after the usual incantations of the 'versicles and responses' type, names each person separately. If the person is innocent the bone lies quiet: if guilty, the bone stands up. It is uncanny to see this long bone, often a human one, suddenly take life to itself." (p.41)
Kaigh, Frederick. "Witchcraft and Magic of Africa." London: Richard Lesley & Co Ltd, 1947.
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"Though the sentencing of witches is strictly forbidden by the Government, it is surprising how many of them succumb to 'snake bite' when they get to their native villages." (pp. 88,89)
Kaigh, Frederick. "Witchcraft and Magic of Africa." London: Richard Lesley & Co Ltd, 1947.
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"The outstanding witchcraft practice in obeah is the manufacture of clay, wax, or wood images of the candidate for affliction and, by maltreating the simulcra, or alleged simulcra--some of those which I have seen are not even caricatures--evil befalls the prototype.
Again and again herein, with what may be considered boring repetition, I have been impelled to push home the same warning, here, without apology, I do it again. The too generally accepted thesis that all this is nonsense--stuff to frighten children and the like--plays right into the hands of the devilish practitioners. If by some mischance, from which may God preserve you, you become the victim of obeah, and lie in feverish unrest becoming weaker and weaker day by day--the despair of medical skill--you would not then be contemptuous of the power of evil. I protest I am as hard-boiled and normal as the toughest, but I have seen too much: I have tried unavailingly to save too many cases to be sceptical. More's the pity in a way. I would willingly have forgone some of my experiences."
Kaigh, Frederick. "Witchcraft and Magic of Africa." London: Richard Lesley & Co Ltd, 1947.
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"The use of corpse flesh, and particularly bones, is common in Africa, both for witchcraft and for witchdoctoring medicines, but, apart from some of the worst Leopard Men orgies, cannibalism is very rare if not extinct. On the other hand, it is one of the cardinal rites of obeah, and undoubtedly goes on in obeah countries." (p.156)
Kaigh, Frederick. "Witchcraft and Magic of Africa." London: Richard Lesley & Co Ltd, 1947.
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"If a child cuts its upper incisors before its lower ones (known as *lutala*) it is thrown into the river. (I have been informed that the Ba-Kaonde throw such a child into the bush, and that throwing it into the water is only done (locally) by the Ba-lamba; as, so I was told, the Kaonde women believe that if thrown into the water the child's spirit will become hostile. I have, however, met with no case of a child being thrown into the bush, but have met cases of such infanticide by drowning among Ba-Kaonde and Ba-luba.) After the child has been thrown away the mother returns without mourning. No one asks any questions.
The reason for this custom is as follows: With a *lutala* child it is believed that every time one of the milk teeth comes out a person dies. Similarly if a nail comes off someone dies. If a woman allowed her *lutala* child to live, hiding the irregularity, she would be constructively guilty of murder of many people, a risk she dare not attempt to take." (p.50)
Melland, Frank H. "In Witch-Bound Africa: An Account of the Primitive Kaonde Tribe and Their Beliefs." London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.; reprint of 1923 ed., 1967.
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"*Mitala* are generally, like the *wa-kishi* and the living man's shadow, without substance. They are shades, spirits, souls. Restless ones, resenting some wrong done to the person with whom they walked in his lifetime, they wander around and avenge themselves on those who did wrong, and on their relatives and associates.
There are, however, forms of *mitala* that have substance. These take the form of a corpse--the upper half only: being legless as the legs have rotted away, and only the trunk, arms, and head remain. This kind of *mutala*, which is much dreaded, creeps about at night, pulling its legless trunk along the ground, and propelling itself with its arms, as a child when first beginning to crawl."
Melland, Frank H. "In Witch-Bound Africa: An Account of the Primitive Kaonde Tribe and Their Beliefs." London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.; reprint of 1923 ed., 1967.
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"For some time I have had a suspicion, and reasonable ground for the suspicion, that there may be a class of professional and hereditary witches behind the scenes: men (and women) who habitually provide the means to bewitch, or impart the necessary knowledge to the layman to enable him to carry out his desires. They may just conceivably be in league with the *ng'anga*, but I do not, myself, believe that they are. If such exist they would be the people on whom to concentrate; but they would be very hard to find: one might even find an intermediate class of 'touts.' At home, even, in a matter like cocaine-selling--for instance--the actual vendors or hawkers are easy to apprehend: one can even find the 'retailer,' but the wholesale merchant or *entrepreneur*, the man at the back of it all, keeps himself secure behind a wall of secrecy. In all the 'under-world' at home the brainy initiators, and other useful people like the receivers are but rarely given away. I have often been on the tracks of such 'master-witches' but have never found any direct evidence, and I gather that the confessions of convicted witches as to the source of their supply or knowledge only relates to other 'casual witches' or to what may be called agents. It is, however, extraordinary how often one finds that in cases of witchcraft the witch went 'to some man who he thought was likely to know about such things,' or 'went to so-and-so because he had heard that he could provide him with what he sought,' or 'consulted a certain person because he was the obvious person to consult.' A would-be bewitcher does not ask these things at random, and so pile up evidence against himself: he does not go first to one, then to another; but, just as a native woman who seeks the means to procure abortion goes straight to the right woman, so (apparently) does the man, or woman, who seeks some particular form of bewitching medicine go straight to the purveyor, or to his agent. I fear that one would need to be a 'naturalised native' to find this out, at the present day anyhow. I submit, however, that it is possible, even probable, that besides people who might be called incidental or casual witches, namely, those who obtain and use the means of witchcraft against their enemies there are also what may be described as master-witches who are instructed in witchcraft from childhood and are as much an hereditary guild as are the witch-doctors. If it be an old religion they are the real guardians of it." (p.201,202)
Melland, Frank H. "In Witch-Bound Africa: An Account of the Primitive Kaonde Tribe and Their Beliefs." London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.; reprint of 1923 ed., 1967.
