The Wazaramo chiefs are powerful only when their wealth or personal qualities win the respect of their unruly republican subjects. There are no less than five orders in this hereditary master-class. The P’hazi is the headman of the village, and the Mwene Goha is his principal councillor; under these are three ranks of elders, the Kinyongoni, the Chúmá, and the Káwámbwá. The headman, unless exceptionally influential, must divide amongst his “ministry” the blackmail extorted from travellers. The P’hazi usually fills a small village with his wives and families; he has also large estates, and he personally superintends the labour of his slave-gangs. He cannot sell his subjects except for two offences--Ugoni or adultery, and Ucháwe or black magic. The latter crime is usually punished by the stake; in some parts of the country the roadside shows at every few miles a heap or two of ashes with a few calcined and blackened human bones mixed with bits of half-consumed charcoal, telling the tragedy that has been enacted there. The prospect cannot be contemplated without horror; here and there, close to the larger circles where the father and mother have been burnt, a smaller heap shows that some wretched child has shared their terrible fate, lest growing up he should follow in his parents’ path. The power of conviction is wholly in the hands of the Mgángá or medicine-man, who administers an ordeal called Bága or Kyápo by boiling water. If the hand after being dipped show any sign of lesion, the offence is proven, and the sentence is instantly carried into execution.