O Mbuiri's Appearance In A Corporeal
Form Denotes Ill Luck, Not Death To The Seer, But Misfortune Of A
Severe And Diffused Character.
The ruin of a trading enterprise,
the destruction of a village or a family, are put down to O Mbuiri's
action.
Yet he is not regarded as a malevolent god, a devil, but as
an avenger, or punisher of sin; and the M'pongwe look on him as the
Being to whom they primarily owe the good things and fortunes of
this life, and as the Being who alone has power to govern the host
of truly malevolent spirits that exist in nature.
The different instruments with which he works in the shaping of
human destiny bear his name when in his employ. When acting by
means of water, he is O Mbuiri Aningo; when in the weather, O Mbuiri
Ngali; when in the forests, O Mbuiri Ibaka; when in the form of a
dwarf, O Mbuiri Akoa, and so on.
The great difference between O Mbuiri and the lesser spirits is
this: - the lesser spirits cannot incarnate themselves except
through extraneous things; O Mbuiri can, he can become visible
without anything beyond his own will to do so. The other spirits
must be in something to become visible. This is an extremely
delicate piece of Fetish which it took me weeks to work out. I
think I may say another thing about O Mbuiri, though I say it
carefully, and that is, that among the M'pongwe and the tribe who
are the parent tribe of the M'pongwe - the now rapidly dying out
Ajumba, and their allied tribe the Igalwa - O Mbuiri is a distinct
entity, while among the neighbouring tribes he is a class, i.e.
there are hundreds of O Mbuiri or Ibwiri, one for every remarkable
place or thing, such as rock, tree, or forest thicket, and for every
dangerous place in a river.
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