ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the description of rituals to a personal document, an account of the illness of Kasitile, the leading priest of Selya, the causes suggested for it, and the rituals performed. His case shows: the power of village headmen over chiefs in general, more particularly the power of the commoner priests over hereditary priests of the chief's lineage, and the persistent linking of misfortune with sin in both public and private life; the function of divination in selecting between possible causes of disease. It also shows the influences of Christian and Muslim teaching and Western medical science on a conservative who goes so far as to invite a Muslim to cut the throat of the sacrificial animal and speaks of turning Christian in his old age. The case further shows the very great importance attached to 'speaking out' and not leaving anger to smoulder unconfessed.
