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
Declè also[37] describes the religious habits of the Barotse tribes of
Southern Central Africa: "They chiefly worship the souls of their
ancestors. When any misfortune happens, the witch doctor divines with
knuckle-bones whether the ancestor is displeased, and they go to the grave
and offer up sacrifice of grain or honey.... They also bring to the tombs
cooked meats, which they leave there a few minutes and then eat. When they
go to pray by a grave, they also leave some small white beads. Whilst an
Englishman was journeying to Lialui, he passed near a little wood where
there lay a very venerated chief. The boatmen stopped, and having
sacrificed some cooked millet, their headman designated a man to offer up
a prayer, which ran thus: 'You see us; we are worn out travellers, and our
belly is empty; inspire the white man, for whom we row, to give us food to
fill our stomachs.'"
Among the Wanyamwezi, "Every chief has near his hut a Musimo hut, in which
the dead are supposed to dwell, and where sacrifices and offerings must be
made. Meat and flour are deposited in the Musimo huts, and are not, as
with many other peoples, consumed afterwards. The common people also have
their Musimo huts, but they are smaller than that of the chief, and the
offerings they make are, of course, not so important as his."
The Wanyamwezi being great travellers, they have numberless ways of
propitiating the Musimo. "The night before starting they put big patches
of moistened flour on their faces and breasts. On the way, if by chance
they are threatened with war or any other difficulty, some of them go on
ahead in the early morning for about a hundred yards along the path over
which they are about to travel. Then they place a hand on the ground, and
throw flour over it in such a manner as to leave the impression of a hand
on the soil. At the same time they 'wish' hard that the journey may go off
well. On the march, from time to time each of them will deposit in the
same spot a twig of wood or a stone in such a way that a great heap gets
collected. If they halt in the midst of high grass each will plait a
handful of grass, which they tie together so as to make a kind of
bower.[38] In the forest, if they are pressed for time, each will make a
cut with a blow of a hatchet in a tree; but if they have time, they will
cut down trees, lop off the branches, and place these poles against a big
tree; in certain places I have seen stacks of hundreds of them around a
single tree. Sometimes they will strip pieces of bark from the trees, and
stick them on the branches, and at others they will place a pole supported
by two trees right over the path. On it they will hang up a broken gourd,
or an old box made of bark. On some occasions they will even erect a
little hut made of straw to the Musimo on the road itself; but this is
usually done when they are going on a hunting expedition, and not on a
journey. Near the villages, where two roads meet, are usually found whole
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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