At times the Pondoro employs his acquired
powers in hunting for the benefit of the village; and after an absence of
a day or two, his wife smells the lion, takes a certain medicine, places
it in the forest, and there quickly leaves it, lest the lion should kill
even her. This medicine enables the Pondoro to change himself back into
a man, return to the village, and say, "Go and get the game that I have
killed for you." Advantage is of course taken of what a lion has done,
and they go and bring home the buffalo or antelope killed when he was a
lion, or rather found when he was patiently pursuing his course of
deception in the forest. We saw the Pondoro of another village dressed
in a fantastic style, with numerous charms hung round him, and followed
by a troop of boys who were honouring him with rounds of shrill cheering.

It is believed also that the souls of departed chiefs enter into lions,
and render them sacred. On one occasion, when we had shot a buffalo in
the path beyond the Kafue, a hungry lion, attracted probably by the smell
of the meat, came close to our camp, and roused up all hands by his
roaring. Tuba Mokoro, imbued with the popular belief that the beast was
a chief in disguise, scolded him roundly during his brief intervals of
silence. "You a chief, eh? You call yourself a chief, do you? What
kind of chief are you to come sneaking about in the dark, trying to steal
our buffalo meat! Are you not ashamed of yourself? A pretty chief
truly; you are like the scavenger beetle, and think of yourself only. You
have not the heart of a chief; why don't you kill your own beef? You
must have a stone in your chest, and no heart at all, indeed!" Tuba
Mokoro producing no impression on the transformed chief, one of the men,
the most sedate of the party, who seldom spoke, took up the matter, and
tried the lion in another strain. In his slow quiet way he expostulated
with him on the impropriety of such conduct to strangers, who had never
injured him. "We were travelling peaceably through the country back to
our own chief. We never killed people, nor stole anything. The buffalo
meat was ours, not his, and it did not become a great chief like him to
be prowling round in the dark, trying, like a hyena, to steal the meat of
strangers. He might go and hunt for himself, as there was plenty of game
in the forest." The Pondoro, being deaf to reason, and only roaring the
louder, the men became angry, and threatened