The details of this stage in the religious worship known as fetichism will be considered in the following chapters.
SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICAN RELIGION
Thebelief in spiritual beings opens an immense vista of the purely superstitious side of the theology of Bantu African religion.
All the air and the future is peopled with a large and indefinite company of these beings. The attitude of the Creator (Anyambĕ) toward the human race and the lower animals being that of indifference or of positive severity in having allowed evils to exist, and His indifference making Him almost inexorable, cause effort in the line of worship to be therefore directed only to those spirits who, though they are all probably malevolent, may be influenced and made benevolent.
I.Origin.
The native thought in regard to the origin of spirits is vague; necessarily so. An unwritten belief that is not based upon revelation from a superior source nor on an induction from actual experience and observation, but that is added to and varied by every individual’s fancy, can be expressed in definite words only after inquiry among many as to their ideas on the subject. These, I find, coincide on a few lines; just as the consensus of opinion on any subject in any community will find itself running in certain channels, influenced by the utterances of the stronger or wiser leaders.
1. It appears, therefore, that some of the spirits seem to have been conterminous with the life of Paia-Njambi in the eternities. An eternity past, impossible as it is for any one tocomprehend, is yet a thing thinkable even with the Bantu African, for he has words to express it,—“pĕkĕ-na-jome,” ever-and-beyond, “tamba-na-ngâmâ,” unknown-and-secret.
Away back in that unknown time existed Paia-Njambi. Whence or how, is not asked by the natives; nor have I had any attempt even of a reply to my own inquiries. He simply existed. They are not sufficiently absurd to say that He created Himself. To do that He would need to antedate Himself. I have met none who thought sufficiently on the subject to worry their minds, as we in our civilization often do, in effort to go back and back to the unthinkable point in time past when God was not. Indeed so little is the native mind in the habit of any such research that I can readily perceive how their “We don’t know” could easily be misunderstood by a foreign traveller, scientist, or even missionary, as a confession that “they did not know God,”—a statement which is true, but not the equivalent of, or synonymous with, that traveller’s assertion that the nativehad no idea of a God. The native thought, wiser than ours, simply and unreasoningly says, “He is, He was.” Conterminous with Him in origin there may have been some other spirits. This has been said to me by a very few persons with some hesitation. But if those spirits were indeed equal in existence with Njambi, they were in no respect equal to Him in character or power, and had no hand in the creation of other beings. In the Mpongwe tribe at Gabun one writer, Rev. J. L. Wilson, D.D., fifty years ago, thought the belief existed that “next to God in the government of the world are two spirits, one of whom, Onyambe, is hateful and wicked. The people seldom speak of Onyambe, and always evince displeasure when the name is mentioned in their presence. His influence over the affairs of men, in their estimation, does not amount to much; and the probability is that they have no very definite notions about the real character of this spirit.” His character would be indicated by his name, O-nya-mbe (He-who-is-bad). This name has sometimes been used by missionaries to translate our word “devil.” Perhaps the idea of theword itself came from long-ago contact of this coast tribe with foreigners.
2. A second and more recognized source of supply to the company of spirits is original creation by Njambi. While this origin is named by some, I have not found it believed in to any very great extent. Even those whom I did find believing it had very vague ideas as to the mode or object of their creation. Of the Creation of mankind, and even of the Fall, almost all of the tribes have legends, more or less distinct, and with a modicum of truth, doubtless derived from traditions coinciding with the Mosaic history; but of a previous creation of purely spiritual beings I have found no legend nor well-defined story. If such specially created spirits exist at all, their relation to Njambi is of a very shadowy kind; they are, indeed, inferior to Him, and are in theory under His government in the same sense that human beings are. But Njambi, in His far-off indifference in actual practice, does not interfere with or control them or their actions. They are part of the motley inhabitants of “Njambi’s Town,” the place of the Great Unknown, as also are all the other living beasts and beings of creation. They also have their separate habitat, and pursue their own devices, generally malevolent, with the children of men.
3. But the general consensus of opinion is that the world of spirits is peopled by the souls of dead human beings. This presupposes a belief in a future life, the existence of which in the native mind some travellers have doubted. I have never met that doubt from the native himself. While I do not impute to the travellers referred to any desire, in their efforts at describing the low grade of intelligence or religious belief of certain tribes, to misrepresent, I fully believe they were mistaken, their mistake arising from misunderstanding. It is not probable that they met, in the course of their few years, what I have not met with in a lifetime. It is probable that natives had expressed to them a doubt, or even ignorance, of a general resurrection, and may have said to them, as a few have said to me, “No, we do not live again; we arelike goats and dogs and chickens,—when we die that is the end of us.” Such a statement is indeed a denial of the resurrection of the body, but it is not a denial of a continued existence of the soul in another life. The very people who made the above declaration to me preserved their family fetich, made sacrifices to the spirits of their ancestors, and appealed to them for aid in their family undertakings. The few who have expressed a belief in transmigration did not consider that the residence of a human spirit in the body of a beast was a permanent state; it was a temporary condition, assumed by the spirit voluntarily for its own pleasure or convenience, and terminable at its own will, precisely as human spirits during their mortal life are, everywhere and by all, believed capable of temporarily deserting their own human body and controlling the actions of a beast. This belief in transmigration, though not general, has been found among individuals in almost all tribes.
It being thus generally accepted that all departed human souls become spirits of that future that is all around us, there is still a difference in the testimony of intelligent witnesses as to who and what, or even how many, of these souls are in one human being. (1) Ordinarily, the native will say in effect, “I am one, and my soul is also myself. When I die, it goes out somewhere else.” (2) Others will say, “I have two things,—one is the thing that becomes a spirit when I die, the other is the spirit of the body and dies with it.” (This “other” may be only a personification of what we specify as the animal life.) But it has frequently occurred that even intelligent natives, standing by me at the side of a dying person, have said to me, “He is dead.” The patient was indeed unconscious, lying stiff, not seeing, speaking, eating, or apparently feeling; yet there was a slight heart-beat. I would point out to the relatives these evidences of life. But they said: “No, he is dead. His spirit is gone, he does not see nor hear nor feel; that slight movement is only the spirit of the body shaking itself. It is not a person, it is not our relative;heis dead.” And they began toprepare the body for burial. A man actually came to me on Corisco Island, in 1863, asking me for medicine with which to kill or quiet the body-spirit of his mother, whose motions were troubling him by preventing the funeral arrangements. I was shocked at what I thought his attempt at matricide, but subsequently found that he really did believe that his mother was dead and her real soul gone.
