OBEAH. 135 



all ; it is a spirit, an Obeah, Juniby, Duppy, like the 

 " Duvvels " or spirits of the air, which are the only deities 

 of which our Gipsies have a conception left. That spirit 

 belongs to the Obeah, or Fetish-man; and he puts it, by 

 magic ceremonies, into any object which he chooses. Thus 

 anything may become Obeah, as far as I have ascertained. In 

 a case which happened very lately, an Obeah-man came into 

 the country, put the Obeah into a fresh monkey's jaw-bone, 

 and made the people offer to it fowls and plantains, wdiich of 

 course he himself ate. Such is Obeah now; and such it was, 

 as may be seen by De Bry's plates, when the Portuguese first 

 met with it on the African coast four hundred vears a^^o. 



But surely it is an idolatry, and not a nature- worship. Just 

 so does the priest of Southern India, after having made his 

 idol, enchant his God into it by due ceremonial It may be a 

 very ancient system : but as for its being a primaival one, as 

 neither I, nor any one else, ever had the pleasure of meeting 

 a primaeval man, it seems to me somewdiat rash to imagine 

 what primseval man's creeds and worships must have been 

 like ; more rash still to conclude that they must have been 

 like those of the modern N'egro. For if, as is probable, 

 the ISTegro is one of the most ancient varieties of the 

 human race; if, as is probable, he has remained to his 

 great misfortune till the last three hundred years isolated 

 on that vast island of Central Africa, which has probably 