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"The witch-doctor undertakes this test [*Chisoko*] at night. The people having been summoned, sit round him, and he dances, singing his incantations. He has with him a basket, in which are placed medicines. After much singing, he takes the basket and places it on the head of a member of the audience (resting on the head, not reversed and placed over it). The basket still contains the medicines: the doctor then says: 'If you are innocent, the basket will come off,' and pulling the basket from the head of the person being tried (who is still sitting) it comes away easily. When the guilty person is reached, the basket sticks to his (her) head, so that when the doctor tries to pull it off it will not come away, but, instead, pulls him (her) up from the ground. Walking backwards--facing the person who is being tried--the doctor thus raises him (her) and pulls him (her) all over the space where the trial is being held.
This trial is used for serious cases of witchcraft such as owning and using *tuyewera* or *mulombe*, and the punishment is death (by beating to death and burning; or by burning to death)." (p.226,227)
Melland, Frank H. "In Witch-Bound Africa: An Account of the Primitive Kaonde Tribe and Their Beliefs." London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.; reprint of 1923 ed., 1967.
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"Further enquiries disclosed the 'facts' that the wing-spread was from 4 to 7 feet across, that the general colour was red. It was believed to have no feathers but only skin on its body, and was believed to have teeth in its beak: these last two points no one could be sure of, as no one ever saw a *kongamato* close and lived to tell the tale. I sent for two books which I had at my house, containing pictures of pterodactyls, and every native present immediately and unhesitatingly picked it out and identified it as a *kongamato*." (pp.237,238)
Melland, Frank H. "In Witch-Bound Africa: An Account of the Primitive Kaonde Tribe and Their Beliefs." London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.; reprint of 1923 ed., 1967.
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"The most interesting dance is the *Bwilandi*, or rather it would be if we could find out more about it. There is something very secretive about the native attitude as regards this dance, and an obvious fear exists that it is a thing that might be prohibited. It is more common in the north of Kaondeland than in the south, and may be of Luba origin. The name comes from the *bwilandi* drug which the dancers take beforehand, a drug that produces a kind of ecstasy. This drug does not grow (not in any quantity anyhow) south of the Luma. The chief feature of the dance is that the dancer simulates, either voluntarily or involuntarily, a lion; and goes about as a lion. But, and this is really remarkable if it is only made-up, he does not imitate the lion's roar. If anyone were to start 'playing at lions' the roar is the first thing that would be imitated. Another feature of the drug is that the natives state it gives wonderful endurance, so that a man under its influence can travel a hundred miles in a night--all the time 'as a lion.' The drumming at the *bwilandi* is distinct from other drummings, and a Kaonde hearing it in a village at a distance can identify it without difficulty.
Like most dances it takes place at night. The early stages may be in the daytime, and are quite innocuous. The attached illustration shows the 'overture.' The dancer has twenty genet skins as a kilt, and the proper chalk marks on back and chest. The latter stages, with the ecstasy and the lion performance I have not seen, nor do I know of any white man who has. If one did see it I fancy it would be distinctly 'modified.' Whether it has any religious significance, or any significance at all, I do not know." (pp.286,287)
Melland, Frank H. "In Witch-Bound Africa: An Account of the Primitive Kaonde Tribe and Their Beliefs." London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.; reprint of 1923 ed., 1967.
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"The victim could only say he didn't remember what happened, but witnesses told a strange story. I was called upon to put dressing on his 'feet' a month after the accident (?) occurred. He had just been released from the hospital, and I was told he had cut his feet. Arriving at the home, I found he had no feet. Both had been cut off well above the ankle. This was the story. He had been ill, and was advised to visit a witch doctor back in the hills. During the consultation, he was possessed by a demon who forced him to pick up a machete and hack off both his own feet. Bystanders were unable to restrain him. Fortunately, relatives were able to bring him the thirty miles to the hospital in time to save him from bleeding to death. But at twenty years of age, he was reduced to the fate of a street beggar because of his handicap." (pp.124,125)
See, Glenn A. "Experiences in Haiti." In "Demon Experiences: A Compilation," 123-125. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers; reprint of 1960 ed., 1970.