Such attempt to distinguish between soul-life and body-life has not infrequently led to premature burial. The supposed corpse has sometimes risen to consciousness on the way to the grave. A long-protracted sickness of some not very valuable member of the village has wearied the attendants; they decide that the body, though mumbling inarticulate words and aimlessly fingering with its arms, is no longer occupied by its personal soul;thathas emerged. “He is dead”; and they proceed to bury him alive. Yet they deny that they have done so. They insist thathewas not alive; only his body was “moving.” Proof of premature burial has been found by discoveries made in the practice of a custom which is observed when a village has been afflicted with various troubles after the death of one of its members. The villagers, after ineffectual efforts to drive away the evil influences that are supposed to cause these troubles, decide that the spirit of some dead relative is dissatisfied about something, and order the grave to be opened and the bones rearranged or even thrown into the river or sea. On opening the grave, corpses that had been buried in a recumbent position have been found in a sitting position. It is possible for one thus prematurely buried to change posture in a dying struggle; for, mostly, heathen graves are shallow, and are hastily and not always completely filled in.
(3) Another set of witnesses will say that, besides the personal soul and the soul of the body, there is a third entity in the human unit, namely, a dream-soul. That it is which leaves the body on occasions during sleep, and, wandering off, delights itself by visiting strange lands and strange scenes. On its return to the body its union with thematerial blunts its perceptions, and the person, in his efforts to remember or tell what he has seen, relates only the vagaries of a dream,—a psychological view which, under the manipulation of a ready pen, could give play to fantasies pretty, romantic, not unreasonable, and not impossible.
Some who are only dualists, nevertheless, believe in the wanderings of this so-called dream-soul, but say that it is the personal soul itself that has gone out and has returned. Both dualists and trinitarians add that sometimes in its wanderings this soul loses its way and cannot find its body, its material home; should it never return, the person will sicken and die.
(4) A fourth entity is vaguely spoken of by some as a component part of the human personality, by others as separate but closely associated from birth to death, and called the life-spirit. Some speak of it as a civilized person speaks of a guardian angel. Regarded in that light, it should not be considered as one of the severalkindsof souls, but as one of the variousclassesof spirits (which will be discussed in a subsequent chapter). To it worship is rendered by its possessor as to other spirits,—a worship, however, different from that which is performed for what are known and used as “familiar spirits.” Others speak of the vague life-spirit as the “heart.” The organ of our anatomy which we designate by that name, they call by a word which variously means “heart” or “feelings,” much like our old English “bowels,” the same word being employed equally to designate a physical organ and a mental state. Considering the organic heart as the seat (or a seat) of life, the natives believe that by witchcraft a person in health can be deprived of his life-soul, or “heart”; that he will then sicken; that the wizard or witch feasts in his or her magic orgy on this “heart,” and that the person will die if that heart is not returned to him.
II.Number.
But whatever this human soul may be, whether existing in unity, duality, trinity, or quadruplicity, all agree in believingthat it adds itself, on the death of the body, as another to the multitudinous company of the spirit-world. That world is all around us, and does not differ much in its wants and characteristics from this earthly life, except that it is free from some of the limitations to which material bodies are subject. In that spirit-world they require the same food as when on earth, but consume only its essence; the visible substance remains. They are possessed of all their human passions, both bad and good. Men expect to have their wives with them in that future, but I have never heard the idea even named, that there is procreation by spirits in that after-world. Not having believed during this life in a system of reward and punishment, they have no belief in heaven or hell. All the dead go to Njambi’s Town, and live in that new life together, good and bad, as they lived together on earth. The “hell” spoken of by some of my informants, I believe, is not a native thought; it was probably engrafted on the coast tribes by the Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries of three hundred years ago.
If therefore the spirits consist almost entirely of the souls of departed human beings, how immense their number! Equal in number with all the dead that have passed from this life in the ages gone by, excepting those who have gone permanently into the bodies of new human beings. That form of metempsychosis is believed in. Occasional instances of belief of transmigration into the body of a lower animal do not necessarily include the idea of a permanent residence there, or that the departed soul has lost its personality as a human being and has become the soul of a beast.
But the idea of reappearance in the body of a newly born child was formerly believed in, especially in regard to white people. Thirty years ago I wrote:[23]“Down the swift current of the Benita, as of other rivers on the coast, are swept floating islands of interlaced rushes, tangled vines, and water-lilies that, clinging to some projecting log from the marshy bank, had gathered the sand and mud of successive freshets,and gave a precarious footing for the pandanus, whose wiry roots bound all in one compact mass. Then some flood had torn that mass away, and the pandanus still waving its long, bayonet-like leaves, convolvuli still climbing and blooming, and birds still nesting trustfully, the floating island glided past native eyes down the stream, out over the bar, and on toward the horizon of broad ocean. What beyond? Native superstition said that at the bottom of the ‘great sea’ was ‘whiteman’s land’; that thither some of their own departed friends found their happy future, exchanging a dusky skin for a white one; that there white man’s magic skill at will created the beads, and cloth, and endless wealth that came from that unknown land in ships, in whose masts and rigging and sails were recognized the transformed trees and vines and leaves of those floating islands. When on the 12th of July, 1866, a few with bated breath came to look on my little new-born Paull, the only white child most of the community had seen, and the first born in that Benita region, the old people said, ‘Now our hopes are dead. Dying, we had hoped to become like you; but verily ye are born as we.’”
Not long after I had arrived at Corisco Island in 1861 I observed among the many people who came to see the new missionary one man who quietly and unobtrusively but very steadily was gazing at me. After a while he mustered courage and addressed me: “Are you not my brother,—my brother who died at such a time, and went to White Man’s Land?” I was at that time new to the superstitions of the country; his meaning had to be explained to me. His thought of relationship was not an impossible one, for many of the Bantu Negroes have somewhat Caucasian-like features. I have often seen men and women at the sight of whom I was surprised, and I would remark to a fellow-missionary: “How much this person reminds me of So-and-so in America!” This recognition of resemblance of features to white persons living in America was the third step in my acquaintance with native faces. At first, all Negro faces looked alike.Presently I learned differences; and when I had reached the third step, I felt that my acquaintance with African features was complete.
III.Locality.
The locality of these spirits is not only vaguely in the surrounding air; they are also localized in prominent natural objects,—caves, enormous rocks, hollow trees, dark forests,—in this respect reminding one of classic fauns and dryads. While all have the ability to move from place to place, some especially belong to certain localities which are spoken of as having, as the case might be, “good” or “bad” spirits. It is possible for a human soul (as already mentioned in this chapter) to inhabit the body of a beast. A man whose plantation was being devastated near Benita by an elephant told me, in 1867, he did not dare to shoot it, because the spirit of his lately deceased father had passed into it. Also a common objurgation of an obstreperous child or animal is, “O na nyemba!” (Thou hast a witch.)
