for a piece of something. There is do word corres- pondiBg to ours. Everything has a special name : — Tsoka a piece of meat. Katanga a piece of broken pottery. Sakaiiya a piece of calabash. Kelle a piece of cloth. One can, of course, say dan duchi, dan takarda, etc. but this rather means not a " piece of," but a small stone^ a small sheet of paper, Sec. Lai/a. The ordinary Inya are scraps of paper with a text from the Koran written on them : they are then wrapped in cotton and enclosed in leather. They are the mdgani for every kind of danger or sickness, being looked on rather as a preventative than a cure. A mallam, who is well up in the Quran, will often put in an appropriate text ; for instance, I have found the " Chargers " verse in the charm tied to a horse's mane or bridle, but as a rule any unmeaning scrawl is sufficient as long as the words and characters are Arabic. The mdgani for curing disease, &c., is to write on the slate or alio, wash off the ink and drink it ; such are love charms, &c. Another is to tamhaija itachi. A certain sum is paid, and the maimdgaui indicates certain trees from which the bark, leaves, &c., are to be collected ; these are pounded up and the resulting concoction drunk. Other rites survive in some districts, but the people are rather chary of talking to Europeans on this subject.
