He Urged These Things As A Reason Why No
Evil Should Befall Him, And Closed With An Impassioned Appeal To The
Spirits To Stay Away.
At another time, in another village, when a
man's son had been wounded and a bleeding artery which the
Doctor
had closed had broken out again and the haemorrhage seemed likely to
prove fatal, the father rushed out into the street wildly
gesticulating towards the sky, saying, "Go away, go away, go away,
ye spirits, why do you come to kill my son?" In another case a
woman rushed into the street, alternately objurgating and pleading
with the spirits, who, she said, were vexing her child which had
convulsions. "Observe," said the Doctor in his impressive way,
"these were distinctly prayers, appeals for mercy, agonising
protests, but there was no praise, no love, no thanks, no confession
of sin." I said, considering the underlying idea, I did not see how
that could be, thinking of the thing as they did, and the Doctor and
I had one of our little disagreements. I shall always feel grateful
to him for his great toleration of me, but I am sure this arose from
his feeling that I saw there was an underlying idea in the minds of
the people he loved well enough to lay down his life for in the hope
of benefiting and ennobling them, and that I did not, as many do,
set them down as idiotic brutes, glorying in an aimless cruelty that
would be a disgrace to a devil.
Regarding the cabalistic words and phrases, things which had long
given me great trouble to get any comprehension of, the Doctor gave
me great help. He says some of these phrases and words are coined
by the person himself, others are archaisms handed down from
ancestors and believed to possess an efficacy, though their actual
meaning is forgotten. He says they are used at any time as defence
from evil, when a person is startled, sneezes, or stumbles. Among
these I think I ought to class that peculiar form of friendly
farewell or greeting which the Doctor poetically calls a "blown
blessing" and the natives Ibata. I thought the three times it was
given to me that it was just spitting on the hand. Practically it
is so, but the Doctor says the spitting is accidental, a by-product
I suppose. The method consists in taking the right hand in both
yours, turning it palm upwards, bending your head low over it, and
saying with great energy and a violent propulsion of the breath,
Ibata.
Idols are comparatively rare in Congo Francais, but where they are
used the people have the same idea about them as the true Negroes
have, namely, that they are things which spirits reside in, or
haunt, but not in their corporeal nature adorable. The resident
spirit in them and in the charms and plants, which are also regarded
as residences of spirits, has to be placated with offerings of food
and other sacrifices.
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