ISSN: 1570-0178 Volume 7 (8 July 2005) "Magic and modernity": A conversation with a herbalist and practitioner of magic Transcribed and translated by Johannes Fabian University of Amsterdam address: Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR) University of Amsterdam Kloveniersburgwal 48 1012 CX Amsterdam The Netherlands   Introduction   Swahili text and English translation Excerpt from sound recording, sections 1-6 of the transcript (MP3 file, 5MB)

Introduction

The document that follows was recorded in Lubumbashi on September 30, 1974 (at about the same time as the conversations with Tshibumba Kanda Matulu). It is now at the core of Johannes Fabian, Ethnography as Commentary: Writing from the Virtual Archive. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 2008.
Kahenga Mukonkwa Michel, a native speaker of Hemba but also fluent in Katanga Swahili and French, gave his profession as munganga ya miti. He had been consulted for problems of health and security and our exchange turned around the work he had performed. Kahenga also offered general remarks and explanations regarding herbal medicine and sorcery, identification of diseases and medicines, on his clients and patients, and on his life history.
For reasons that are discussed in detail in Ethnography as Commentary the recording posed more problems of transcription and translation than other texts. The standards adopted for the presentation of this document are generally the same as those used elsewhere in Archives of Popular Swahili (see the remarks formulated in the Introduction to Tshibumba's history of Zaire). This also goes for property and copy rights (see the LPCA Editorial Texts and Ownership).

Swahili text and English translation

Notes

¹ Kutupia is current in Katanga Swahili for "jetter un mauvais sort", "cast a bad spell" (Achille Mutombo, personal communication).
² This is Kahenga's way of using the conditional form wakienda, "if, or in case, they go".
³ A note on eh vs. eeh (one syllable/ two syllables): two kinds of assent, the first just barely, the second firm to emphatic; but both in contrast to mm and ndiyo. Mm may express assent, most often it is just a signal of presence; ndiyo is used when an explicit affirmation is required.
⁴ Probably not the plural of dawa but meaning "those who have/fabricate dawa" (a collective).
⁵ Kinatuliza, "it settles down"; the final -na I hear may be just an errant particle (not a reciprocal form).
⁶ Lit. "pay attention (asa), it's work." Sounds like a calque on a colloquial French idiom used to emphasize a statement: "attention!"
⁷ This is the local term for gonorrhoea, from coloquial French "chaude pisse".
⁸ Notice the lu- concordance here.
⁹ A sound made by expelling air, like a cough but in a high voice, as if preparing for the falsetto Kahenga uses in the call to summon of the spirit.
¹⁰ See about name as essence (of plants, for instance), van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954: 827.
¹¹ Buleti, from French "boulette", the local term for meatball.
¹² The locative here refers to the expression Kahenga used in Hemba: chibalo, "the emplacement of a house", see van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:45 under kibalo.
¹³ There is no kaluku; it should be kaburi, "cemetery", as Kahenga guesses from the context and, a little later, corrects.
¹⁴ Kutafuta, "to search", was an error (though this was how Jamaa members characterized themselves: mwenye kutafuta, "searchers"). I meant kufwata, "to follow".
¹⁵ Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:80 have "ki-bombwe...acacia (arbre de 12 à 15 mètres); syn. mu-unga."
¹⁶ When we sat down for the recording we had samples of medicines before us. We began to talk about them but then I decided to put this off for later and start with questions about Kahenga's work.
¹⁷ The term in the Katanga Swahili text is muti, plur. miti. In the most general sense it signifies a tree, or a part thereof. In this conversation it refers to plants or herbal medicine. Kahenga is a munganga ya miti, "a herbalist".
¹⁸ Who is "this one?" I don't recall any other person (aside from Ilona Szombati who was present part of the time) being with us when the recording was made; the context suggests that Kahenga meant the young man whom he had brought as his assistant when he "closed" our house, see below.
¹⁹ There were 100 Makuta to 1 Zaire. Makuta, replacing franga, was often used as a general term for money.
²⁰ This is my best guess at a translation. Lenselaer 1983:306 has mkaba as "Kingwana" synonym of East Coast Swahili (ECS) mpishi, "belt".
²¹ The third person singular would mean that the reference is to the sorcerer, unless the speaker were to use a pidgin feature, conflating first, second, and third person, which Kahenga is not likely to do. The context suggests that he refers to the "protective magic" he himself practices.
