Liberia >^ 



existence according to the strength with which he or she is 

 remembered. Gradually this belief crystallises itself into a 

 religion of ancestor-worship. A chief of very great importance 

 and power may be considered to exist as long as any remembrance 

 of him is associated with a definite locality. In time his spirit 

 may acquire permanent existence as a definite tribal god, or 

 a demon haunting a stream, a mountain, a cavern, a clump of 

 woodland, or an island. But one way and another, to the mind 

 of these aboriginal Negroes, earth, air, water, and woodland are 

 permeated with spirit beings, who in fact direct all the minor 

 operations of nature and some of the major. Far up, above them 

 all, is a great Supreme Being, who will be more or less identified 

 with the thunder and lightning.' 



The essence of true Negro religion is ancestor-worship, a 

 belief in the ghosts of the departed, and if asked to define their 

 views as to the Supreme God they would probably imagine that 

 he was the sum and substance of all ghosts, reigning above the 

 skies, aloof from any interest in this world. Occasionally moved 

 to wrath, this Being speaks with the thunder and slays with the 

 lightning. 



The use of fetishes — grigris, buli, idols — is widespread 



throughout this country. Where the tribe has been Muham- 



madanised they cease to depict objects with any likeness to living 



things, but transfer their belief and their aflxctions to verses of 



the Koran or other talismans encased in leather ; the greatest 



fetish of all being a copy of the Koran slung round the neck 



in a leather binding. These fetishes, however, are not essentially 



sacred in themselves : they merely represent the temporary 



dwelling-place, the point de mire of a spirit ; or an essence into 



' I have never yet encountered a purely Negro race that attributed divinity 

 to the sun. The moon is worshipped or reverenced to a certain extent by 

 Hottentots, Bushmen, and some East African races. The Kruboys on tlie coast of 

 Liberia are said to accord the moon some reverence. 



