My informant told me that when he was a lad he assisted his father in using another method. His father was intimate with white men, trading extensively with them in ivory. To increase his credit, he set out to make a new fetich. He called the son to accompany him to the forest, and handed him a basket to carry. They searched among the trees until they found two growing near together, but bent in such a way toward each other that their trunks crossed in contact, and were rubbed smooth by abrasion; and when violently rubbing, in a storm, gave out a creaking sound. In that mysterious sound inhered the fetich power. He chose the trees, not for any value in their kind, but because of their singular juxtaposition and their weird sounds. He gathered bark from these trees, and the son carried the basketful back to their village. The father fixed the time of arrival and point of entrance so that they should not be seen as they came to their house. He then went out to the behu (kitchen-garden) and plucked four ripe plantains (mehole); and gathered leaves of a certain tree, by name "boka." An earthen pot containing water and pieces of the twin-tree bark was set over the fire, and into the pot were finely sliced the mehole and the boka leaves. To these were added a certain kind of fish, by name "hume," a bottle of palm-oil, gourd seeds, and ground-nuts. All these were thoroughly boiled together. When they were sufficiently boiled, he lifted off the pot from the fire, not by his hands, but by clasping its hot sides with his feet, as he sat on a low stool, and placed it on the ground. Sitting by it, he held his face over it, with a cloth thrown over his head, thus inhaling the steam. He remained in this steam bath for about an hour.
At food time he cut two pieces of leaves from plantains, spread them on the ground and sat on them, and ate the mess that was in the pot. While eating, he uttered into the pot adjurations, _e. g._, "Let no one, not even a Mabeya tribesman, hinder me from the white man's good-will! When I go some day to make my request to the white man, let him grant it!" When he had finished eating, he told his son to carry the pot into an inner room and deposit it in a large box, which the father opened for that purpose. The pot was not washed; it still contained the remains of the pottage. He told his son to reveal to no one what they had done.