Their habitats may be either natural or acquired. Natural ones are, for the spirits of the dead, in a very special sense, the villages where they had dwelt during the lifetime of the body; but the presence of the spirits of the dead is not desired. It is one of the pitiable effects of African superstition that its subjects look with fear and dread on what the denizens of civilization look with love and tender regret. We in our Christian civilization cling to the lifeless forms of our dead; and when necessity compels us to bury them from our sight, we bid memory call up every lineament of face and tone of voice, and are pleased to think that sometimes they are near us. But it is a frequent native practice that on the occasion of a death, even while a portion of the family are wailing and to all appearances passionately mourning the loss of their relative, others are firing guns, blowing trumpets, beating drums, shouting and yelling, in order to drive away from the village the recently disembodied spirit. On consideration, it can be seen that these two diverse demonstrations are sincere,consistent, and, to the natives, reasonable. With natural affection they mourn the absence of a tangiblepersonwho, as a member of their family, was helpful and even kind; while they fear the independent existence of the invisible thing, whose union with the physical body they fail to recognize as having been a factor in that helpfulness and kindness. This departed spirit, joining the company of other departed spirits, will indeed become an object of worship,—a worship of principally a deprecatory nature; but its continued presence and immediate contact with its former routine are not desired. In Mashonaland the native fears death by accident or human enmity. “But a greater dread than this is of a visitation of evil by the spirit of a departed friend or relative whom he may have slighted while living.”
A village in Nazareth Bay, the embouchure of one of the mouths of the Ogowe River, is called “Abun-awiri” (“awiri,” plural of “ombwiri,” a certain class of spirits, and “abuna,” abundance).
Large, prominent trees are inhabited by spirits. Many trees in the equatorial West African forest throw out from their trunks, at from ten to sixteen feet from the ground, solid buttresses continuous with the body of the tree itself, only a few inches in thickness, but in width at the base of the tree from four to six feet. These buttresses are projected toward several opposite points of the compass, as if to resist the force of sudden wind-storms. They are a noticeable forest feature and are commonly seen in the silk-cotton trees. The recesses between them are actually used as lairs by small wild animals. They are supposedly also a favorite home of the spirits.
Caverns and large rocks have their special spirit inhabitants. At Gabun, and also on Corisco Island, geological breaks in the horizontal strata of rock were filled by narrow vertical strata of limestone, between which water action has worn away the softer rock, leaving the limestone walls isolated, with a narrow ravine between them. These ravines were formerly reverenced as the abodes of spirits.
When I made a tour in 1882, surveying for a second Ogowe Station, I came some seventy miles up river from my well-established first station, Kângwe, at Lambarene, to an enormous rock, a granite boulder, lying in the bed of the river. The adjacent hillsides on either bank of the river were almost impassable, being covered with boulders of all sizes, and a heavy forest growing in among and even on them. This great rock had evidently in the long past become detached by torrential streams that scored the mountainside in the heavy rainy season and had plunged to its present position. The swift river current swirled and dashed against the huge obstruction to navigation, making the ascent of the river at that point particularly difficult. Superstition suggested that the spirits of the rock did not wish boats or canoes to pass their abode. Nevertheless, necessities of trade compelled; and crews in passing made an ejaculatory prayer, or doffed their head coverings, in respect, but with the fear that the “ascent” in that part of the journey might be for “woe,” whence they called the rock “Itala-ja-maguga,” which, contracted to “Talaguga,” I gave as a name to my new station, erected in 1882 in the vicinity of the rock. During my eight subsequent years at the station I did, indeed, meet with some “woe,” but also much weal. And the missionary work of Talaguga, carried on since 1892 by the hands of the Société Évangelique de Paris, has met with signal success.
Capes, promontories, and other prominent points of land are favorite dwelling-places of the spirits. The Ogowe River, some one hundred and forty miles from its mouth, receives on its left bank a large affluent, the Ngunye, coming from the south. The low point of land at the junction of the two rivers was sacred. The riverine tribes themselves would pass it in canoes, respectfully removing their head coverings; but passage was forbidden to coast tribes and other foreigners. Portuguese slave-traders might come to the point; but, stopping there, they could trade beyond only through the hands of the local tribe (evidently superstition had been invoked toprotect a trade monopoly). A certain trader, Mr. R. B. N. Walker, agent for the English firm of Hatton & Cookson, headquarters at Libreville, Gabun, in extending his commercial interests some forty years ago, made an overland journey from the Gabun River, emerging on the Ogowe, on its right bank,abovethat sacred point. Ranoke, chief of the Inenga tribe, a few miles below, seized him, his porters, and his goods, and kept them prisoners for several months. Mr. Walker succeeded in bribing a native to carry a letter to the French Commandant at Libreville, who was pleased to send a gunboat to the rescue. Incidentally it furnished a good opportunity to demonstrate France’s somewhat shadowy claim to the Ogowe. After the rescue a company from the gunboat proceeded to the Point and lunched there, thus effectually desecrating it. Mr. Walker made peace with his late captor, and established a trading-station at the Inenga village, Lambarene. For years afterward, natives still looked upon that Point with respect. My own crew in 1874 sometimes doffed their hats; but before I left the Ogowe in 1891, a younger generation had grown up that was willing to camp and eat and sleep there with me, on my boat journeys.
Graveyards, of course, are homes of spirits, and therefore are much dreaded. The tribes, especially of the interior, differ very much as to burial customs. Some bury only their chiefs and other prominent men, casting away corpses of slaves or of the poor into the rivers, or out on the open ground, perhaps covering them with a bundle of sticks; even when graves are dug they are shallow. Some tribes fearlessly bury their dead under the clay floors of their houses, or a few yards distant in the kitchen-garden generally adjoining. But, by most tribes who do bury at all, there are chosen as cemeteries dark, tangled stretches of forest, along river banks on ground that is apt to be inundated or whose soil is not good for plantation purposes. I had often observed, in my earlier African years, such stretches of forest along the river, and wondered why the people did not use them for cultivation, being conveniently near to some village, whilethey would go a much longer distance to make their plantations. The explanation was that these were graveyards. Such stretches would extend sometimes for a mile or two. Often my hungry meal hour on a journey happened to coincide with our passing just such a piece of forest, and the crew would refuse to stop, keeping themselves and myself hungry till we could arrive at more open forest.
In Eastern Africa it is believed that “the dead in their turn become spirits under the all-embracing name of Musimo. The Wanyamwezi hold their Musimo in great dread and veneration, as well as the house, hut, or place where their body has died.”[24]
Beyond the regularly recognized habitats of the spirits that may be called “natural” to them, any other location may beacquiredby them temporarily, for longer or shorter periods, under the power of the incantations of the native doctor (uganga). By his magic arts any spirit may be localized in any object whatever, however small or insignificant; and, while thus limited, is under the control of the doctor and subservient to the wishes of the possessor or wearer of the material object in which it is thus confined. This constitutes a “fetich,” which will be more fully discussed in another chapter.
IV.Characteristics.
The characteristics of these spirits are much the same as those they possessed before they were disembodied. They have most of the evil human passions,e. g., anger and revenge, and therefore may be malevolent. But they possess also the good feelings of generosity and gratitude; they are therefore within reach of influence, and may be benevolent. Their possible malevolence is to be deprecated, their anger placated, their aid enlisted.
