THE INDWELLING SPIRITS OF MEN. 797 



sufficient that it does exist, and that the Jcra is believed to be essen- 

 tially distinct from the soul or ghost, which, at the death of the 

 body, proceeds to Dead-land, and there continues the life that the 

 man led in the world. 



I am unaware if American anthropologists have considered 

 this third element of man, and its bearing upon the theory of 

 animism, or even if instances of the belief being held, other than 

 that mentioned by Dr. Washington Matthews, have been recorded ; 

 but in Europe it seems quite to have escaped notice, and the belief 

 is not referred to in any one of the text-books of anthropology that 

 I have examined. This is doubtless in consequence of the German 

 missionaries in "West Africa having translated the words hra, Ma, 

 and luivo as "soul/' a term which is not at all applicable, and 

 which has led to the third element being confused with the soul 

 proper. 



It is in its bearing upon that branch of animism which is 

 termed Nature-worship that this third element seems most im- 

 portant. The negroes of the Gold and Slave Coasts, like every 

 other people low in the stage of civilization, believe that inani- 

 mate as well as animate objects have souls or ghosts a belief 

 which is proved by the practice of burying arms, implements, 

 utensils, etc., for the use of the dead in Dead-land. The soul or 

 ghost of the dead hunter goes to Dead-land, and there continues 

 the former pursuit of the man, using the souls or ghosts of the 

 weapons buried with him ; but the negroes have gone beyond this, 

 and, just as they believe man to possess a third element or indwell- 

 ing spirit, so do they believe that every natural object, everything 

 not made by human hands, has, in addition to its soul or ghost, a 

 third element or spiritual individuality. They hold that just as, 

 when the man dies, the hra of the man enters a new-born child, 

 and the soul or ghost-man goes to Dead-land ; so, when the tree 

 dies, the hra, so to speak, of the tree enters a seedling, and the 

 ghost-tree goes to join the ranks of the shadowy forest in Dead- 

 land. And it is these animating or spiritual tenants of natural 

 objects and natural features that the negro fears, and consequently 

 worships. 



The process is something like this : Some day a man falls into 

 a river and is drowned. The body is recovered by the man's com- 

 rades, and is found to present no sign of external injury which, 

 in their experience, would account for death. Being necessarily 

 ignorant of the processes by which life is maintained, and seeking 

 for a cause to which to attribute the disaster, they conceive the 

 spiritual tenant or spiritual individuality of the river to have 

 killed their comrade. And to this day, when a negro is drowned, 

 his friends say, " So-and-so " (the spirit or god of the river) " has 

 taken him down." Whether it was with the design of accounting 



