ok on at the murder of his kinsman. But
true to his principles he will see to it that the thing is done decently
and humanely. When the struggle is nearly over and the man is down,
writhing on the ground with the murderers busy about him, his loving
kinsman will not suffer them to take an unfair advantage of their
superior numbers to cut him up alive with their knives, to chop him with
their axes, or to smash him with their clubs. He will only allow them to
stab him with their spears, repeating of course the stabs again and
again till the victim ceases to writhe and quiver, and lies there dead
as a stone. Then begins the real time of peril for the virtuous kinsman
who has been a spectator and director of the scene; for the ghost of the
murdered man has now deserted its mangled body, and, still blinded with
blood and smarting with pain, might easily and even excusably
misunderstand the situation. It is essential, therefore, in order to
prevent a painful misapprehension, that the kinsman should at once and
emphatically disclaim any part or parcel in the murder. This he
accordingly does in language which leaves no room for doubt or
ambiguity. He falls into a passion: he rails at the murderers: he
proclaims his horror at their deed. All the way home he refuses to be
comforted. He upbraids the assassins, he utters the most frightful
threats against them; he rushes at them to snatch their weapons from
them and dash them in pieces. But they easily wrench the weapons from
his unresisting hands. For the whole thing is only a piece of acting.
His sole intention is that the ghost may see and hear it all, and being
convinced of the innocence of his dear kinsman may not punish him with
bad crops, wounds, sickness, and other misfortunes. Even when he has
reached the village, he keeps up the comedy for a time, raging, fretting
and fuming at the irreparable loss he has sustained by the death of his
lamented relative.[458]

[Sidenote: Pretence of avenging the ghost of a murdered sorcerer.]

Similarly when a chief has among his subjects a particular sorcerer whom
he fears but with whom he is professedly on terms of friendship, he will
sometimes engage a man to murder him. No sooner, however, is the murder
perpetrated than the chief who bespoke it hastens in seeming indignation
with a band of followers to the murderer's village. The assassin, of
course, has got a hint of what is coming, and he and his friends take
care not to be at home