It is considered impossible that a medicine man should maintain a real standing and the absolute faith of the…
- Date of account
- Published 1922
- Source
- Bantu Beliefs and Magic With particular reference to the Kikuyu and Kamba tribes of Kenya Colony; together with some reflections on East Africa after the war
- Reference
- Bantu Beliefs and Magic With particular reference to the Kikuyu and Kamba tribes of Kenya Colony; together with some reflections on East Africa after the war · selected passage 113
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
It is considered impossible that a medicine man should maintain a real standing and the absolute faith of the people by mere trickery
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyIt is considered impossible that a medicine man should maintain a real standing and the absolute faith of the people by mere trickery. Still less is it likely that a charlatan would have so much self-confidence as Kamiri, and therefore one is driven to the conclusion that a man such as Kamiri must repeatedly have proved himself to be right in his detection. The most successful practices in this respect will always be such as work automatically, and the more one sees of noted medicine men the more one inclines to the idea that many of their powers are neither trickery nor mystery, but are simply due to the nervousness or to the mental effect upon the victim or patient.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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