²² The phrase in the original, ya sasa, lit. "of now", could be translated as "modern." Kahenga responds with a locative: hapa, specifying the place (here) rather then the time (now), he does not have clients among the big shots.
²³ Notice the second person in the Swahili expression hamusikilizane. This can be equivalent to expressions like "you know" not meaning "you know" but "one knows". It could also be a subtle way of including me among the bakubwa, which I translated here as "the big people" (with a political connotation; it can also refer persons older than the speaker).
²⁴ The Swahili text has bizimba, see Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:824: human or animal substance used to prepare a bwanga, the Luba equivalent of Katanga Swahili dawa or lawa, "medicine" or "charm". "Les bizimba constituent l'élément, l'ingrédient essentiel, le produit 'magique' du bwanga," a Luba term sometimes also used in Katanga Swahili (the dictionary here refers to Tempels's "Philosophie bantoue...p.58-59"). The distinction that seems important to Kahenga is one between animals and plants as resources of healing.
²⁵ The term is damu, usually meaning "blood," in Katanga Swahili also used for semen (A. Mutombo).
²⁶ Two terms make translating this sentence difficult: baa, a ECS word I never heard in Lubumbashi, means "bad luck" and what I transcribe as kulumaya, a form of kuluma, "to bite or hurt". I take the statement to refer to a problem Kahenga was consulted for though it is not clear what it was.
²⁷ Because of the context -- we were exploring different cases brought to him -- my first understanding of this passage was that Kahenga was telling me about working "protective magic" for a gang of car thieves. But in the translation I had to decide that he was simply called upon to treat the injury that one of the thieves had sustained when he drove the vehicle into a wall.
²⁸ Term of reference for the (European) lady of the house, I. Szombati; left untranslated.
²⁹ This was Mwenze Kibwanga, a Lubumbashi painter of international fame. A little earlier, Kahenga referred to him as baba, a term of respect, seldom used for non-Africans.
³⁰ The original has a verb I hear as kubaolesha, the Katanga form of ECS oleza, "straighten, make even, correct", lit."flatten the belly for the them (kubaolesha)"? The plural would then refer to the man's family who could claim the offspring.
³¹ The Swahili term maungo can mean both, joints and limbs. I assumed he meant the former. I make Kahenga repeat the term and now translate it as "limbs" (because joints don't "get thin").
³² In this case the repetition and paraphrasing is caused by Kahenga's (correct) assumption that I did not know the meaning of the Swahili term (b)ukoma, "leprosy".
³³ The Swahili text has alipikia, "he cooked". In Katanga Swahili the tense-marker li may occasionally be used for ki, giving the verb the conditional meaning for which I opt in this translation.
³⁴ Here I translate kabila as race because in my mind "white" marks a racial difference. But it should be noted that, to my knowledge, an unambiguous term for race does not exist in Katanga Swahili (even the French loan word race would remain as ambiguous as it is in the source language). The "usual" translation of kabila would be "tribe", perhaps "ethnic group", neither of which has a clear meaning.
³⁵ The Swahili text has the verb kupona, "to get well", which is normally intransitive but, as far as I remember, can occasionally be used instead of kuponesha, "to heal". Pona is ECS -poa with intervocalic -n- and the basic meaning is "to get cool".
³⁶ The transcript is fragmentary but I remember that Kahenga indicated with gestures that the charm would immobilize the thief.
³⁷ The brief exchange that follows was prompted by Kahenga using the mu- prefix for mountain (should be ki-), probably in concordance with, or as an alliteration to, moya.
³⁸ Kahenga says kwenu, "in your place", which doesn't make sense. Probably a mistake.
³⁹ There is a conflict here between a descriptive term I am after, nkambo, and the term of address Kahenga uses, mama. He sticks to the latter throughout our conversation.
⁴⁰ The Swahili expression kusemasema can mean "to speak a lot" or "to do nothing but talk". But in this context it has a meaning that oscillates between 'revelatory speech' and the equivalent of German "besprechen', used for curing an illness by pronouncing magic formulae.
⁴¹ The "aaah" expresses recognition: At that moment (I remember now) I recalled the term bumbudi from ethnographic readings.
