MINOR SUPERSTITIONS. 



The Portuguese who first visited the coasts of 

 Western Africa characterised the religion of the 

 natives as Feiticao, or magic, and hence the name 

 fetichism for religious beliefs in general that par- 

 take of the same character. A fetich is any object, 

 natural or artificial, supposed to possess some 

 magical power or virtue, either inherent or con- 

 ferred upon it by some sort of consecration : 

 stones, sticks, rudely carved figures, certain parts 

 of plants and animals, anything may serve as a 

 fetich. It is not supposed to work consciously 

 and voluntarily, but blindly, and by the compul- 

 sion of certain rites ; in short, after the manner of 

 a charm. A fetich can hardly be called a god or 

 idol ; when not in use, it is thrown aside, and no 

 regard paid to it ; and when the worshipper is 

 displeased with the effect it produces, he beats it, 

 or breaks it in pieces. It is only as the personi- 

 fication becomes more complete, and the object 

 of worship is endowed with permanent conscious- 

 ness, and a will actuated by intelligible motives, 

 that fetichism rises into idolatry or polytheism. 

 Yet it is difficult to draw the line, and unphilo- 

 sophical to represent fetichism as a peculiar 

 species of superstition or worship. 



MINOR SUPERSTITIONS. 



The popular imagination has in all ages and 

 countries peopled earth and air with a variety of 

 supernatural beings inferior to the gods, properly 

 so called, yet separated from them by no well- 

 marked boundary ; and a belief in these has con- 

 tinued more or less in Christian countries, after 

 the knowledge of the One God had dethroned the 

 false deities, or led to their conversion into devils. 

 The more prominent of these creations of the 

 fancy come under the following heads : 



I. Ghosts, Lares, Manes. 



That a living principle survives the death of the 

 body is the most universal of beliefs, although the 

 conceptions as to the nature or condition of that 

 something are various enough. The idea of a 

 pure spirit, as we understand it, cannot be said to 

 nave existed among pagan nations. The soul 

 was conceived as some sort of emanation or ex- 

 halation from the body, of a thin, filmy, corporeal 

 consistence, and might under certain circum- 

 stances be seen as it issued from the mouth 

 often in the shape of a bird. From a belief in the 

 corporeal nature of departed souls, and of their 

 requiring sustenance, have arisen a great part of 

 the ceremonies connected with interment, and 

 more particularly the practice of making stated 

 offerings to the souls or shades of ancestors. 

 Without these oblations, libations, and sacrifices, 

 they were believed to suffer the pains of hunger 

 and thirst, and to become more attenuated than 

 even ghosts ought to be. Among the most sacred 

 religious duties of the Romans was that of making 

 offerings to the shades of departed heroes gener- 

 ally (Lares), and to those of their own ancestors 

 in particular (Lares familiares, Manes). The 

 same feeling pervades the Hindu religion. The 

 worship of ancestors that is, the supplying them 

 with the necessaries of existence (luckily these 

 necessaries are not considered to be very great 

 in quantity or substantial in kind) may be said 



to be the only religion that the followers of 

 Confucius have. 



The same belief is to be found in the heart of 

 Africa. One of Dr Livingstone's native attendants 

 accounted for a headache from which he was 

 suffering by saying : ' My father is scolding me 

 because I do not give him any of the food I eat' 

 Being asked where he thought his father was, he 

 replied, 'Among the Barimo' or gods, which 

 simply means departed spirits. 



Out of this notion has sprung that intense 

 desire of offspring that dread of not leaving a 

 son to perform the family rites due to the dead 

 which is so universal. Hence the practice of 

 adoption. The shades or manes, though not 

 deities, have yet power to bring good or evil 

 fortune, according as they are pleased or dis- 

 pleased ; and thus, where filial piety is not strong 

 enough, there is always a motive in fear to secure 

 them their dues. 



Departed souls, when they do not immediately 

 take up their abode in another body, are spoken 

 of as being received into some separate abode, 

 either in heaven or in the under world. Under 

 certain circumstances, however, they are denied 

 this rest, and condemned to hover about between 

 heaven and earth. It is these ' troubled,' ' wander- 

 ing' souls that appear as ghosts, frightening or 

 otherwise tormenting men. Such were the 

 Lemures and Larva of the Romans. For one 

 thing, the Romans held want of burial to be a 

 cause of unrest to the departed soul. A popular 

 belief in Christian times was that the souls of 

 unbaptised children were doomed to flutter about 

 as Will o' the Wisps or ignes fatui. The posses- 

 sion of an important secret is a frequent cause of 

 'trouble' to a spirit. Among revengeful tribes 

 the soul of one that has been slain cannot rest 

 until avenged. 



2. Giants, Dwarfs, and Fairies. 



Giants were a race of imaginary beings, as 

 much above man in size and brute strength as the 

 dwarfs and fairies were below him. The giants 

 have long since died out, like the megatheriums ; 

 the smaller beings have been more persistent, 

 though even they threaten to become before long 

 extinct. In the Scandinavian mythology, the 

 giants play a conspicuous part. Thor it was that 

 fought with and subdued them ; and there is no 

 little likeness between this northern god and the 

 Welsh hero, Jack the Giant-killer. Solitary rocks 

 and boulder-stones were at one time ascribed to 

 the giants, who had either thrown them as 

 missiles, or dropped them while carrying them 

 to build with. The name of the Giants' Causeway 

 implies that it is their work. A string of low 

 gravel-hills in the island of Riigen is accounted 

 for thus : A giant dwelling on the island, wished 

 to make a mole over to the mainland, and, put- 

 ting on an apron, filled it with earth for that 

 purpose ; but on his way to the strait, part of the 

 earth fell here and there through a hole in the 

 apron, and formed the hills in question. He only 

 succeeded in carrying his mole part of the way 

 across. The giants, though possessing great 

 strength, were exceedingly thick-witted, and were 

 easily overreached by men. Many parts of the 

 legends about the giants were in the middle ages 

 transferred to the devil. Boulders were thought 

 to be stones thrown by the Fiend in trying to 



439 