Illustration of malevolence in their character has already been seen in the dread connected with deaths and funerals. The similar dread of graveyards in our civilized countriesmay rest on the fear inspired by what is mysterious or by those who have passed to the unknown, simply because it and they are unknown. But, to superstitious Africa, that unknown is a certainty, in that it is a source of evil; the spirit of the departed has all the capacity for evil it possessed while embodied, with the additional capacity that its exemption from some of the limitations of time and space increases its facilities for action. Being unseen, it can act at immensely greater advantage for accomplishing a given purpose. Natives dying have gone into the other world retaining an acute memory of some wrong inflicted on them by fellow-villagers, and have openly said, “From that other world I will come back and avenge myself on you!”
In any contest of a human being against these spirits of evil he knows always that whatever influence he may obtain over them by the doctor’s magic aid, or whatever limitations may thus be put on them, they can never, as in the case of a human enemy, be killed. The spirits can never die.
Sometimes the word “dead” is used of a fetich amulet that has been inhabited by a spirit conjured into it by a native doctor. The phrase does not mean that its spirit is actually dead, but that it has fled from inside of the fetich, and still lives elsewhere. Then the native doctor, to explain to his patient or client the inefficacy of the charm, says that the cause of the spirit’s escape and flight is that the wearer has failed to observe all the directions which had been given, and the spirit was displeased. The dead amulet is, nevertheless, available for sale to the curio-hunting foreigner.
SPIRITUAL BEINGS IN AFRICA—THEIR CLASSES AND FUNCTIONS
Inequalitiesamong the spirits themselves, though they are so great, indicate no more than simple differentiations of character or work. Yet so radical are these varieties, and so distinct the names applied to them, that I am compelled to recognize a division into classes.
Classes and Functions.
1.Inina, or Ilina.A human embodied soul is spoken of and fully believed in by all the tribes. It is known in the Mpongwe tribes of the Gabun country as “inina” (plural, “anina”); in the adjacent Benga tribe, as “ilina” (plural, “malina”); in the great interior Fang tribes, as “nsisim.”
This animating soul, whether it be only one, or whether it appear in two, three, or even four forms, is practically the same, that talks, hears, and feels, that sometimes goes out of the body in a dream, and that exists as a spirit after the death of the body. That it has its own especial materiality seems to be indicated by the fact that in the Fang, Bakĕle, and other tribes the same word “nsisim” means not only soul but also shadow. The shadow of a tree or any other inanimate object and of the human body as cast by the sun is “nsisim.”
In my first explorations up the Ogowe River, in 1874, as in my village preaching I necessarily and constantly spoke of our soul, its sins, its capacity for suffering or happiness, and its relation to its divine Maker, I was often at a loss how tomake my thoughtless audience understand or appreciate that the nsisim of which I was speaking was not the nsisim cast by the sun as a darkish line on the ground near their bodies. Even to those who understood me, it was not an impossible thought that that dark narrow belt on the ground was in some way a part of, or a mode of manifestation of, that other thing, the nsisim, which they admitted was the source of the body’s animation. So far defined was that thought with some of them that they said it was a possible thing for a human being to have his nsisim stolen or otherwise lost, and still exist in a diseased and dying state; in which case his body would not cast a shadow. Von Chamisso’s story of Peter Schlemehl, “the man who lost his shadow,” in actuality!
So few are the special activities by which to distinguish anina from other classes of spirits, that I might doubt whether they should properly be considered as distinct, were it not true that the anina are all of them embodied spirits; none of them are of other origin. As disembodied spirits, retaining memory of their former human relationships, they have an interest in human affairs, and especially in the affairs of the family of which they were lately members.
2.Ibambo(Mpongwe; plural, “abambo”). There are vague beings, “abambo,” which may well be described by our word “ghosts.” Where they come from is not certainly known, or what locality they inhabit, except that they belong to the world of spirits. Why they become visible is also unknown. They are not called for, they are only occasionally worshipped; their epiphany is dreaded, not reverenced.
“The term ‘abambo’ is in the plural form, and may therefore be regarded as forming a class of spirits instead of a single individual. They are the spirits of dead men; but whether they are positively good or positively evil, to be loved or to be hated, or to be courted or avoided, are points which no native of the country can answer satisfactorily. Abambo are the spirits of the ancestors of the people of a tribe or race, as distinguished from the spirits of strangers. These are the spirits with which men arepossessed, and there is no end to the ceremonies used to deliver them from their power.”[25]
The ibambo may appear anywhere and at any time and to anybody, but it has no message. It rarely speaks. Its most common effect on human lives is to frighten. It flits; it does not remain in one spot, to speak or to be spoken to. Indistinctly seen, its appearances are reported as occurring mostly in dark places, in shadows, in twilight, and on dark nights. The most common apparitions are on lonely paths in the forest by night.
To all intents and purposes these abambo are what superstitious fears in our civilization call “ghosts.” The timid dweller in civilization can no more tell us what that ghost is than can the ignorant African. It is as difficult in the one case as in the other to argue against the unreal and unknown. What the frightened eye or ear believes it saw or heard, it persists in believing against all proof. Nor will ridicule make the belief less strong. However, the intelligent child in civilization, under the hand of a judicious parent or other friend, and relying on love as an expounder, can be led to understand by daylight, that the white bark of a tree trunk shimmering in uncertain moonlight, or a white garment flapping in the wind, or a white animal grazing in the meadow, was the ghost whose waving form had scared him the night before. His superstition is not so ingrained by daily exercise but that reason and love can divest him of it. But to the denizen of Fetich-land superstition is religion; the night terror which he is sure he saw is too real a thing in his life to be identified by day as only a harmless white-barked tree or quartz rock.
3. A third class of spirits is represented by the nameOmbwiri. The “ombwiri” (Mpongwe; plural, “awiri”) is certainly somewhat local, and in this respect might be regarded as akin to the ancient fauns and dryads, with a suggestion of a likeness to the spirits resident in the dense oak groves and the massive stones of the Druid Circle. But the awiri are more than dryads. They are not confined to their localrock, tree, bold promontory, or point of land, trespass on which by human beings they resent. The traveller must go by silently, or with some cabalistic invocation, with bowed or bared head, and with some offering,—anything, even a pebble. On the beach, as I bend to pass beneath an enormous tree fallen across the pathway, I observe the upper side of the log covered with votive offerings,—pebbles, shells, leaves, etc.,—laid there by travellers as they stooped to pass under. Such votive collections may be seen on many spots along the forest paths, deposited there by the natives as an invocation of a blessing on their journey.
