Folk-Lore/Volume 20/Augury and Leechcraft in Algeria

Augury and Leechcraft in Algeria.

Some years ago, when my wife and I were at Algiers, we heard strange stories of an ancient African semi-religious rite, performed every fortnight on the seashore about three miles west of Algiers. So, on the usual day, we drove out, by the Bab-el-Oued, to see the sick and infirm cured by a negro mystery-man. Each patient brought a hen, and, in his turn, handed it to the "medicine-man," who partially cut its throat and noticed its struggles on the sand. If it flopped only a little way, the ailment was not serious; if nearer to the water, it was dangerous; and, if to the water, death was certain. While we watched, a consumptive man passed on his hen, and sat, in a state of great feebleness, with his back to the wall of a house. The hen flopped far towards the water. The medicine-man rubbed the blood of the hen on the bare breast of the sick man, who then went his way. One woman had a bad leg—all sores—and the sores were rubbed in the same way as the chest of the former patient. We had soon seen enough of it, and we climbed from the beach to the road, where an intelligent Soudanese stood looking on. He spoke to me of the undoubted efficacy of the hen sacrifices for the cure of diseases, and ridiculed the folly of white men who went to a fashionable doctor and paid a napoleon, when they could be far better advised and attended to by paying a shilling for a hen.

I believe that these rites, as they drew crowds of tourists, became a public nuisance, and that the government therefore stopped them. Probably they are still continued, away from the public gaze, as superstitions die hard.

J. Noton.

Southport.