A similar substitution was made in the case of a superstition of the Kongo country which exists universally among all African tribes to-day, _viz._, "to bind a cord of some kind around the body of every new-born infant, to which were fastened the bones and teeth of certain kinds of wild animals." In place of this, the Roman Catholic records enjoin "that all mothers should make the cords with which they bound their infants, of palm-leaves that had been consecrated on Palm Sunday, and, moreover, guard them well with other such relics as we are accustomed to use at the time of baptism." Thus the heathen, in becoming a baptized "Christian," left behind him only the name of his fetich ceremonies. Some new and professedly more powerful ones were given him, which were called by Christian names, but which very much resembled what he had been using all his life. His "conversion" caused no jar to his old beliefs, nor change in its practice, except that the new fetich was worshipped in a cathedral and before a bedizened altar. BAPTISM. Forty years ago, on Corisco Island, I found the remains of a custom which resembled baptism.[73] Before that time it was very prevalent in other parts of the Gabun country, whose people probably had derived it, like their circumcision, from East Africa and from Jewish traditions. As described at that time, "a public crier announces the birth, and claims for the child a name and place among the living. Some one else, in a distant part of the village, acknowledges the fact, and promises, on the part of the people, that the new-born babe shall be received into the community, and have all the rights and immunities pertaining to the rest of the people. The population then assemble in the street, and the new-born babe is brought out and exposed to public view. A basin of water is provided, and the headman of the village or family sprinkles water upon it, giving it a name, and invoking a blessing upon it, such as, that it may have health, grow up to manhood or womanhood, have a numerous progeny, possess much riches, etc."[74] The circumcision of the child is performed some years later. SPITTING. The same Benga word, "tuwaka," to spit, is one of the two words which mean also "to bless." In pronouncing a blessing there is a violent expulsion of breath, the hand or head of the one blessed being held so near the face of the one blessing that sometimes in the act spittle is actually expelled upon him.