“The derivation of the word ‘Ombwiri’ is not known. As it is used in the plural as well as in the singular form, it no doubt represents a class or family of spirits. He is regarded as a tutelar or guardian spirit. Almost every man has his own ombwiri, for which he provides a small house near his own. All the harm that he has escaped in this world, and all the good secured, are ascribed to the kindly offices of this guardian spirit. Ombwiri is also regarded as the author of everything in the world which is marvellous or mysterious. Any remarkable feature in the physical aspect of the country, any notable phenomenon in the heavens, or extraordinary events in the affairs of men are ascribed to Ombwiri. His favorite places of abode are the summits of high mountains, deep caverns, large rocks, and the base of very large forest trees. And while the people attach no malignity to his character, they carefully guard against all unnecessary familiarity in their intercourse with him, and never pass a place where he is supposed to dwell except in silence. He is the only one of all the spirits recognized by the people that has no priesthood; his intercourse with men being direct and immediate.”[26]
These spirits are sometimes spoken of with the nkinda and olâgâ (Mpongwe; plural, “ilâgâ”). They all come from the spirits of the dead. These several names indicate a difference as to kind or class of spirit, and a difference in thework or functions they are called upon to exercise. The ilâgâ are spirits of strangers, and have come from a distance.
While the ombwiri is indeed feared, it is with a respectful reverence, different from the dread of an ibambo. Ombwiri is fine and admirable in aspect, but is very rarely seen; it is white, like a white person. Souls of distinguished chiefs and other great men turn to awiri. The fear with which the native regards massive rocks and large trees—the ombwiri homes—need not be felt by white people, who are themselves considered awiri, without its being clearly understood whether their bodies are inhabited by the departed spirits of the Negro dead, or whether some came from other sources.
The awiri are generally favorably disposed, especially to their former human relatives; but it is necessary to gratify them with religious services constituting an ancestral worship. While some of them reside in great rocks or trees, others dwell in rivers, lakes, and seas.
Awiri, if they love a person and desire to favor him or her, have the special power to grant a gift desired by most Africans,viz., the birth of children. The awiri live mostly in the region of their own former human tribe. It is possible, however, for them to go everywhere; but they usually remain within their old tribal limits. If, however, a tribe should remove or become extinct, their awiri would still remain in that region, and would affiliate with the new people who might come to occupy the deserted village sites.
Awiri have a period of inactivity, the cold dry season of four months (in western Equatorial Africa), May to September. At that time they become very small, inactive, and almost lifeless (a condition of hibernation, somewhat like that of bears; or of inertia, as when a snake casts its skin?).
4. There is another class of spirits calledSinkinda(singular, “nkinda”), some of whom are the spirits of people who in the ordinary stations of life were “common,” or not distinguished for greatness or goodness. Others of these sinkinda are of uncertain origin, perhaps demons whom Njambi had created, but to whom He had never given bodily existence.
Almost all sinkinda are evilly disposed. They come to the villages on visits to warm themselves by the kitchen fires or out of curiosity to see what is going on, and sometimes, temporarily, to enter into the bodies of the living, especially of their own family. The entrance of a nkinda into a human body always sickens the person. It may enter any one, even a child. If many of them enter a man’s body, he becomes crazy.
Sometimes the nkinda, when asked who he is, says: “I am a spirit of a member of your own family, and I have come to live with you. I am tired of living in the forest with cold and hunger. I wish to stay with you.”
Often when people are sick with fever or cold, the diagnosis is made that some nkinda has come on a visit. If it is of the same family as those whom it is visiting, it comes and goes from time to time, to please itself; but it is never, like an uvengwa, visible.
Sometimes these sinkinda are called “ivâvi” (sing. “ovâvi,” messenger). They come from far and bring news,e. g., “An epidemic of disease is coming,” or “A ship is coming with wealth.” Sometimes the news thus brought proves true. (Is this our modern spiritualism?) In such cases the coming of the nkinda is regarded as a blessing, in that it warns the living of evil or brings them wealth. The information is always carried by the mouth of some living member of the family. If these sinkinda are asked by a non-possessed member of the family, “Where do you live?” the reply is, “Nowhere in particular. But at evenings we gather about your town, to see you and join in your dances and songs. We see you, though you do not see us.”
5.Mondi.There are beings, “myondi” (Benga; singular, “mondi”), who are agents in causing sickness or in either aiding or hindering human plans. These spirits are much the same as those of the fourth class, except that in power they seem to be more independent than other spirits. But they are not always simply passive in the hands of the doctor; they are often active on their own account, or at their ownpleasure, generally to injure. They are worshipped almost always in a deprecatory way. They often take violent possession of human bodies; and for their expulsion it is that ilâgâ, sinkinda, and awiri are invoked. They are invoked especially at the new moons, but also at other times, particularly in sickness. The native oganga decides whether or no they be myondi that are afflicting the patient. When the diagnosis has been made, and myondi declared to be present in the patient’s body, the indication is that they are to be exorcised.
A slight doubt must be admitted in regard to these myondi, whether they really do constitute a distinct class, or whether any spirit of any class may not become a myondi. The name in that case would be given them, not as a class, but as producers of certain effects, at certain times and under certain circumstances.
The powers and functions of the several classes of spirits do not seem to be distinctly defined. Certainly they do not confine themselves either to their recognized locality or to the usually understood function pertaining to their class. These powers and functions shade into each other, or may be assumed by members of almost any class. But it is clearly believed that spirits, even of the same class, differ in power. Some are strong, others are weak. They are limited as to the nature of their powers; no spirit can do all things. A spirit’s efficiency runs only on a certain line or lines. All of them can be influenced and made subservient to human wishes by a variety of incantations.
There are other names which, while they belong to spirits, apparently indicate only peculiarities in spiritual manifestations, and not representatives of a class.
1. There may enter into any animal’s body (generally a leopard’s) some spirit, or, temporarily, even the soul of a living human being. The animal then, guided by human intelligence and will, exercises its strength for the purposes of the temporary human possessor. Many murders are said to be committed in this way, after the manner of the mythical German wehr-wolf or the French loup-garou.
This belief in demoniacal possession of a lower animal must not be confounded with the equally believed transmigration of souls. The former is widespread over at least a third of the African continent. In Mashona-land “they believe that at times both living and dead persons can change themselves into animals, either to execute some vengeance, or to procure something they wish for; thus, a man will change himself into a hyena or a lion to steal a sheep and make a good meal off it; into a serpent to avenge himself on some enemy. At other times, if they see a serpent, it is one of the Matotela tribe or slave tribe, which has thus transformed himself to take some vengeance on the Barotse.”[27]
2. Another manifestation is that of the uvengwa. It is claimed to be not simply spiritual, but tangible. It is the self-resurrected spirit and body of a dead human being. It is an object of dread, and is never worshipped in any manner whatever. Why it appears is not known. Perhaps it shows itself only in a restless, unquiet, or dissatisfied feeling. It is white in color, but the body is variously changed from the likeness of the original human body. Some say that it has only one eye, placed in the centre of the forehead. Some say that its feet are webbed like an aquatic bird. It does not speak; it only wanders, looking as if with curiosity.
