Sometimes, However, I
Am Told All The Children Take The Mother's, Sometimes All Take The
Father's. They May Be Almost Any Kind Of Animal, Sometimes They Are
Leopards, Sometimes Fish, Or Tortoises, And So On.
There is another peculiarity about the bush-soul, and that is that
it is on its account that old people are held in such esteem among
the Calabar tribes.
For, however bad these old people's personal
record may have been, the fact of their longevity demonstrates the
possession of powerful and astute bush-souls. On the other hand, a
man may be a quiet, respectable citizen, devoted to peace and a
whole skin, and yet he may have a sadly flighty disreputable bush-
soul which will get itself killed or damaged and cause him death or
continual ill-health.
There is another way by which a man dies apart from the action of
bush-souls or witchcraft; he may have had a bad illness from some
cause in his previous life and, when reincarnated, part of this
disease may get reincarnated with him and then he will ultimately
die of it. There is no medicine of any avail against these
reincarnated diseases.
The idea of reincarnation is very strong in the Niger Delta tribes.
It exists, as far as I have been able to find out, throughout all
Africa, but usually only in scattered cases, as it were; but in the
Delta, most - I think I may say all - human souls of the "surviving
soul" class are regarded as returning to the earth again, and
undergoing a reincarnation shortly after the due burial of the soul.
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