Closely related to this class of fetishes is a kind somewhat higher than the animistic fetish. In this the relation of the physical object and the power within it is not that of body and spirit but that of a house and a tenant residing in it. The spirit may leave the fetish, and then it will be of no more use. But the skill of a fetish-doctor may compel the spirit to remain. As long as it remains it is under the control of the possessor of the fetish and must do his bidding. If it should disobey he will punish it, usually by hanging it in the smoke. It is such a fetish, contained in a goat’s horn, that a man walking in the forest carries suspended from his neck to make him invisible to an enemy. Another he hangs among his plantains to keep the wind from blowing them down. But the most powerful and sacred fetish is the ancestral relic, possessed by every grown man. It is the skull of the father or other ancestral relation. Here fetishism becomes ancestor-worship. The skull is the residence of the dead father, and if it be treated well, that is, kept in a warm and dry place, the father will confer every kind of favour—success in hunting and in war, in stealing and attracting other men’s wives. For death has not improved the morals of these ancestors. The son never punishes the ancestral fetish. Indeed, if he neglect it—if he let it get cold or wet—the ancestor will punish him. Many a hunter’s gun has refused to fire just at the critical moment because of such neglect. He often talks to the dead father and tells him his affairs and asks his help. This fetish is only for men, not for women. If a woman should see it she will surely die. If she even be heard talking too curiously about it she is liable to die. This is no imaginary fear on her part. For the ancestral anger, like much of the occultism of Africa, has a material basis of secret poison administered by living agents.