⁴² I checked van Avermaet and Mbuya for these terms and found nothing corresponding in kiLuba to bugembe, butembo, or nyambe. Bulungu signifies the military (an association of warriors?), see 1954:389. On bumbudi see "m-budyè...bumbudyè, secte de danseurs" (ibid. 86).
⁴³ I question what he says now because it seems to contradict what he asserted earlier: that his grandmother worked alone. There would be no contradiction if the members of a dance association work individually when they perform healing rituals.
⁴⁴ To avoid contradiction in the following I translate the term dawa as either "charm" or "medicine". It should be kept in mind however, that in local thought the two meanings (and practices) are interrelated. Later Kahenga suggests that both the healer and the sorcerer seek support from the spirits of the dead. When I press the issue and ask him whether he does sorcery he appears evasive. He neither confirms nor denies but, given the semantic ambiguity of "the work of dawa", he is evasive for conceptual rather than moral reasons.
⁴⁵ Who dies? The perpetrator? I never took this literally; otherwise I would not have commissioned the ritual of house-closing. Or would I have? "Recognizing" "magic" ethnographically -- accepting that it works if or when it works -- involves accepting the possibility that it could be lethal. All I thought about at the time was to get protection.
⁴⁶ The translation of this and the preceding paragraph is but an informed guess at its meaning. What is clear, though, is that the example of the cat serves Kahenga to state once again the difference between the work of healer and that of a sorcerer.
⁴⁷ Kahenga says anaugusa, which I take to be his pronunciation of ECS -uguza, "treat a sick person".
⁴⁸ Two brothers Munongo were prominent in Katanga politics, Godefroid and Antoine. Kahenga rejects the first name I suggest but does not correct me.
⁴⁹ This is how I translate the collective for of nkambo, mankambo.
⁵⁰ I am unable to figure out the relation. If the woman who gave him the medicine was his grandmother then the person we talk about would be Kahenga's cousin. But earlier he said that his grandmother had only one child, Kahenga's mother.
⁵¹ In this paragraph (but also elsewhere) Kahenga uses the ba- prefix which marks the third person plural. This gets confusing but reflects common usage and, as far as I know, awaits analysis by specialists. I take it to be an off-hand reference in a context were a more exact designation of actors (he, I, they, we) can remain implicit.
⁵² The term muzungu, which I translate here as "European", actually applies to every person who does not belong to the category bantu, "people "indigenous" to Africa"; it can include Asians and Americans, including African Americans.
⁵³ The recording was made not long before our stay in Zaire ended, at about the same time I taped my conversations with Tshibumba.
⁵⁴ In the original Kahenga puts this in the third person, lit. "the one who shows... how much does he ask for?"
⁵⁵ Since Kahenga began with it we now look at the herbs he collected with Ilona Szombati. We had specimens and photographs before us.
⁵⁶ See later in the Swahili text where it turns out to be kibongwe. It appears as "KIBONGA (?)", a kind of acacia, on a list of identifications provided by Prof. F. Malaisse, a colleague at the university in Lubumbashi. An infusion prepared from the roots was the medication for I. Szombati's headaches.
⁵⁷ I was problably thinking of E. Vincke, a physician and colleague at the anthropology department in Lubumbashi, who was interested in "ethnobotany," one of the beginnings of medical anthropology.
⁵⁸ I was surprised that his (grand)mother would live in Moba which I knew as the "authentic" name for a fairly important town formerly called, not Baudouinville, as I mistakenly suggest, but Albertville, as Kahenga corrects me.
⁵⁹ "Region" and "zone" were administrative units at the time. I looked up Kilubi; it is a village near Sola.
⁶⁰ When Christian first names had to be dropped on Mobutu's orders people often continued to use them, prefixed by an "ex-".
⁶¹ The reason why this sounds clumsy it that I was stalling, trying to get to the next question, while I shuffle through notes (audible on tape) I had taken when Kahenga did the house-closing.
⁶² Part of the recording is almost inaudible. What I hear is mgemo, ECS for "method of making incision when tapping a palm tree", hence the attempt to translate this as "marking a place" for the holes to be dug.
⁶³ See on this footnote 24.
⁶⁴ About he term kuchamukia, lit. "to be spiteful", see Lenselaer 1983:57.
