-•) Folklore 



to go and look after his pots, but the Boni refused — he was 

 stuck to the wax. So Spider got vexed and commenced cursing; 

 and swearing ; he told the Boni girl that if she did not speak 

 or allow him to go and look after his pots, he would slap, 

 kick, and knock her all over her face. Here a deep silence 

 ensued for a quarter of an hour. The girl seemed to have 

 refused to do either. It was now almost day — the rice in the 

 pot had burnt to cinders — and there Spider was hanging with 

 his hands, feet, and teeth stuck on to the beeswax coating of the 

 Boni girl. When it was day, and the people had come to their 

 farms, there they found old Spider hanging. So they yelled and 

 shouted at him while some oiled him and set his body on fire. 

 He was burnt to cinders, and his ashes were thrown into his old 

 grave. 



Never expect an easy life : laziness is a crime. 



From these stories the natives easily pass into legends of 

 devils,^ water-spirits, elves, and bogeys. The devils are very 

 often (as in the Cameroons region and Sierra Leone) described 

 as being cut in half — that is to say, they have a front which 

 resembles a man, but if one succeeded in getting behind them 

 they would be found to be hollow, empty like a mask. The 

 water-spirits have about them the characteristics of our legendary 

 syrens. They may owe their origin to the crocodile or the 

 python, or even further back to some creature, no longer in 

 existence, which dwelt in deep pools and seized human beings 

 on the shore, luring them first by curiosity, until they came 

 within reach of its jaws or grasp. The stories of ghouls, as 

 already noted, seem here, as in other parts of Africa, to be 

 based on real incidents of morbid cannibalism. 



There is no decided clear totemism now remaining in the 



' Nyana in Vai. 

 VOL. n 1089 37 



