The soothsayers and ‘priests’ of the Songye, in southeastern Congo, used these tools in order to find out who is ‘responsible’ for someone’s misfortune, illness or death. This is how it worked: the questioner and the soothsayer sit opposite each other. Between them, a piece of wood or a stone with a smooth surface. Then the soothsayer takes his ‘katatora’, inserts a finger in one side of the hole in the object, and the questioner puts his finger in the other side of the same hole. The soothsayer subsequently names members of the village community and the ‘katatora’ moves back and forth on the smooth surface until one of the names mentioned makes it stop: this is the perpetrator who is ‘responsible’ for the questioner’s problem – possibly due to ‘witchcraft’! Thereupon, the soothsayer recommends a ‘magic counterspell’. The present ‘katatora’ made of hard, dark, reddish-brown wood, displays perfect, black patina on the typical Songye face. This ‘magic object’ is visibly very old and, as a result of protracted use, conspicuously worn. The rubbing surface on the underside, also very smooth and worn, is partly broken (old crack!). 19th century to around 1900; H: 12 cm. (ME)

Provenance: Renard auctions, Gien an der Loire (France), 7 April 1991, lot: 82; Austrian private collection.