My little cottage at Batanga is a mile and a half from the three chief dwellings of the station. One afternoon in 1902 I went to the station, leaving my cook and his wife in charge of the cottage. When I returned late at night, he asserted that an uvengwa had come there. A few yards in front of the door of the house is a mango tree with its very dense dark foliage. The trunk is divided a few feet from the ground. The light from the open door streamed into a part of the front yard, leaving the tree trunk in dark shadow. The woman going out of the door had started back, screaming to her husband that she saw an uvengwa standing in the crotch of the tree and peering around one of the branches. The husband went to the door. He asserted to me that healso had seen the form. In their terror, neither of them made any investigation. Possibly a chalk-whitened thief had taken advantage of my absence to prowl about. But the two witnesses rejected such a suggestion; they were sure it was a visitor from some grave.
3. Other spiritual manifestations are spoken of as the personal guardian-spirit and the family guardian-spirit. These do not constitute a separate class, but are the special modes of operation adopted by the ancestral spirit or spirits in the protection of their family. Its description belongs properly to a later chapter under the name of the Family Yâkâ fetich.
The manner of invocation of all these five classes of spirits, in the case of obscure diseases, is very much the same now as what Dr. Wilson described fifty years ago. What he saw on the Gabun River tallies with what I also saw thirty years ago at Benita, and subsequently in the Ogowe. Even at Gabun, in the present day, though the Mpongwe have been enlightened, the same ceremonies are kept up by other tribes, the Shekani and Fang, who have emerged on the coast at Libreville.
“Sick persons, and especially those that are afflicted with nervous disorders, are supposed to be possessed by one or the other of these spirits. If the disease assumes a serious form, the patient is taken to a priest or a priestess, of either of these classes of spirits. Certain tests are applied, and it is soon ascertained to which class the disease belongs, and the patient is accordingly turned over to the proper priest. The ceremonies in the different cases are not materially different; they are alike, at least, in the employment of an almost endless round of absurd, unmeaning, and disgusting ceremonies which none but a heathenish and ignorant priesthood could invent, and none but a poor, ignorant, and superstitious people could ever tolerate.
“In either case a temporary shanty is erected in the middle of the street for the occupancy of the patient, the priest, and such persons as are to take part in the ceremony of exorcism. The time employed in performing the ceremonies is seldomless than ten or fifteen days. During this period dancing, drumming, feasting, and drinking are kept up without intermission day and night, and all at the expense of the nearest relative of the invalid. The patient, if a female, is decked out in the most fantastic costume; her face, bosom, arms, and legs are streaked with red and white chalk, her head adorned with red feathers, and much of the time she promenades the open space in front of the shanty with a sword in her hand, which she brandishes in a very menacing way against the bystanders. At the same time she assumes as much of the maniac in her looks, actions, gestures, and walk as possible. In many cases this is all mere affectation, and no one is deceived by it. But there are other cases where motions seem involuntary and entirely beyond the control of the person; and when you watch the wild and unnatural stare, the convulsive movements of the limbs and body, the unnatural posture into which the whole frame is occasionally thrown, the gnashing of the teeth, and foaming at the mouth, and supernatural strength that is put forth when any attempt is made at constraint, you are strongly reminded of cases of real possession recorded in the New Testament.
“There is no reason to suppose that any real cures are effected by these prolonged ceremonies. In certain nervous affections the excitement is kept up until utter exhaustion takes place; and if the patient is kept quiet afterwards (which is generally the case), she may be restored to better health after a while; and, no matter how long it may be before she recovers from this severe tax upon her nerves, the priest claims the credit of it. In other cases the patient may not have been diseased at all, and, of course, there was nothing to be recovered from.
“If it should be a case of undissembled sickness, and the patient become worse by this unnatural treatment, she is removed, and the ceremonies are suspended, and it is concluded that it was not a real possession, but something else. The priests have certain tests by which it is known when the patient is healed, and the whole transaction is wound upwhen the fees are paid. In all cases of this kind it is impossible to say whether the devil has really been cast out or merely a better understanding arrived at between him and the person he has been tormenting. The individual is required to build a little house or temple for the spirit near his own, to take occasional offerings to him, and pay all due respect to his character, or to be subject to renewed assaults at any time. Certain restrictions are imposed upon the person who has recovered from these satanic influences. He must refrain from certain kinds of food, avoid certain places of common resort, and perform certain duties; and, for the neglect of any of these, is sure to be severely scourged by a return of his malady. Like the Jews, in speaking of the actions of these demoniacs, they are said to be done by the spirit, and not by the person who is possessed. If the person performs any unnatural or revolting act,—as the biting off of the head of a live chicken and sucking its blood,—it is said that the spirit, not the man, has done it.
“But the views of the great mass of the people on these subjects are exceedingly vague and indefinite. They attend these ceremonies on account of the parade and excitement that usually accompany them, but they have no knowledge of their origin, their true nature, or of their results. Many submit to the ceremonies because they are persuaded to do so by their friends, and, no doubt, in many cases in the hope of being freed from some troublesome malady. But as to the meaning of the ceremonies themselves, or the real influence which they exert upon their bodily diseases, they probably have many doubts, and when called upon to give explanation of the process which they have passed through, they show that they have none but the most confused ideas.”[28]
FETICHISM—ITS PHILOSOPHY—A PHYSICAL SALVATION—CHARMS AND AMULETS
Evenduring the while that man was still a monotheist, as seen in a previous chapter, he had eventually come to the use of idols which he did not actually worship, by the making of images simply torepresentGod; he had not yet become anidolater.
Subsequently, in his farther lapse away from God, when he began to render worship to beings other than God, fashioned images to represent them also, and actually worshipped them, he became a polytheist and an idolater.
When he had wandered still farther, and God was no longer worshipped, the knowledge of Him being reduced to a name, a multitude of spiritual beings were substituted in place of God, and religion was only animism.
Farther on, when it seemed desirable to provide local residence for these spirits, as had been done for God Himself in temples and costly images, the material objects used for that residence were no longer matter of value and choice; anything and any place was sufficient for a spirit’s habitat. Neither dignity, beauty, nor strength was any longer a factor in the selection. For these objects did not represent the deities in any way whatever. They were simply local residences. As such, a spirit could live anywhere and in anything. This is bald fetichism. The thing itself, the material itself, is not worshipped. The fetich worshipper makes a clear distinction between the reverence with which he regards a certain material object and the worship he renders to the spirit for the time being inhabiting it. For thisreason nothing is too mean or too small or too ridiculous to be considered fit for a spirit’slocum tenens; for when for any reason the spirit is supposed to have gone out of that thing and definitely abandoned it, the thing itself is no longer reverenced, and is thrown away as useless.
The selection of the article in which the spirit is to reside is made by the native “uganga” (doctor), who to the Negro stands in the office of a priest. The ground of selection is generally that of mere convenience. The ability to conjure a free wandering spirit into the narrow limits of a small material object, and to compel and subordinate its power to the aid of some designated person or persons and for a specific purpose, rests with that uganga.
