CHAPTER XIV. FETISH - (continued).
In which the Voyager discourses on the legal methods of natives of
this country, the ideas governing forms of burial, of their manner
of mourning for their dead, and the condition of the African soul in
the under-world.
Great as are the incidental miseries and dangers surrounding death
to all the people in the village in which a death occurs,
undoubtedly those who suffer most are the widows of a chief or free
man.
The uniform custom among both Negroes and Bantus is that those who
escape execution on the charge of having witched the husband to
death, shall remain in a state of filth and abasement, not even
removing vermin from themselves, until after the soul-burial is
complete - the soul of the dead man being regarded as hanging about
them and liable to be injured. Therefore, also to the end of
preventing his soul from getting damaged, they are confined to their
huts; this latter restriction is not rigidly enforced, but it is
held theoretically to be the correct thing.
They maintain the attitude of grief and abasement, sitting on the
ground, eating but little food, and that of a coarse kind. In
Calabar their legal rights over property, such as slaves, are
meanwhile considerably in abeyance, and they are put to great
expense during the time the spirit is awaiting burial.
