Mbona of Tyolo seems to have been one of these local deities. Mr. Rowley says that he was supposed to be the supreme ruler of the Anyanja, superior to the Rundo, or Paramount Chief, who consulted him in all special emergencies. This was done through the medium of Mbona’s wife—a woman chosen for the purpose, who lived in a solitary hut on Tyolo Mountain—or elsewhere, for ‘he was thought to be ubiquitous,’ and huts on other mountains were consecrated to his service. ‘He was spoken of as having a visible presence, but no one could say they had actually seen him or heard him.... If the Rundo wished for Bona’s advice, he or his deputies would proceed to the top of the mountain, with horn-blowing and shouting, to make the bride of Bona know of his approach. She then retires to the seclusion of her hut, hears without seeing those who come to her, seeks and finds Bona in sleep, receives from him, in this condition, that which he wishes her to declare, and when she awakes she declares to the expectant people the message Bona has given her to deliver.’ As Mbona’s wife was thus condemned to solitude for the rest of her days, the position was naturally not much coveted, and the Rundo usually had women kidnapped to fill it. Mr. Macdonald, some twenty years later, merely refers to this spirit in passing, as a ‘local deity.’ The word appears now to be used as a common noun, in the following senses: (1) ‘A wonder,’ (2) ‘something desirable’, (3) ‘one who looks after people or things’—as the overseer at the _namwali_ ceremonies, which will be referred to later on, and (4) ‘a witness.’ It may be connected with the verb _bona_, meaning ‘to look at’ (in Nyanja, _ona_ is ‘to see’); and possibly (3) is or was used as the name of the spirit. I cannot help wondering whether a story I once heard, of an old woman living on Morambala, who kept a number of spirits shut up in her house, has any reference to this tradition. I once, at Blantyre, questioned some Chikundas from the River about this old woman, and they said that they had heard of her, and that her name was _Mbonda_. I knew nothing about Mbona at the time, and perhaps misheard _Mbonda_ instead of it; the sounds are not unlike, if both _o_‘s are pronounced open. The application of the spirit’s name to the woman is just the sort of confusion that might arise when a tradition is falling into oblivion. About the same time (in 1894) I heard of another old woman living in a cave on Malabvi—a mountain a few miles east of Blantyre. No European had been able to acquire the land in the immediate neighbourhood, as the people refused to sell it during her lifetime. It has since occurred to me that she might have been one of ‘Mbona’s wives.’