Over the wide range of many articles used in which to confine spirits, common and favorite things are the skins and especially the tails of bush-cats, horns of antelopes, nut-shells, snail-shells, bones of any animal, but especially human bones; and among the bones are specially regarded portions of skulls of human beings and teeth and claws of leopards. But, literally, anything may be chosen,—any stick, any stone, any rag of cloth. Apparently, there being no limit to the number of spirits, there is literally no limit to the number and character of the articles in which they may be localized.
It is not true, as is asserted by some in regard to these African tribes and their degraded form of religion, that they worship the actual material objects in which the spirits are supposed to be confined. Low as is fetichism, it nevertheless has its philosophy, a philosophy that is the same in kind as that of the higher forms of religion. A similar sense of need that sends the Christian to his knees before God to ask aid in time of trouble, and salvation temporal and spiritual, sends the fetich worshipper to offer his sacrifice and to ejaculate his prayer for help as he lays hold of his consecrated antelope horn, or as he looks on it with abiding trust while it is safely tied to his body. His human necessity drives him to seek assistance.
The difference between his act and the act of the Christianlies in the kind of salvation he seeks, the being to whom he appeals, and the reason for his appealing. The reason for his appeal is simply fear; there is no confession, no love, rarely thanksgiving.
The being to whom he appeals is not God. True, he does not deny that He is; if asked, he will acknowledge His existence. But that is all. Very rarely and only in extreme emergencies, does he make an appeal to Him; for he thinks God so far off, so inaccessible, so indifferent to human woes and wants, that a petition to Him would be almost in vain. He therefore turns to some one of the mass of spirits which he believes to be ever near and observant of human affairs, in which, as former human beings, some of them once had part.
As to the character of the salvation sought, it is not spiritual; it is a purely physical salvation. A sense of moral and spiritual need is lost sight of, although not eliminated. This is an index of the distance the Negro has travelled away from Jehovah before he finally reached the position of placing his trust in a fetich. By just so much as he seems to himself living in a world crowded with unseen but powerful spiritual beings (with whom what a Christian calls “sin” has no reprehensible moral quality), by just so much he seems to have lost sight of his own soul and its moral necessities.
The future is so vague that in the thought of most tribes it contains neither heaven nor hell; there is no certain reward or rest for goodness, nor positive punishment for badness. The future life is to each native largely a reproduction, on shadowy and intangible lines, of the works and interests and passions of this earthly life. In his present life, with its savagery and oppression and dominance of selfish greed and right of might, goodness has no reward. It is badness which in his personal experience makes the largest gains. From this point of view, while some acts are indeed called “good” and some “bad” (conscience proving its simple existence by the use of these words in the record of language), yet conscience is not much troubled by its possessor’s badness. There is littlesense of the sinfulness of sin. There is only fear of possible human injury by human or subsidized spiritual enemies. This is all the salvation that is sought.
It is sought by prayer; by sacrifice, and by certain other ceremonies rendered to the spirit of the fetich or to other non-localized spirits; and by the use of charms or amulets.
These charms may be vocal, ritual, or material.
(1) The vocal are the utterance of cabalistic words deprecatory of evil or supplicatory of favor, which are supposed in a vague way to have power over the local spirits. These words or phrases, though sometimes coined by a person for himself or herself (and therefore like our slang having a known meaning), are often archaisms, handed down from ancestors and believed to possess efficiency, but whose meaning is forgotten. In this list would be included long incantations by the magic doctors and the Ibâtâ-blown blessing.
(2) Certain rites or ceremonies are performed for almost every child at some time during his or her infancy or youth, or subsequently as occasion may demand, in which a prohibition is laid upon the child in regard to the eating of some particular article of food or the doing of some special act. It is difficult to get at the exact object for this “orunda.” Certainly the prohibited food or act is not in itself evil; for all but the inhibited individual may eat of the food or commit the act as they please. Most natives blindly follow the “custom” of their ancestors, and are unable to give me theraison d’êtreof the rite itself. But I gather from the testimony of those best able to give a reason that the prohibited article or act is literally a sacrifice, ordained for the child by its parents and the magic doctor, as a gift to the governing spirit of its life. The thing prohibited thus becomes removed from the child’s common use and is made sacred to the spirit. It is therefore a sacrament. Any use of it by the child will thenceforth be a sacrilege which would draw down the spirit’s wrath in the form of sickness or other evil, and which can be atoned for only through expensive ceremonies and by gifts to the magician interceding for the offender.
Anything may be selected for an orunda. I do not know the ground for a selection. Why one child, perhaps a babe too young to have eaten of the to-be-prohibited thing, should be debarred forever from eating a chicken, or the liver or any other particular part, or any portion at all, of a goat or an ox or any other animal, I do not know. But that orunda is thenceforth faithfully complied with, even under pangs of hunger. It is like a Nazarite’s vow.
I have a strong suspicion that where the orunda laid on a woman is a matter of meat, superstition has played into the hands of masculine selfishness, and denies to women the choice meat in order that men may have the greater share. My suspicion rests on almost positive evidence in the case of some prohibitions to the women of the Bulu and other Fang tribes of the interior.
On a boat journey in the Ogowe River, about 1878, I camped on the edge of a forest for the noon meal. My crew of four, members of the Galwa and Nkâmi tribes, had no meat. They needed it, for they had rowed hard and well. For myself, I had only a small chicken. I was satisfied with a portion of it, and gave the rest to the crew. It would make at least a tasty morsel for each, with their manioc bread. Three of them thanked me; the fourth did not touch his share. I felt slightly vexed, thinking my favor was not appreciated, and I asked the cause of his apparent sullenness. He said he did not dare to eat of the fowl, as it was orunda to him.
On another journey, in 1876, a young man whom I had picked up as extra hand in my boat’s crew, when at the noon mealtime we stopped under the shade of a spreading tree by the river’s bank, instead of respectfully leaving me alone with my lunch in the boat, and going ashore where the others were eating, wanted to remain in the boat, his orunda being that when on a journey by water his food should be eaten only over water.
Two Ogowe chiefs, near whose villages was anchored the small river steamer “Pioneer,” on which I was passenger,in 1875, came aboard, and in drinking a glass of liquor with the captain, one of them held up a piece of white cloth before his mouth, in order that strangers’ eyes might not see him swallow. That was his orunda, probably. Perhaps also the hiding of his drinking may have had reference to the common fear of another’s “evil eye.”
The other, having taken a mouthful, wet his finger in his mouth, drew the wet finger across his throat, and then blew on a fetich which he wore as a ring on a finger of the other hand. I do not know the significance of his motion across his throat. The blowing was the Ibâtâ-blessing,—an ejaculatory prayer for a blessing on his plans, probably of trade.
