Besides the above, the Yaos seem to have had special deities of their own, connected with the country whence they came, and, therefore, probably, ancient chiefs of theirs, as ‘the old gods of the country’ were of the Anyanja. Such was Mtanga, supposed to dwell on Mount Mangoche, lying midway between Lake Chiuta and the Shiré, and the old home of the Mangoche tribe. It was believed that the voice of Mtanga could still be heard on Mangoche. Some said (twenty or thirty years ago) that ‘Mtanga was never a man,’ and the name is only ‘another word for Mulungu.’ However, both meanings would seem to have been lost sight of in more recent times, since, in Dr. Hetherwick’s Yao vocabulary we only find ‘_Mtanga_, a hobgoblin.’ This definition would also suit Chitowe (or _Siluwi_), who is enumerated along with Mtanga by Dr. Macdonald, but figures in fairy tales as a kind of monstrous being, with only one arm, one leg, one eye, etc., the rest of his body being made of wax. ‘He is associated with famine.... He is invoked by the women, on the day of initiating their fields ... when the new crop has begun to grow.’ Chitowe may become a child or a young woman. In this disguise he visits villages and tells whether the coming year will bring food or famine. He receives their hospitality, but throws the food over his shoulder without eating it. Chitowe is a child or subject of Mtanga, and some speak of several Chitowe who are messengers of Mtanga. The Nyanja bogy, Chiruwi (the word is translated in Scott’s _Dictionary_, ‘a mysterious thing’), is probably the same as Chitowe; he is constructed as above described, and, in addition, carries an axe. He is in the habit of meeting travellers and wrestling with them in lonely places; if the traveller falls, ‘he returns no more to his village—he dies.’ If, on the contrary, he throws Chiruwi, he says, ‘I will kill you, Chiruwi,’ and Chiruwi entreats for his life, promising to show the man ‘lots of medicines.’ Then the man lets him go, ‘and Chiruwi goes on before and says this tree is for such a disease, and that tree is for such a disease’—in short, gives him a lecture on _materia medica_, which proves exceedingly useful.