Note 109.2 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

How far the phenomena of possession are voluntary need not here be discussed. The Zulu or Xosa patient (if we may call him so) becomes sickly and abstinent; he distinguishes himself by dreams and visions, and begins to talk of his intercourse with spirits of the dead; he becomes “a house of dreams”; he is hysterical; he sings; he behaves as though he were out of his mind; he is possessed by an Itongo, an ancestral spirit. Then he is admitted to the society of the magicians and receives instruction from them. Finally, he is accounted a new creature, whose intercourse with spirits and share in their supernatural powers is recognized by everyone.109.2