It is generally believed that the Eastern Bantu have no ‘idols’ properly so called; and their charms, to which we shall come back later, do not usually take the form of human figures. But the Tonga chiefs used to carry about with them little wooden images called _angoza_—representing men, women, or animals. Sometimes they were only sticks with a little head carved at one end. The Rev. A. G. MacAlpine, who seems puzzled what to make of them, does not state whether any are now in existence. ‘Long ago they used to be owned by chiefs only, and were lodged in the house of the head-wife.... They were not displayed except on special occasions. In the talking of important cases, they are said to have been brought out and planted in the ground at some little distance from the chief, and when he went on a journey they might be carried along with him, both of which uses would suggest their being an emblem of authority.... Often people came asking to see them, when they would be brought out covered up and not exposed till some gift had been made.’ We find that the Achewa have articles described as ‘fetiches’ and consisting ‘of a few short pieces of wood the size of one’s forefinger, bound together with a scrap of calico into the figure of a child’s doll. Inside the calico is concealed a tiny box made of the handle of a gourd-cup, ... [and] supposed to contain the spirit of some dead ancestor.’ Spirits wandering homeless in the bush are apt to annoy the living in various ways, till captured by a ‘doctor’ and confined in one of these receptacles. The Yao children play with dolls bearing about as much resemblance to the human figure as a ninepin, but evidently intended to represent it. If games are survivals of religious ceremonies, they may originally have been _teraphim_, or fetiches of some sort. The ‘ugly images’ found by Livingstone near Lake Mweru, in ‘huts built for them,’ which were used in rain-making and cases of illness, seem to have been somewhat different from the _angoza_ of the Atonga.[14] CHAPTER IV RELIGION AND MAGIC—II Creation. Origin of death. Lake Nyasa. Rain-making. Charms. Witchcraft. Lycanthropy. Divination. Food tabus. Dances.