This word “orunda,” meaning thus originallyprohibited fromhuman use (like the South Sea “taboo”), grew, under missionary hands, into its related meaning ofsacredto spiritual use. It is the word by which the Mpongwe Scriptures translate our word “holy.” I think it an unfortunate choice; for the missionary has to stop and explain that orunda, as used for God, does not mean the orunda used by mankind. In the translation of the Benga Scriptures the word “holy” was transferred bodily, and we explain that it means something better than good. To such straits are translators sometimes reduced in the use of heathen languages!
(3) The charms that are most common are material, the fetich,—so common, indeed, that by the universality of their use, and the prominence given to them everywhere, in houses and on the person, they almost monopolize the religious thought of the Bantu Negro, subordinating other acknowledged points of his theology, dominating his almost entire religious interest, and giving the departmental word “fetich” such overwhelming regard that it has furnished the name distinctive of the native African religious system,viz., fetichism. “Fetich” is an English word of Portuguese origin. “It is derived from feitico, ‘made,’ ‘artificial’ (compare the old English fetys, used by Chaucer); and this term, used of the charms and amulets worn in the Roman Catholic religion of the period, was applied, by the Portuguese sailors of theeighteenth century, to the deities they saw worshipped by the Negroes of the West Coast of Africa.
“De Brosses, a French savant of the last century, brought the word ‘fetichism’ into use as a term for the type of religion of the lowest races. The word has given rise to some confusion, having been applied, by Comte and other writers, to the worship of the heavenly bodies and of the great features of Nature. It is best to limit it to the worship of such natural objects as are reverenced, not for their own power or excellence, but because they are supposed to be occupied each by a spirit.”[29]
The native word on the Liberian coast is “gree-gree”; in the Niger Delta, “ju-ju”; in the Gabun country, “monda”; among the cannibal Fang, “biañ”; and in other tribes the same respective dialectic by which we translate “medicine.” To a sick native’s thought the adjuvant medicinal herb used by the doctor, and its associated efficiency-giving spirit invoked by that same doctor, are inseparable. In the heathen Negro’s soul the fetich takes the place, and has the regard, which an idol has with the Hindu and the Chinese.
“A fetich, strictly speaking, is little else than a charm or amulet, worn about the person, and set up at some convenient place, for the purpose of guarding against some apprehended evil or securing some coveted good.” In the Anglo-African parlance of the Coast fetiches are called by various names, but all signify the same thing. Fetiches may be made of anything of vegetable, animal, or metallic nature, “and need only to pass through the consecrating hands of a native priest to receive all the supernatural powers which they are supposed to possess. It is not always certain that they possess extraordinary powers. They must be tried and give proof of their efficiency before they can be implicitly trusted.”[30]
A fetich, then, is any material object consecrated by the “oganga,” or magic doctor, with a variety of ceremonies andprocesses, by virtue of which some spirit becomes localized in that object, and subject to the will of the possessor.
Anything that can be conveniently carried on the person may thus be consecrated,—a stone, chip, rag, string, or bead. Articles most frequently used are snail-shells, nut-shells, and small horns of gazelles or goats. These are used probably because of their convenient cavities; for they are to be filled by the oganga with a variety of substances depending, in their selection, on the special work to be accomplished by the fetich. Its value, however, depends not on itself, nor solely on the character of these substances, but on the skill of the oganga in dealing with spirits.
There is a relation between these selected substances and the object to be obtained by the fetich which is to be prepared of them,—for example, to give the possessor bravery or strength, some part of a leopard or an elephant; to give cunning, some part of a gazelle; to give wisdom, some part of a human brain; to give courage, some part of a heart; to give influence, some part of an eye; and so on for a multitude of qualities. These substances are supposed to lure some spirit (being in some way pleasing to it), which thenceforward is satisfied to reside in them and to aid the possessor in the accomplishment of some one specific wish.
In preparing a fetich the oganga selects substances such as he deems appropriate to the end in view,—the ashes of certain medicinal plants, pieces of calcined bones, gums, spices, resins, and even filth, portions of organs of the bodies of animals, and especially of human beings (preferably eyes, brain, heart, and gall-bladder), particularly of ancestors, or men strong or renowned in any way, and very especially of enemies and of white men. Human eyeballs (particularly of a white person) are a great prize. New-made graves have been rifled for them.
These are compounded in secret, with the accompaniment of drums, dancing, invocations, looking into mirrors or limpid water to see faces (human or spiritual, as may be desired), andare stuffed into the hollow of the shell or bone, or smeared over the stick or stone.
If it be desired to obtain power over some one else, the oganga must be given by the applicant, to be mixed in the sacred compound, either crumbs from the food, or clippings of finger nails or hair, or (most powerful!) even a drop of blood of the person over whom influence is sought. These represent the life or body of that person. So fearful are natives of power being thus obtained over them, that they have their hair cut only by a friend; and even then they carefully burn it or cast it into a river. If one accidentally cuts himself, he stamps out what blood has dropped on the ground, or cuts out from wood the part saturated with blood.
Sitting one day by a village boat-landing in the Benita region, about 1866, while my crew prepared for our journey, I was idly plucking at my beard, and carelessly flung away a few hairs. Presently I observed that some children gathered them up. Asking my Christian assistant what that meant, he told me: “They will have a fetich made with those hairs; when next you visit this village, they will ask you for some favor, and you will grant it, by the power they will thus have obtained over you.”
The water with which a lover’s body (male or female) is washed, is used in making a philter to be mingled secretly in the drink of the loved one.
While, as I have already stated, it is true that anything portable may be used either as the receptacle in which the spirit is to be located or as the substance or “medicine” to be inserted in it, I wish to insist that in the philosophy of fetich there is always a reason in the selection of all these articles,—a reason which it is often difficult for a foreigner to discover,—an apparent fitness for the end in view.
Arnot[31]refers to this: “Africans believe largely in preventive measures, and their fetich charms are chiefly of that order. In passing through a country where leopards and lions abound,they carefully provide themselves with the claws, teeth, lips, and whiskers of those animals, and hang them around their necks, to secure themselves against being attacked. For the same purpose the point of an elephant trunk is generally worn by elephant hunters. The bones from the legs of tortoises are much valued as anklets, in order to give the wearers endurance, reminding one of the fable of the tortoise. The lower jaw-bone of the tortoise is worn by certain tribes as a preventive against toothache. The spine bones of serpents are strung together with a girdle as a cure for back-ache.”
A recent visitor to the Gabun country, in the “Journal of the African Society,” makes this criticism: “When a white man or woman wears some trinket strung about them, they call it an amulet or charm. They ascribe to it some virtue, and regard it as a sacred (?) thing; but when an African native wears one, white men call it ‘fetich,’ and the wearer a savage or heathen.” This defence of the Negro is gratifying, but the criticism of the white man is not quite just. There is this radical difference: to the African the “fetich” is his all, his entire hope for his physical salvation; he does not reckon on God at all. The civilized man or woman with a “mascot” is very foolish in his or her belief in luck, but their mascots never entirely take God’s place.