In May of one year, a chief stated, they chanced to sacrifice a Brass woman. I do not know how she managed to disappear from her own town, but the Kula people caught her for their Juju. Always they made sacrifice when the new yams were coming up from the ground. Every Juju of every nation demands a victim at that time of year. News of the sacrifice of this Brass woman was brought to Mr. Binny when he was D.C. of Degama; so he went down and destroyed that Juju house. Word went forth that it was to be burnt to the ground, whereon the people came to him and said: ‘May we not take the sticks of which it is made to mend our own compounds?’ Therefore he gave permission and the townsfolk pulled it down themselves. In the shrine were found many skulls carved from wood in exact imitation of real human skulls. There too were human figures, finely painted; some like those modelled in clay in the ’Mbari houses and others like the ’Nduen Fobara (ancestral images) in Kalahari shrines. Yet another link between ancestor worship and that of the Earth Mother Ala is to be found at Omo-Ala (children of Ala)--a town in the south-eastern part of the Division which proved to be a great centre both of the cult of the Earth Goddess and of the forefathers. Here, as in most other Ibo towns, nearly every compound has its sacred tree which is usually a specimen either of Ojji (_Chlorophora excelsa_) or Oil Bean (_Pentaclethra macrophylla_). In this the souls of the departed are thought to dwell while awaiting reincarnation. So long as the least fragment of the tree lasts, the faithful shades cling to its ancient trunk or branches or even retire into the furthermost rootlets. For this reason, when one of these giants falls beneath Time’s axe, the family to which it belongs marks the place where it formerly stood and no farm may be made thereon again. Were this not done, it is thought that the ghosts might be imprisoned for ever since they could not break through the earth to return to the light of day, lest, by so doing, they might injure the sown crops of Ale. Before the last rootlets of the ‘ghost trees’ return to the dust of Mother Ale, the spirits announce to their family through the mouth of some medicine man that a new tree must be chosen for their dwelling-place. The homes of such ancestral shades are obvious, even to the most careless passer-by, from the earthen pots or bowls and the freshly-offered plantains, etc., which may always be found amid the roots.