There are certain well-understood causes of death which are not supposed to require any investigation, though, according to some, every death is put down to witchcraft. The witch is believed to kill a person, and then, when his relations have buried him, to send out messengers to find out where the grave is. When they come back, they tell their master that they have seen the meat (the ‘game’—_i.e._ the corpse), and say, ‘Come along.’ Then the owl ‘which sits on the head of the chief’ goes out and summons all the witches to the feast. The animals lead the way to the grave, a fire is made, and the chief asks who it was that killed the person they are about to eat. One answers, ‘It was I,’ and the chief tells him to ‘bring the meat out.’ ‘So the man who killed him sounds a rattle and calls him by his early name’—the name he bore before he attended the mysteries, which has a compelling power over him—and he comes out. The wizard then reproaches him for real or imaginary insults and injuries—possibly there are unhealthy-minded persons who will brood for years over fancied wrongs, and when the man they are nursing a grudge against dies, imagine that they have killed him—and finally kills him over again. ‘Then they take the meat and divide it, and take it with them to their village; the _mfiti_ cooks it at night and eats it, and takes a pot and digs to conceal it in the deserted house of the deceased, and leaves and goes to his own house as if nothing had happened.’ If all the energy expended to prevent these proceedings counts for anything, it may well be believed that they never happen at all. When the circumstances of a death seem to warrant suspicion, the witch-detective, whose methods are described elsewhere, is sometimes called in, and the people pointed out by her are either killed at once or compelled to drink _mwavi_. But the ordeal is sometimes put in operation without resorting to her. Persons who feel themselves under suspicion may demand it in order to clear their character. So firmly do they believe that it will not hurt them if innocent, that no one, unless conscious of guilt, ever seems to shrink from the trial.