Then He Develops A Contagious Disease
That Clears That Village Out.
This form of appearance and subsequent conduct is, unhappily, not
rigidly confined to Tando, but is used by many spirits as a method
of collecting arrears in taxes in the way of sacrifices.
I have
found traces of it among Bantu gods or spirits, and it gives rise to
a general hesitation in West Africa to take care of waifs and strays
of unexplained origin.
Other things beside gods and human spirits have the habit of
becoming incarnate. Once I had to sit waiting a long time at an
apparently perfectly clear bush path, because in front of us a
spear's ghost used to fly across the path about that time in the
afternoon, and if any one was struck by it they died. A certain
spring I know of is haunted by the ghost of a pitcher. Many ladies
when they have gone alone to fill their pitchers in the evening time
at this forest spring have noticed a very fine pitcher standing
there ready filled, and thinking exchange is no robbery, or at any
rate they would risk it if it were, have left their own pitcher and
taken the better looking one; but always as soon as they have come
within sight of the village huts, the new pitcher has crumbled into
dust, and the water in it been spilt on the ground; and the worst of
it is, when they have returned to fetch their own discarded pitcher,
they find it also shattered into pieces.
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