Great and awful as gods may be, they are after all but {192} human. The most mysterious of them are conceived in quasi-human terms. On the other hand, human beings are often looked upon as gods and treated accordingly. But then their treatment is simply that of powerful men, men possessed of and filled with a greater or less degree of _mana_, who therefore require to be handled gingerly, like an unexploded bomb. Such a man-god, if a native ruler or fellow-tribesman, can seldom be driven away; but he may, especially if his _mana_ be suspected of departing from him, be attacked and slain. To expound this practice and the belief on which it is founded, or with which it is bound up, Dr Frazer’s great work, _The Golden Bough_, has been written. The white man, like the gods, is to peoples in the lower culture mysterious, powerful, endowed with _mana_. To that extent he is the object of wonder and fear, he is a god. Yet he may be fought and overpowered, killed or driven away. Of the Bangala in the Upper Congo basin we are told that before the unknown and mysterious the native “is timid, fearful, and very superstitious. He will regard you as a _god_, and yet try to fight you; he will superstitiously believe that you have wonderful occult powers that can stop the rain, cause pestilence and plagues; and yet he will not attempt to conciliate you, but he will savagely tell you to clear out of his town and take your witchcraft elsewhere.”[192.1] So and not otherwise the savage treats his gods. Where milder means avail not, and he can get his way by rough treatment of the idols or other tangible forms in which they are presented, he does not hesitate to use physical force. As little will he hesitate to use guile to eke out his inferior strength. It is but another manifestation of his _orenda_. Hence the tales of audacious heroes {193} who have measured their strength or their cunning against more tremendous personages. Hence the threats and insults addressed to powers beyond immediate reach by peoples all over the world. Hence the punishment inflicted on the images of gods and saints. Hence the boldness of the Celts. THE HAUNTED WIDOW {194} According to the legend of Osiris as preserved for us by Plutarch, the slain divinity accompanied with Isis, his sister-wife, after his death, with the result that she had by him a child whose name is given in Greek form as Harpocrates.[194.1] Doubt has been thrown by some Egyptologists upon the accuracy of Plutarch’s report; but it is probably correct. At all events the incident is fairly widespread both in tale and superstition, as I shall proceed to show.