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
The other king felt he was conquered by some unseen power, and did not
resist. He agreed to give up the murderer and pay a fine. The next day he
had the murderer caught and brought before a council. He told them that
the old king of the other tribe wanted the life of that man and a sum of
money for the lives of his two chiefs.
They began to collect on the spot goods and food of all kinds, and many
things of little value, with which to make simply the appearance of a full
canoe. They tied the prisoner, put him in the canoe, and went with him and
the goods to the old king. He received them.
But at night he went again to the other king, and began to rebuke him,
saying that what he had sent was not sufficient. The other made a protest:
"I have given you enough,--the lives of the two women, the one man, and
goods equivalent to two more lives. I have thus given you five for your
two."
But the old king, in tribal pride, reckoned the sex and social position of
his two men greater than any five of an inferior tribe, and said, "How
dare you speak to me like that? You shall surely die!" He struck him with
his okove, and went away.
The next day the other king was not able to leave his bed and sent for
many of his people to come, saying that he had a special word to speak to
them. They came, and he told them all about the death of the two women,
and all that had occurred between him and the old king. "And now," he
said, "I am dying. We are overcome. It is useless to resist. I want you to
remember, as long as the world stands, never to fight or quarrel with the
tribe of that king."
Then he turned his face to the wall and died.
X. THE FAMILY IDOLS.
(To a village on the St. Thomè or left bank of Gabun Bay, or "River," away
up a winding mangrove stream, and on the edge of the forest that was
broken by pieces of prairie, I went, in February, 1903, to visit a friend,
a sick Christian woman, who was in the care of a relative of hers named
Adova.
There were only five huts in the village. At the first one from the edge
of the prairie, which was assigned to me in which to sleep, on a bench
outside under the low eaves, was a roughly carved wooden idol, about
fourteen inches in height. From the dressing of the hair of its head, I
supposed it to be intended for a female. Its loins were covered with a
narrow strip of cloth. Near it was what could scarcely be recognized as a
dog, its head looking more like a pig's, and its tail more like an
alligator's. The figures were chalked and painted; and near them were a
few gourd utensils for eating and drinking, and some medicinal barks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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