Food Is Set Out At These Places And Spirit Poured Over Them From
Time To Time, And Sometimes, Though Not Often, Pieces Of New Cloth
Are Laid On Them.
Most of the things are deliberately damaged
before they are put on the home for the spirit; I do not think this
is to prevent them from being stolen, because all are not damaged
sufficiently to make them useless.
There was a beautifully made
spoon with a burnt-in pattern on one of these places when I left
Calabar to go South, and on my return, some six months after, it was
still there. On another there was a very handsome pair of market
calabashes, also much decorated, that were only just chipped and in
better repair than many in use in Calabar markets, and I make no
doubt the spoon and they are still lying rotting among the debris of
the pillows, etc. These places are only attended to during the time
the spirit is awaiting burial, as they are regarded merely as a
resting-place for it while it is awaiting this ceremony. The body
is not buried near them, I may remark.
In spite, however, of the care that is taken to bury spirits, a
considerable percentage from various causes - poverty of the
relations, the deceased being a stranger in the land, accidental
death in some unknown part of the forest or the surf - remain
unburied, and hang about to the common danger of the village they
may choose to haunt. Many devices are resorted to, to purify the
villages from these spirits. One which was in use in Creek Town,
Calabar, to within a few years ago, and which I am informed is still
customary in some interior villages, was very ingenious, and
believed to work well by those who employed it.
In the houses were set up Nbakim, - large, grotesque images carved of
wood and hung about with cloth strips and gew-gaws. Every November
in Creek Town (I was told by some authorities it was every second
November) there was a sort of festival held. Offerings of food and
spirits were placed before these images; a band of people
accompanied by the rest of the population used to make a thorough
round of the town, up and down each street and round every house,
dancing, singing, screaming and tom-toming, in fact making all the
noise they knew how to - and a Calabar Effik is very gifted in the
power of making noise. After this had been done for what was
regarded as a sufficient time, the images were taken out of the
houses, the crowd still making a terrific row and were then thrown
into the river, and the town was regarded as being cleared of
spirits.
The rationale of the affair is this. The wandering spirits are
attracted by the images, and take shelter among their rags, like
earwigs or something of that kind. The charivari is to drive any of
the spirits who might be away from their shelters back into them.
The shouting of the mob is to keep the spirits from venturing out
again while they are being carried to the river. The throwing of
the images, rags and all, into the river, is to destroy the spirits
or at least send them elsewhere. They did not go and pour boiling
water on their earwig-traps, as wicked white men do, but they meant
the same thing, and when this was over they made and set up new
images for fresh spirits who might come into the town, and these
were kept and tended as before, until the next N'dok ceremony came
round.
It is owing to the spiritual view which the African takes of
existence at large that ceremonial observances form the greater part
of even his common-law procedure.
There is, both among the Negro and Bantu, a recognised code of law,
founded on principles of true but merciless justice. It is not
often employed, because of the difficulty and the danger to the
individual who appeals to it, should that individual be unbacked by
power, but nevertheless the code exists.
The African is particularly hard on theft; he by no means "compounds
for sins he is inclined to by damning those he has no mind to," for
theft is a thing he revels in.
Persons are tried for theft on circumstantial evidence, direct
testimony, and ordeal. Laws relating to mortgage are practically
the same among Negroes and Bantu and Europeans. Torts are not
recognised; unless the following case from Cameroon points to a
vague realisation of them. A. let his canoe out to B., in good
order, so that B. could go up river, and fetch down some trade. B.
did not go himself, but let C., who was not his slave, but another
free man who also wanted to go up for trade, have the canoe on the
understanding that in payment for the loan of the said canoe C.
should bring down B's. trade.
A. was not told about this arrangement at all. B. says A. was, only
A. was so blind drunk at the time he did not understand. Well, up
river C. goes in the canoe, and fetches up on a floating stump in
the river, and staves a hole you could put your head in, in the bow
of the said canoe. C. returns it to B. in this condition. B.
returns it to A. in this condition. A. sues B. before native chief,
saying he lent his canoe to B. on the understanding, always implied
in African loans, that it was to be returned in the same state as
when lent, fair wear and tear alone excepted. B. tries first to get
C. to pay for the canoe, and for the rent of the canoe on top, as a
compensation for the delay in bringing down his, B's., trade. C.
calls B. the illegitimate offspring of a greenhouse-lizard, and
pleads further that the floating log was a force majeure - an act of
God, and denies liability on all counts.
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