Several theories occur to my mind to account for my immunity. One is that the concoctions which I took, in spite of the witch doctors’ assurances that they were deadly, were not poisons at all. I think it quite likely that they never carried their real poisons on them, but specially prepared them, in the secrecy of their own huts, for each individual, and that they were merely trying to frighten me.[8]
It is the Wakamba who deal in poisons and sell them to the neighbouring tribes. They pretend to have a monopoly of them in East Africa.
Another is that the Kikuyu had no poisons at all.[9] It must be remembered that the African native is one of the most superstitious beings in the world, and there is no doubt that many of the deaths attributed to the action of the witch doctors were really due to pure funk. The natives are so oppressed with a belief in the occult powers of the medicine man that it is well known that it is generally quite sufficient for him to curse an individual and assure him that his death will take place on or before a certain time to ensure that the man will simply give up the ghost according to the prophecy. Instances of this sort of thing can be quoted in connexion with most primitive races, either in Africa or India. I know very well that some of the native races of British East Africa have deadly poisons, and do not hesitate to use them, as two white men of my acquaintance met with horrible deaths from poison administered by some Wakamba, while I know of more than one similar instance occurring among white men on the West Coast. But with the native the ingrained superstitious fear of the medicine man is generally quite sufficient to cause death under the influence of his curse. So deeply rooted in the native mind is this belief in the power of these quacks that I know of a native doctor, holding the post of Assistant Colonial Medical Officer in one of our West Coast colonies, who definitely stated that he could do nothing for a certain man who was ill, and of whom it was rumoured among the natives that he had trodden on poison which had been scattered on the floor of his house by a native medicine man for the purpose of poisoning him. This official was a prominent member of the Church of England in the colony and the possessor of several first-class European qualifications, yet he frankly said that he could do nothing against the arts of his heathen rival!