I confess that the more I know of the West Coast Africans the more I
like them. I own I think them fools of the first water for their
power of believing in things; but I fancy I have analogous feelings
towards even my fellow-countrymen when they go and violently believe
in something that I cannot quite swallow.
CHAPTER XV. FETISH - (continued).
In which the Voyager complains of the inconveniences arising from
the method of African thought, and discourses on apparitions and
Deities.
However much some of the African's mental attributes get under-
rated, I am sure there are others of them for which he gets more
credit than he deserves. One of these is his imagination. It
strikes the new-comer with awe, and frequently fills him with rage,
when he first meets it; but as he matures and gets used to the
African, he sees the string. For the African fancy is not the
"aerial fancy flying free," mentioned by our poets, but merely the
aerial of the theatre suspended by a wire or cord. The wire that
supports the African's fancy may be a very thin, small fact indeed,
or in some cases merely his incapacity to distinguish between
animate and inanimate objects, which give rise to his idea that
everything is possessed of a soul. Everything has a soul to him,
and to make confusion worse confounded, he usually believes in the
existence of matter apart from its soul. But there is little he
won't believe in, if it comes to that; and I have a feeling of
thankfulness that Buddhism, Theosophy, and above all Atheism, which
chases its tail and proves that nothing can be proved, have not yet
been given the African to believe in.
The African's want of making it clear in his language whether he is
referring to an animate or inanimate thing, has landed me in many a
dilemma, and his foolishness in not having a male and female gender
in his languages amounts to a nuisance. For example, I am a most
ladylike old person and yet get constantly called "Sir." The other
day, circumstances having got beyond my control during the
afternoon, I arrived in the evening in a saturated condition at a
white settlement, and wishing to get accommodation for myself and my
men, I made my way to the factory of a firm from whose
representatives I have always received great and most courteous
help. The agent in charge was not at home, and his steward-boy
said, "Massa live for Mr. B.'s house." "Go tell him I live for come
from," etc., said I, and "I fit for want place for my men." I had
nothing to write on, or with, and I thought the steward-boy could
carry this little message to its destination without dropping any of
it, as Mr. B.'s house was close by; but I was wrong.
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