But getting out a _sisa_ is a most trying operation. Not only does it necessitate a witch doctor sending in his power to fetch it _vi et armis_, it also places the medical man in a position of grave responsibility regarding its disposal when secured. The methods he employs to meet this may be regarded as akin to those of antiseptic surgery. All the people in the village, particularly babies and old people--people whose souls are delicate--must be kept awake during the operation, and have a piece of cloth over the nose and mouth, and every one must howl so as to scare the _sisa_ off them, if by mischance it should escape from the witch doctor. An efficient practitioner, I may remark, thinks it a great disgrace to allow a _sisa_ to escape from him; and such an accident would be a grave blow to his practice, for people would not care to call in a man who was liable to have this occur. However, our present medical man having got the _sisa_ out, he has still to deal with the question of its disposal before he can do anything more. The assistant blows a new dream soul into the patient, and his women see to him; but the witch doctor just holds on to the _sisa_ like a bulldog.
Sometimes the disposal of the _sisa_ has been decided on prior to its extraction. If the patient's family are sufficiently well off, they agree to pay the doctor enough to enable him to teach the _sisa_ the way to Hades. Indeed, this is the course respectable medical men always insist on although it is expensive to the patient's family. But there are, I regret to say, a good many unprincipled witch doctors about who will undertake a case cheap.
They will carry off with them the extracted _sisa_ for a small fee, then shortly afterwards a baby in the village goes off in tetanic convulsions. No one takes much notice of that, because it's a way babies have. Soon another baby is born in the same family--polygamy being prevalent, the event may occur after a short interval--well, after giving the usual anxiety and expense, that baby goes off in convulsions. Suspicion is aroused. Presently yet another baby appears in the family, keeps all right for a week may be, and then also goes off in convulsions. Suspicions are confirmed. The worm--the father, I mean--turns, and he takes the body of that third baby and smashes one of its leg bones before it is thrown away into the bush; for he knows he has got a wanderer soul--namely, a _sisa_, which some unprincipled practitioner has sent into his family. He just breaks the leg so as to warn the soul he is not a man to be trifled with, and will not have his family kept in a state of perpetual uproar and expense. It sometimes happens, however, in spite of this that, when his fourth baby arrives, that too goes off in convulsions. Thoroughly roused now, paterfamilias sternly takes a chopper and chops that infant's remains up extremely small, and it is scattered broadcast. Then he holds he has eliminated that _sisa_ from his family finally.