There is another peculiarity about the bush-soul, and that is that
it is on its account that old people are held in such esteem among
the Calabar tribes. For, however bad these old people's personal
record may have been, the fact of their longevity demonstrates the
possession of powerful and astute bush-souls. On the other hand, a
man may be a quiet, respectable citizen, devoted to peace and a
whole skin, and yet he may have a sadly flighty disreputable bush-
soul which will get itself killed or damaged and cause him death or
continual ill-health.
There is another way by which a man dies apart from the action of
bush-souls or witchcraft; he may have had a bad illness from some
cause in his previous life and, when reincarnated, part of this
disease may get reincarnated with him and then he will ultimately
die of it. There is no medicine of any avail against these
reincarnated diseases.
The idea of reincarnation is very strong in the Niger Delta tribes.
It exists, as far as I have been able to find out, throughout all
Africa, but usually only in scattered cases, as it were; but in the
Delta, most - I think I may say all - human souls of the "surviving
soul" class are regarded as returning to the earth again, and
undergoing a reincarnation shortly after the due burial of the soul.
These two exceptions from the rule of all deaths and sickness being
caused by witchcraft are, however, of minor importance, for
infinitely the larger proportion of death and sickness is held to
arise from witchcraft itself, more particularly among the Bantu.
Witchcraft acts in two ways, namely, witching something out of a
man, or witching something into him. The former method is used by
both Negro and Bantu, but is decidedly more common among the
Negroes, where the witches are continually setting traps to catch
the soul that wanders from the body when a man is sleeping; and when
they have caught this soul, they tie it up over the canoe fire and
its owner sickens as the soul shrivels.
This is merely a regular line of business, and not an affair of
individual hate or revenge. The witch does not care whose dream-
soul gets into the trap, and will restore it on payment. Also
witch-doctors, men of unblemished professional reputation, will keep
asylums for lost souls, i.e. souls who have been out wandering and
found on their return to their body that their place has been filled
up by a Sisa, a low class soul I will speak of later. These doctors
keep souls and administer them to patients who are short of the
article.
But there are other witches, either wicked on their own account, or
hired by people who are moved by some hatred to individuals, and
then the trap is carefully set and baited for the soul of the
particular man they wish to injure, and concealed in the bait at the
bottom of the pot are knives and sharp hooks which tear and damage
the soul, either killing it outright, or mauling it so that it
causes its owner sickness on its return to him. I knew the case of
a Kruman who for several nights had smelt in his dreams the savoury
smell of smoked crawfish seasoned with red peppers. He became
anxious, and the headman decided some witch had set a trap baited
with this dainty for his dream-soul, with intent to do him grievous
bodily harm, and great trouble was taken for the next few nights to
prevent this soul of his from straying abroad.
The witching of things into a man is far the most frequent method
among the Bantu, hence the prevalence among them of the post-mortem
examination, - a practice I never found among the Negroes.
The belief in witchcraft is the cause of more African deaths than
anything else. It has killed and still kills more men and women
than the slave-trade. Its only rival is perhaps the smallpox, the
Grand Kraw-Kraw, as the Krumen graphically call it.
At almost every death a suspicion of witchcraft arises. The witch-
doctor is called in, and proceeds to find out the guilty person.
Then woe to the unpopular men, the weak women, and the slaves; for
on some of them will fall the accusation that means ordeal by
poison, or fire, followed, if these point to guilt, as from their
nature they usually do, by a terrible death: slow roasting alive -
mutilation by degrees before the throat is mercifully cut - tying to
stakes at low tide that the high tide may come and drown - and any
other death human ingenuity and hate can devise.
The terror in which witchcraft is held is interesting in spite of
all its horror. I have seen mild, gentle men and women turned by
it, in a moment, to incarnate fiends, ready to rend and destroy
those who a second before were nearest and dearest to them.
Terrible is the fear that falls like a spell upon a village when a
big man, or big woman is just known to be dead. The very men catch
their breaths, and grow grey round the lips, and then every one,
particularly those belonging to the household of the deceased, goes
in for the most demonstrative exhibition of grief. Long, low howls
creep up out of the first silence - those blood-curdling, infinitely
melancholy, wailing howls - once heard, never to be forgotten.
The men tear off their clothes and wear only the most filthy rags;
women, particularly the widows, take off ornaments and almost all
dress; their faces are painted white with chalk, their heads are
shaven, and they sit crouched on the earth in the house, in the
attitude of abasement, the hands resting on the shoulders, palm
downwards, not crossed across the breast, unless they are going into
the street.
