Note 1241 — Chapter VI · MAGICIANS AS KINGS

Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), p. 114. “The chief collects to himself all medicines of known power; each doctor has his own special medicine or medicines, and treats some special form of disease, and the knowledge of such medicines is transmitted as a portion of the inheritance to the eldest son. When a chief hears that any doctor has proved successful in treating some case where others have failed, he calls him and demands the medicine, which is given up to him. Thus the chief becomes the great medicine-man of his tribe, and the ultimate reference is to him. If he fail, the case is given up as incurable” (H. Callaway, Religious System of the Amazulu, part iv. pp. 419 sq., note). The medicines here referred to are probably for the most part magical rather than medicinal in our sense of the term.