⁶⁵ The term used in the Swahili text is kichavuchavu, from chavu, "dirty, impure". A. Mutombo thinks it is an expression referring to sorcery. But the context suggests that it should be translated a "loin cloth", or "cache-sexe", in French.
⁶⁶ In Swahili, Kahenga uses kuzibia instead of the expected kufunga. The image is one of patching up holes or leaks rather than of closing or locking up. Also, the following sentence suggests that prayer is to give "strength" to the inhabitants rather than to the house or its enclosure. -- Notice that he does not respond in Hemba, as I had prompted him to do, but in Swahili (multilinguals often "forget" which language they are speaking at a given moment).
⁶⁷ Memory fails me at this point. The exchange shows that I must have understood what Kahenga told me when we talked but the exact meaning of this passage is impossible to get from the transcript.
⁶⁸ Kahenga is amused that I bring vidye into our discussion. In Luba it signifies both God and great spirits (Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:783-86).
⁶⁹ I was watching the tape that needed to be turned soon.
⁷⁰ Nkuvu is the transcription I opted for in the Swahili text but it could also be kuvu or kuvo. Also, it may be the name of a person, a chief who "owns" the country.
⁷¹ The term Kahenga uses and pronounces as masisi could be a variant of mizizi, "roots".
⁷² This may refer to what he did before he started the ritual: he rubbed a substance (clay or ashes) on my forehead.
⁷³ The expression Kahenga uses is explained in Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:827 "nettoyer en frottant le derrière après avoir été à la selle...-i-zinda (réfl.) se nettoyer... Sense dérivé:...se fermer l'accès auprès de qqn." -- I found the passage in Hemba that follows too difficult to transcribe and when Kahenga switches back to Swahili it is not clear what anakuwa kubaya means.
⁷⁴ The Swahili text has anamukaka, probably a mistake for inamukaka, from ECS -kaga, "protect by charm, put a charm on". Another example of the complicated logic that operates when magic is concerned: the charm may be protective and aggressive at the same time.
⁷⁵ This attempt at translation is incomplete. One of Kahenga's responses (which I transcribed as panier ya kuku...kyu lu...) I just don't understand. I have not recollection of this nor is it clear to me now what I meant when I said "let's look at it first."
⁷⁶ Thinking about another question, I start asking about miti, herbs or plants, when I remember something from the house-closing.
⁷⁷ I am reacting to mukini, the word Kahenga uses here. In a narrow sense it means village as opposed to town. But it is also the general term for a "settled place." There is, as far as I know, no Swahili expression that distinguishes a village and a town (when I use mu tauni elsewhere in our conversation, this is mining company jargon; it refers to urban labor settlements). To refer to the city/town one would use the French loan ville. The contrast is further complicated by the local use of cité which distinguishes "native quarters" (in colonial times officially called cité indigène or centre extra-coutumier) and squatters' towns (usually with a name added as, for instance, cité Caroline in Kolwezi) from ville, the core town, in colonial times reserved for Europeans and their African servants. This semantic complexity reflects a socio-cultural continuum between village and town (tradition and modernity) that Kahenga himself embodies.
⁷⁸ Where is huku kwetu, as Kahenga puts it in Swahili? He is not talking about a hypothetical trip to his village. When I call on his services it means that I "come to them" -- figuratively, or literally/ritually. In the prayer he cites he speaks for the ancestors he is praying to.
⁷⁹ Why does he say sabotage (rather than something like "sin")? Why a loan word signifying a criminal or political act in this religious context?
⁸⁰ To me the expression Kahenga uses, juma moya, sounds confusing. In local Swahili juma means "week" or "Sunday;" moya appears in (siku) mukazi moya, Monday.
⁸¹ I don't remember ever hearing the phrase used here: nafanya kinwywa, lit. "I make mouth or language".
⁸² At this point I had doubts (unfounded, as I can see now) whether it was clear that we were talking about the Jamaa movement I had studied earlier and not about jamaa, the local term for family.
⁸³ Difficulties of transcription and translation make this passage almost incomprehensible. It does contain an important piece of information (the remark on dreaming) which, unfortunately we did not pursue.
⁸⁴ This is a Jamaa term for the first of three degrees of initiation. I used it at the time also to test Kahenga about his membership in the movement. As the following shows he no longer remembered detail.
⁸⁵ Left untranslated to indicate that its meaning was not clear to me right away. The same goes for kivuri below.
