Their persons they adorn with anklets and bracelets of brass. But in places where there are plenty of elephants one finds the girls wearing great ivory bracelets made from the tusks. All kinds of grass bracelets are plaited and worn by young girls who can’t afford to have better ones, and I have sometimes seen a necklace made by stringing parts of locust’s legs and beads together. Of the beads there is an infinite variety bought from the trader. These are strung together in many ways and made into bracelets and necklaces and various other things which only the patience of African children could produce. CHAPTER XII THE AFRICAN’S BELIEF In this chapter we shall tell about something altogether different from what you have been reading. We shall go into the spirit land of the African children, and we shall try to find out something of what they believe about God. In the great black part of Africa there are no temples and wonderful gods to write about. There are no old books to be found containing the wisdom of their forefathers written down and preserved through long ages. In fact there is not very much in native African belief that can be made very interesting to white boys and girls. But I shall try to do my best, to let you understand something about it. Some people at home think that the heathen tribes of Africa know nothing at all about God. But it is not so. They do know something, be it only a very very little. In some tribes it is so very little as to be almost nothing, and shows us how far they have fallen away from a knowledge of their Creator. Let me tell you what some of the tribes here believe about God. God, our loving heavenly Father, is to them but a far-away spirit whom they call the old, old one, or the great, great one. He made the world and everything in it and sends rain and sunshine, and is all-powerful. But He is very far away from us and takes little interest in the people of the earth. When people die, their spirits, they say, go to the land of this old, old one. Spirit villages are there, I have heard it said, inhabited by the spirit folk. As a man was on earth so is he in the land of the spirits. So a chief on earth remains a chief in spirit land. Now, the spirits of the chiefs are supposed to be on very intimate terms with the old, old one, and are allowed to do almost whatever they like with the affairs of the people on earth. So it is the spirit of the dead chief that receives the sacrifices and prayers of the people. The old, old one is felt to be so far away and so indifferent that he is passed over, in some tribes forgotten altogether, and the spirit of the chief receives the homage due to the great, great one, because the people feel that he, the chief, has a personal interest in them.