146 BULI^ETIN 139, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



is it burned for fuel for fear that lye made from the ashes will cause 

 consumption. In preparing ball players for the contest the medicine 

 man sometimes burns splinters of it to coal, which he gives to the 

 players to paint themselves with in order that they may be able to 

 strike their opponents with all the force of a thunderbolt. Bark or 

 wood from a tree struck by lightningj but still green, is beaten up 

 and put into the water in which seeds are soaked before planting, to 

 insure a good crop; but, on the other hand, any lightning-struck wood 

 thrown into the field will cause the crop to wither, and it is believed 

 to have a bad effect even to go into the field immediately after hav- 

 ing been near such a tree.^° 



Prof. O. F. Cook, of the Department of Agriculture, who returned 

 from a journey in Liberia, gave the writer a most interesting account 

 of a custom of the Golas of that country. The Golas apparently do 

 not use fire sticks, but preserve tire carefully. When fire follows a 

 stroke of lightning they hasten to secure a light from it, and putting 

 out all the fires in the village, kindle them again from the new fire. 

 Lightning is very common in the Gola country, where in certain sea- 

 sons there are five or six thunderstorms in one day. I regard this 

 one of the most important contributions to the question of the origin 

 of fire, and it shows the unexpected attitude toward the fire from 

 lightning. 



Customs concerning lightning among the Bahuana Tribe of the 

 Congo are given by Torday. 



"Burial. — A dead man is buried with his face to the west in a 

 sitting position, and with him his clothes and weapons, with some 

 food and palm wine; if he was a maker of palm wine his implements 

 are buried with him. Women are buried in the same manner, but 

 their pots are buried with them, whereas in the case of a man they 

 are broken on the grave. A man killed by lightning is buried full 

 length on his back. Men in mourning paint the forehead black, 

 women the whole face. 



"Explanation. — There are two noncorporeal parts of a man, the 

 'hun' and the 'doshi'; all creatures have the latter; it leaves the 

 body in dreams, and after death hangs about in the air, visits its 

 friends, haunts its enemies, and so on; animal and fetishes have 

 'dosM' but no 'hun.' 



"The 'hun^ disappears at death, but it is said to enter the body of 

 a large animal if its owner has had any fetishes; a man without 

 fetishes can cause his ' hun ' to appear to his friends in the form of a 

 vaporous body. If a man is killed by lightning his * lun ' is destroyed, 

 but suicide does not affect the continued existence of the 'hun' and 

 the 'doshi'. 



I" James Mooney. Myths of the Cherokee, 19th (pt. 1) Ann. Kept., Bur. American Ethnol., 1900, p. 

 422. 



