Fetichism in West Africa : $b forty years' observation of native customs and superstitionsNassau, Robert Hamill
Philosophy
Fetichism in West Africa : $b forty years' observation of native customs and superstitions
Nassau, Robert Hamill
Ethnology -- Africa, West; Fetishism -- Africa, West
In the case of a man who seeks to become wealthy in trade and goes to a
magic doctor for that purpose, the doctor tells him of the different kinds
of medicine, and some of the most important things required for each. The
seeker may choose what he is able and willing to do. For Okundu medicine
it is required that the seeker shall name some one or more of his
relatives who he is willing should die, and that their spirits be sent to
influence white traders or other persons of wealth, and make them
favorably disposed toward the seeker, so that they may employ him in
positions of honor and profit. If the seeker hesitate to do the actual
murder, the doctor, by his black art, is to kill the person nominated and
send him on his errand. If the fear should occur to the seeker that
perhaps the murdered relative, instead of devoting himself in the
spirit-world to the trade interests of his murderer, should attempt to
avenge himself, the subject is dismissed by the doctor's assurance that
either the spirit shall not know that the death of its body was premature,
or that he will overrule it for the desired purpose.
I know, personally, a Mpongwe man still living in Gabun who is believed to
have done this Okundu. He is of prominent family, and had held lucrative
service with white traders. His fortunes began to wane; he fell into debt,
and white men began to doubt him and hesitated to entrust him. Though
wearing the dress of a civilized gentleman, he is a heathen at heart. He
had a little slave boy. The child suddenly and mysteriously disappeared.
Those who asked questions received evasive and contradictory answers. A
very reliable native told me that it was known that this man had been
communicating with an Okundu doctor, and many believed that the child had
been put to death. But no one dared to say anything openly, and there was
not sufficient proof on which to lay an information before the French
governor, only a mile distant.
Another Mpongwe trade medicine is Mbumbu (which means "rainbow"). Old
tradition said that the rainbow was caused by a forest vine which a great
snake had changed to the form of the sun-colored arc. The seeker of wealth
is aided by the doctor to obtain a piece of this rainbow, which he keeps
in secret, and can carry hidden with him. By it he is able at any time to
kill any one of his relatives whom he may choose (of course unknown to
them) and send their spirits off to induce foreign traders to give him a
store of goods (the children's pot of gold at the rainbow's end?).
_For Sickness._ Among the Mpongwe and adjacent tribes there are three
kinds of spirits invoked, according to the character of the disease. These
are Nkinda, Ombwiri, and Olâgâ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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