⁸⁶ The reference is not clear. It may also mean something like: "I put it in this place so that it is preserved."
⁸⁷ I now understand kivuri (ECS kivuli) and come up with a synonym in Swahili, (n)giza, and a gloss in French.
⁸⁸ A guess at the meaning of inawakisha: The verb -waka, lit. "to light or ignite", is used of a motor that is running. But why the causative form wakisha?
⁸⁹ The situation was that I read names from notes made earlier and Kahenga selected the plant from the collection he and I. Szombati brought back from the bush. These samples were also photographed and later identified by a colleague at the university in Lubumbashi, Prof. F. Malaisse.-- Once again, with the samples before us communication is largely indexical and putting this interaction into words -- or more exactly: translating the transcript discursively -- is problematic.
⁹⁰ One photograph. No botanical identification.
⁹¹ Two photographs (taken by I. Szombati, all black and white).
⁹² This is not clear, unless Kahenga uses kunawa both for "washing/bathing" and for "rubbing in" (as one would do with a powder not dissolved in water).
⁹³ Here and a little earlier Kahenga locates the suffering to be treated ku nyumba, "in/at the house/home". Why?
⁹⁴ The phrase means literally "(the herb) that prevails against the dead," whereby bafu takes on the meaning of mizimu, "spirits", such that it can include also shetani, "bad spirits". On the Luba verb -binga see Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:72-73.
⁹⁵ One photograph. Possibly the phrase should be read as kivu=kivo, "abundance", and mboka, food that goes with the staple bukari (ECS ugali). But would the description of the condition to be treated show up as the name of the plant used for treatment?
⁹⁶ Sombe, chopped manioc leaves cooked with onions and dried fish, is the usual vegetable accompaniment of bukari (ECS ugali).
⁹⁷ Two photographs.
⁹⁸ Two photographs (marked muyamba).
⁹⁹ One photograph.
¹⁰⁰ Four photographs.
¹⁰¹ A rather lame attempt at punning. The singular prefix mu- occurs in two noun-classes: with the plural mi- it is appropriate for plants and spirits, with ba- it classes people.
¹⁰² One photograph.
¹⁰³ This is one of several instances where I do not pronounce the term he gives correctly and he then -- out of politeness? -- repeats the incorrect pronunciation (usually to correct it later).
¹⁰⁴ Two photographs.
¹⁰⁵ Two photographs, not clearly marked.
¹⁰⁶ Lit. (an injection) of something prepared. I think this is to contrast the treatment "back home" with modern injections.
¹⁰⁷ I show him what I take to be a diviner's instrument: a medium-sized calabash, decorated, with objects inside.
¹⁰⁸ Kahenga uses the Luba word; for its complex meaning see Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:258-60.
¹⁰⁹ What I hear on the recording is wangambo, lit. people with sides. From what I remember it could have been a two-faced figurine.
¹¹⁰ On kabezya, derived from a verb meaning "to guard", and as a divine attribute, Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:65.
¹¹¹ I did not know the word libala until the reference to the Pope (Paul VI, at the time) made me guess that it means "baldness". A. Mutombo confirms this. Possibly it is a variant of ECS upara or upaa, "baldness."
¹¹² My guess was correct, see mbulu in Van Avermaet and Mbuya 1954:91. The animal Kahenga compares it to, in size, is nkaka, armadillo, ibid. 216.
¹¹³ A harp-like instrument. The Greek term was the first to come to my mind.
¹¹⁴ Through this part of the conversation one can hear Kahenga sniffling; the doctor is sick.
¹¹⁵ See paragraph 34 about these spirits and the societies associated with them.
¹¹⁶ The meaning of this question is no longer clear to me.
¹¹⁷ Kahenga understood kasa, "(cow's) feet" in Tshiluba (A. Mutombo).

Lenselaer, Alphonse. (1983). Dictionnaire Swahili-Français. Paris: Karthala.
Tempels, Placide. (1945). La philosophie bantoue (trad. du Néérlandais par A. Rubbens). Elisabethville : Lovania. [2ième édition, 1948, Paris, Présence Africaine].
Van Avermaet, E. and B. Mbuya. (1954). Dictionnaire Kiluba-Français. Tervuren: Musée Royal du Congo Belge.

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