He will lose his head, be attacked by giddiness (_ndzululwan_) and the thirst for blood may lead him to fall upon members of his own family and to stab them with his assagay. To prevent such misfortunes, a special medication is required: the slayers must _lurulula tiyimpì ta bu_, take away the _nuru_ of their sanguinary expedition.… In what consists this treatment? The slayers must remain for some days at the capital. They are taboo. They put on old clothes, eat with special spoons, because their hands are ‘hot,’ and off special plates (_mireko_) and broken pots. They are forbidden to drink water. Their food must be cold. The chief kills oxen for them; but if the meat were hot it would make them swell internally ‘because they are hot themselves, they are defiled (_ba na nsila_).’ If they eat hot food, the defilement would enter into them. ‘They are black (_ntima_). This black must be removed.’ During all this time sexual relations are absolutely forbidden to them. They must not go home, to their wives. In former times the Ba-Ronga used to tattoo them with special marks from one eyebrow to the other. Dreadful medicines were inoculated in the incisions, and there remained pimples ‘which gave them the appearance of a buffalo when it frowns.’ After some days a medicine-man comes to purify them, ‘to remove their black.’ There seem to be various means of doing it, according to Mankhelu. Seeds of all kinds are put into a {122} broken pot and roasted, together with drugs and _psanyi_[122.1] of a goat. The slayers inhale the smoke which emanates from the pot. They put their hands into the mixture and rub their limbs with it, especially the joints.… Insanity threatening those who shed blood might begin early. So, already on the battle-field, just after their deed, warriors are given a preventive dose of the medicine by those who have killed on previous occasions.… The period of seclusion having been concluded by the final purification, all the implements used by the slayers during these days, and their old garments, are tied together and hung by a string to a tree, at some distance from the capital, where they are left to rot.”[122.2]