4. Beings who are the agents in causing sickness, and either aid or
hinder human plans - Mionde.
5. There seems to be, the Doctor says, another class of spirits
somewhat akin to the ancient Lares and Penates, who especially
belong to the household, and descend by inheritance with the family.
In their honour are secretly kept a bundle of finger, or other
bones, nail-clippings, eyes, brains, skulls, particularly the lower
jaws, called in M'pongwe oginga, accumulated from deceased members
of successive generations.
Dr. Nassau says "secretly," and he refers to this custom being
existent in non-cannibal tribes. I saw bundles of this character
among the cannibal Fans, and among the non-cannibal Adooma, openly
hanging up in the thatch of the sleeping apartment.
6. He also says there may be a sixth class, which may, however only
be a function of any of the other classes - namely, those that enter
into any animal body, generally a leopard. Sometimes the spirits of
living human beings do this, and the animal is then guided by human
intelligence, and will exercise its strength for the purposes of its
temporary human possessor. In other cases it is a non-human soul
that enters into the animal, as in the case of Ukuku.
Spirits are not easily classified by their functions because those
of different class may be employed in identical undertakings. Thus
one witch doctor may have, I find, particular influence over one
class of spirit and another over another class; yet they will both
engage to do identical work. But in spite of this I do not see how
you can classify spirits otherwise than by their functions; you
cannot weigh and measure them, and it is only a few that show
themselves in corporeal form.
There are characteristics that all the authorities seem agreed on,
and one is that individual spirits in the same class vary in power:
some are strong of their sort, some weak.
They are all to a certain extent limited in the nature of their
power; there is no one spirit that can do all things; their
efficiency only runs in certain lines of action and all of them are
capable of being influenced, and made subservient to human wishes,
by proper incantations. This latter characteristic is of course to
human advantage, but it has its disadvantages, for you can never
really trust a spirit, even if you have paid a considerable sum to a
most distinguished medicine man to get a powerful one put up in a
ju-ju, or monde, {301} as it is called in several tribes.
